Horse Vitamin and Mineral Supplements Explained & How to Use Them
As a horse owner, you want only the best for your livestock. Proper diet and nutrition are an incredibly important part of keeping your horses healthy, and it’s no different than it is with us, humans. But when we’re feeding our horses, we oftentimes only pay attention to the major components of the diet – such as does the horse consume enough hay, pasture, charr of hard feed. And when we want to get more peculiar about the diet, we oftentimes refer to the amount of protein in the feed, but not the other nutrients. However, it’s the intake of these “other” nutrients that help horses stay healthy. The intake of vitamins and minerals, in particular, can be crucial factors to their performance, growth, reproduction and immune function. Here’s what horse vitamin and mineral supplement products can do for your horse.
Minerals
Minerals are divided into two broad categories – macro and micro minerals, based on the amount required in the horse’s diet. Macrominerals are required in greater quantities, and some of the more known ones include calcium, magnesium, sodium, sulphur, phosphorus, potassium and chlorine. These minerals are essential to the activity of the nervous system, development of the skeleton, acid-base balance, muscle contraction, hair and hoof growth. Micro minerals, on the other hand, are only required in smaller dosages. Some of the necessary micro minerals include iron, copper, zinc, selenium, iodine and selenium. The purpose of micro minerals is to help the body metabolise nutrients, maintain joint and connective tissue, act as antioxidants and assist in oxygen transport.
Vitamins
Vitamins are just as important in the horse diet. They’re classified as either water- or fat-soluble based on how they’re stored inside the body. Notable fat-soluble vitamins are A, D and E. These three vitamins are crucial for calcium regulation and absorption, vision and antioxidants within the body protecting muscle function and cells. Fat-soluble vitamins, as their name implies, are stored inside the fat deposits of the body and can result in unwanted effects if overfed. Water-soluble vitamins are also known as B-vitamins, and they include riboflavin, thiamin, biotin, niacin and folic acid. These vitamins serve a purpose in almost every chemical reaction in the body and are therefore of utmost importance in growth, metabolism and energy generation. B-vitamins are “created” by healthy bacteria inside the digestive system of the horse, and specific requirements have been established for riboflavin and thiamin only.
Detecting Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies
Many horse owners are oblivious to the mineral and vitamin content, simply because mild deficiencies are difficult to notice visually. For instance, a calorie deficiency in the diet of the horse can easily be noticed through weight loss. Deficiency in protein can be noticed as poor growth or rough hair coat. But deficiencies in vitamins and minerals are more difficult to notice until the conditions become severe. However, there are some less obvious signs that are present if you look closely. For instance, brittle, cracked hooves can be the result of zinc deficiency. A crooked legged foal, on the other hand, can be the result of trace mineral deficiency of a broodmare diet.
The Simplest, Ideal Solution
So how do you make sure your horses’ diet is properly fortified with all the essential vitamins and minerals. The easiest approach would be to feed them a prepared feed or supplement them with horse vitamin and mineral supplement products. There are many different supplements available nowadays, so you should compare products based on concentration and variety of minerals and vitamins included. If the goal of supplementation is to increase the nutrient content of the horses’ diet, pick a supplement that has a broader variety of minerals and vitamins. However, if there’s a lack of a specific mineral or vitamin, then a targeted supplement with a higher concentration of the said vitamin or mineral would be more appropriate.
How to Properly Feed Your Horse Their Supplements
It’s important to pay close attention to the recommended feeding rates, usage instructions and use-by dates. Using supplements that aren’t meant for horses, or overfeeding the supplement can be wasteful, if not straight out dangerous for your horse. Horses have limited capacity when it comes to absorbing some nutrients, like iron, for example. Over supplementing can lead to the excess nutrients being eliminated. While there are some nutrients that have unlimited absorption, such as iodine, over supplementing them can be toxic for your horse. Also, vitamins can become unstable over time and the vitamin content can’t be guaranteed past the product’s use-by date. It’s best you consult with a veterinarian or an equine nutrition expert so they can give you the recommended dose for your horse. At the end of the day, supplements are a great, easy way to make sure your horse gets the extra nutrients it needs in their diet, to ensure proper growth and optimal health.
