Editor’s Note:
The recent dramatic increase of equine supplements on the market has been accompanied by a lack of regulatory oversight and quality information available to the consumer. This leaves consumers with a daunting task if they are to make sense of the plethora of choices currently available. NWHS is proud to partner with Nick Hartog of Grand Meadows Nutritional Products to bring a series of articles designed to educate horse owners on several aspects of proper supplement usage. Topics to be considered are, identifying the need to supplement, identifying legitimate products – the right product for the right reasons, product delivery options, i.e. liquids, powders, pellets, treats and supplement safety issues.
“What supplements to feed can be an alarming choice given the sheer number of products available”
Title: Supplements Part 1
Why – What – When?
by Nick Hartog
If it was possible to comprehensively answer all those questions in one article it would fill several magazines. I think it is possible to touch on some important issues related to equine supplements that can be of benefit to you the horse-owner.
Supplements in their current form are a relatively new phenomenon. If you look back ten years the choices available were miniscule compared to now and they tended to be very generic vitamin/mineral supplements. Now the market is all about problem specific products for joints, hooves and more.
Many people have the attitude that horses managed to survive for thousands of years without supplements so why do we need them now? In response to that view it is widely accepted, even amongst the most skeptical practitioners, that nutrition has a fundamental role to play in our health and the health of our animals. By delivering nutrients that are deficient in the normal diet we can help to reduce the risks of injury or illness. Every horse is different and receives different kinds of hay or grass and grain. How do you know what supplements you should feed? There may not be a need to feed a supplement in every case – particularly if the horse is not being ridden hard, is still relatively young and is fed high quality, nutrient rich forage. This is not always the case however and the explosion in the sale of supplements in recent years indicates that a lot of horse-owners have seen real tangible benefits when supplementing their horses. I do not believe this is all a placebo effect. At Grand Meadows we constantly receive letters, phone calls and e-mails from customers who tell us of dramatic, positive changes to their horses as a result of feeding one or more supplements.
As a general rule of thumb the need for supplementation can be visible – poor quality hair coat, crumbly hoof walls, persistent stiffness, lack of energy or it can be based on the age of your horse and deciding at a certain point to help support your horse as he ages. Women don’t take calcium when they are fifty because they automatically get osteoporosis, but because the risk increases with age. We recommend feeding joint supplements to horses over the age of fifteen for the same reasons. If you are cutting, reining or barrel-racing think about the stresses that the horse is being exposed to on a daily basis, think about the fact that most top riders in those disciplines continue to inject their horses throughout the season. We approached a number of top NRCHA riders three years ago and offered to supply them with our joint supplement, Grand Flex. None of these riders had ever fed a joint supplement - only injections. Over a three year period the incidence of injections in their barns has dropped by an average of 80% and that is including the vet coming out and doing flexion tests. At the end of the day common sense should prevail. Are you pushing your horse hard or are there physical indications of a problem that might be related to poor nutrition?
What supplements to feed can be an alarming choice given the sheer number of products available. The first step is to try to identify if your need to supplement is specific to one particular area (hooves for example), or is more general, in which case a product that covers a number of nutrient deficiencies will probably be more appropriate. Beyond that process the key is identifying legitimate products. Unfortunately the equine supplement industry has little or no regulatory oversight. This has created an environment where a number of small manufacturers have entered the marketplace with poorly manufactured products that make entirely unrealistic claims as to their efficacy. Red flags to watch out for would be incomprehensible labels, no expiration dates or lot numbers or products that are substantially cheaper than others of the same type. Grand Meadows is a board and founding member of the NASC (National Animal Supplement Council), an association that was formed two years ago to try to establish a working dialog with the FDA and AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials) and to try to establish standards for labels, manufacturing etc. As we go to press there are indications that some really meaningful changes will be occurring in coming months that will directly benefit consumers and offer the consumer a measure of quality assurance that hitherto has been non-existent. I will be happy to provide updates on how the NASC is doing – in the meantime you can check out their website at www.nasc.cc.
If you have questions about supplements in general please feel free to e-mail us at info@grandmeadows.com
About the Author:
Nick Hartog was born in England and received a degree in Economics from Oxford University. He became involved in the equine supplement industry in 1995 and is currently President and co-owner of Grand Meadows Nutritional Supplements, Inc. He founded and was President of the National Association of Equine Supplement Manufacturers (NAESM) and is now a board member of the National Animal Supplement Council (NASC). He is also a founding member and board member of the Equine Quality Alliance, a new industry trade group that is striving to provide high quality products and high levels of customer service in the equine industry.
Nick has offered to answer questions from our readers regarding supplements and he can be reached at 1-800-255-2962 or info@grandmeadows.com.
