I am hearing that horses do not need any added iron in their supplement. The (our) Just Add Oats seems high compared to other companies products. Please explain. Also does "Hi-mag" RED CAL have iron?
If so how much. Thank You
Nancy D.
I am very cognizant of iron. There is actually a lot of iron all over the East. The further south almost the more iron, eastern NC having some of the highest. Unfortunately there is a lot of info that has just been "transposed" from human info which simply doesn't apply to horses. Horses must have iron. AND … Since THEY ARE GRASS EATERS, eating right from the ground, and the ground naturally contains alot of iron, The "good Lord" I think took that into consideration when the horse was made….For instance……The nice thing about iron is that "iron absorption is decreased as iron intake increases" (Advances in Equine Nutrition for the performance horse. RE: JD Pagan from KY.. the guru on equine diets).In other words….. the body absorbs only what it needs….
It is imperative that it be supplied and not eliminated from the diet regardless of where one lives. It actually is what oxygenates the blood through hemoglobin production. Of course some products have more than others, we have what is minimally required. Actually the NRC requirement is 500 mg / day for an average size horse. One scoop of Just Add Oats has 110 mg. Yes the RED Cal does have iron too and of course it is free choice. There is no "added" iron in Red Cal as it gets all its iron from the ground (the ancient sea bed from which it comes). As horses sweat they actually lose alot of iron too.. since a horse can sweat up to 30 liters a day they can lose up to 500 mg/day of iron just through the sweat. I hope you can see the importance of always making Red Cal available free choice and even having available in a trailer when traveling …Personally I do think PEOPLE get get way to much iron. It is NOT in our Human Vitamin mineral supplement called Vit A Veg Essentials. In fact, it is linked to Heart Attacks in people. a reason why pre-menapausal women have less heart attacks than man is that they lose it through blood every month. Men on the other hand accumulate and actually giving blood as a donor can reduce heart attacks… BUT WE WERE NOT MADE to eat right from the ground either— at least I don't think so!Iron in horses is way more of an issue if other minerals are not right. AND too much can interactive deficiencies of other minerals.. In other words I would never just add iron. The right copper, zinc, manganese, cadmium, and cobalt and even vitamins (especially the b's and folate) are critical. I do think many Hoof type supplement and Hemotenic supplements have way to much minerals in general. They are often the cause of of perhaps "any controversy" you may be reading about iron. These high levels of minerals fill "deficiencies" creating the hoof issues in the first place but after feeding such "high mineral supplements" for a while with the overall excessive amounts of minerals the deficiencies are more than filled and tip the scales of balance in excess – why the hoof problems return.. AND another reason "FREE CHOICE" RED Cal and our Hoof Check supplement are so great..They again have Mother Natures mineral mix from the ancient sea bed from which it comes – not mans!!Besides hoof supplements, Iron is a major problem with mineral blocks (added to make them red) in my opinion because the iron ties up the other trace minerals. Of course blocks in general are useless anyway too .Bottom line, is we do have adequate but not excessive in our supplements. The Red Cal being free choice and being "mother natures mix" actually "picks up the pieces" for mans lack of knowledge and probably even provides micro nutrients we haven't even yet discovered as everything that was in that ocean way back when, is still in the "mix" . It does have every mineral know to man for sure.One other note is the ratio's to others. There are some "Hoof Advisers" are saying that horses get too much iron (my thoughts are as I mentioned above.. too high minerals in general including the iron etc) BUT they also suggest a cu:to Fe (copper to iron ratio) of 1:4. Please note that is exactly what we have.Thanks for asking…. Rest assured I always keep searching and trying to learn. We are constantly testing too. I have our own test herd of over 250 horses.. all ages all uses, babies, brood mares, stallions, geldings… ALL and from pasture puppies to horses in intense training. Just so you know we have for over a decade now have tens of thousands of horses on our products with positive not negative results.Again thank you Nancy