Soft Serve Ice Cream Machines: How to Choose the Best One for Your Shop
As we all know, ice cream is a deliciously refreshing dessert that has many flavours. As well as different flavours, there are also different forms in which it can be served. I am especially fond of soft serve ice cream and its kind-of-fluffy texture. If you are a shop owner, and you’ve decided to include this option in your menu, then you are going to need a soft serve ice cream machine.
The Health Benefits of Car Seat Cushions You’d Wish You Knew Earlier
Even though most of us love the modern way of life for its convenience, there’s no denying that it has made us all lazier and unhealthier. One of the biggest issues most adults face nowadays, that they don’t even realise is an issue, is the sedentary lifestyle. Sitting 8 hours a day in an office chair that in most of the cases lacks the basic ergonomic features, plus commuting back and forth to work can take a toll on a person’s health, resulting in chronic lower back pain, neck pain, etc. Luckily, today there are numerous ergonomic office products that can help improve your health while at work, but for some of us, that’s simply not enough. Personally, I spend about an hour commuting to work, and my car seat isn’t that comfortable. I spent years in discomfort before I discovered that orthopedic seat cushions exist.
Productivity and Clutter Don’t Get Along: Create a Functional Office
Although not apparent, where you work has a great influence on the quality of your work. Yes, the work environment is more important than we give it credit. There’s a simple example we can use to explain it: how much work do you think you’d be capable of finishing when you find yourself surrounded by clutter in the office?
The answer: not much! Even if you do get to finish all the tasks, it would take you longer than finding yourself in an organised space. Not only this, but also your mood would be impacted. So now that we’ve established this importance, it’s time to talk about what can be done to make the office a productive environment. Where can one start if not from the choice of furniture for office?
The vast options don’t make it an easy purchase, however, you can’t go wrong by letting quality and functionality be your guide. Knowing the essence of ergonomics nowadays, you have to choose ergonomic furniture to ensure your employees’ health and well-being, having in mind aches and pains due to the sitting discomfort are the most likely to increase sick leaves.
Choosing ergonomics of furniture for office means choosing ingenious workstations, whether sit stand, open plan, hot desks, height adjustable, corner, or executive desks, as for chairs, depending on the area of the office, choose according to the time they will be used for. Ergonomics don’t just rid you off discomfort, and relieve aches and pains, but also save you the bother of frequent adjusting chairs and desks, the concentration thieves.
There’s always the worry this kind of purchase is going to break your bank, yet some suppliers have convenient cost-efficient package deals, and moreover they can carry out space planning designing the ideal layout that would work best for your office. Along with the right pick of furniture pieces, in terms of comfort, you also have to think of the aspect of organisation.
As mentioned, clutter and office aren’t a good combination, so you have to ensure you have plenty of storage, meaning getting desks with plenty of drawers, learn the art of organising, separating paperwork in confidential and the rest, as well as count on the help of accessories that are designed to save space, like the handy monitor arms. It’s needless to say they are just as handy with letting you have control of the monitor’s adjustment, the way you can avoid straining your neck and eyes.
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Considering the fact that it’s exposed to humidity 24/7, the place we go to clean ourselves isn’t exactly the cleanest room in the house. Sure, you might not think of cleaning your bathroom the same way you’d do about cleaning your kitchen, but that doesn’t make it any less important. After all, this is the place where you begin and end your day, and any guest that may come to visit will definitely judge you by the state it’s in. So yeah, for the sake of feeling good and making sure people don’t think any less of you, you need to clean that bathroom as often as possible. While cleaning of any kind might give you headaches, cleaning the bathroom can be as easy as 1, 2, 3. Read More
Prolonging the Lifespan of Batteries With a Battery Capacity Tester
In order to get the most out of your batteries, you have to properly maintain them. This is especially true if you have rechargeable batteries that cost a decent sum of money. One of the main battery maintenance operations is battery capacity testing. Battery capacity testing is performed using a special kind of tool, known as capacity tester. Read More