Horse Health Care
“Here’s How to help and Keep Your Horse Looking
and Feeling Healthy for Life”
 Dear Horse Mom,
If you’re like me you love your horses with a passion. It’s our passion for our horses that keeps us striving to be the perfect mom. We do everything we can to provide the very best of everything so they don’t get sick or injured. But as you know sometimes it is out of our control and when they do get sick or injured we are always right there ready to fix the problem.
Mary and Penny
It’s our love that pushes us to leave no rock unturned looking for the solution to the problem. We spend hours doing research on the computer and in books, talking with our vet and fellow horse moms searching for the answer. And when we can’t find it right away it keeps us up at night worrying because we don’t want our horses to suffer or be in pain any longer than they have to.
It’s very sad and frustrating to us when we see them that way and we haven’t been able to find something that could help them. They depend on us to do our very best to get them better now and to stay that way in the future.
If this sounds like you, you aren’t alone.
I have been in this situation a few times when my horses have become ill and the vet was unable to help them get better. The vet either didn’t know why they were sick or didn’t have an existing treatment that could help. One of my horses had EPM, one just kept losing weight and became skin and bones and one was diagnosed with collapsed hocks when he was 8 months old. All of them were rescue horses in need of help. I do have one mare that I have had since she was 8 month old. She was also a rescue, a nurse mare foal, but luckily she was healthy and has stayed that way for 5 years because of what I’m going to share with you.
The question I asked myself is: What can I give them to help get them well and stay that way forever when my vet didn’t have the answer?
I will let you in on a secret I was scared to death that they would die and how was I going to do something that the vet can’t. And that’s when the horse mom in me kicked in and said you can’t give up you have to try to do something.
So I did just what a horse mom would do; spend hours researching online, finding vets and nutritionist in other states asking them questions, talking to other horse moms listening to what they tried that helped their horse and trying different feeds and supplements.
Unfortunately, Most of Us Horse Moms Will Experience
The Frustration and Pain of Our Horses Becoming Ill or Injured.
The message that I kept reading and hearing over and over again was,
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“Good nutrition can prevent disease. Good nutrition can cure disease.”
- Richard J. Holliday DVM
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I learned when the body records a particularly low level of one or more nutrients; it shows up in the form of some illness or group of symptoms. Research has shown a deficiency in nutrients will cause the body to malfunction and eventually breakdown – like dominoes, other parts of the body will follow.
 Even if there is no sign of illness it doesn’t necessarily mean your horse is healthy, it may be that they are not exhibiting symptoms of illness.
Sometimes you don’t see the signs of deterioration as they are so subtle and develop gradually that they go unnoticed until the problem becomes serious.
I knew nutrition was important but I didn’t really understand what it meant and that it was very important to health of my horse. I think it is because my vet didn’t talk about nutrition or ask questions concerning my horse’s diet. It was never part of the conversation when trying to put a treatment plan together.
An Important Discovery I Made!
Knowing now how good nutrition or poor nutrition could affect my horses I felt like I had hope for the first time. With this knowledge I had a potential answer that could help my horses. I went on a personal mission and spent time researching and studying nutrition and how it impacted the horses’ body. I even took animal science classes specializing in equine to further my education concerning the subject.
What I found was that a balanced diet was ONLY the starting point and when supplementing in the correct amounts and ratios, together this is what lays a solid foundation for a healthy horse for life.
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I learned that in order to give your horse a balanced diet you needed to
start with knowing what life stage your horse is at so you knew what nutrients they need on a daily basis and how much to feed.
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When I got my horses they didn’t come with any of this information or an instruction book on how to balance and put a diet together.
Find the life stage that best describes your horse or health situation
 That’s where the NRC (National Research Council) came in; they determined what the daily nutrient requirements are for horses by using the life stages of the horse. The life stages of the horse they researched were growing foal 4 months to 24 months, pregnant mare, nursing mare, senior horse, performance horse, breeding stallion and inactive adult horse. Knowing this important information will help make sure you are giving the correct amounts of nutrients in the proper ratios so your horses can grow, breed, perform and prevent disease. By feeding your horse correctly they will be able to absorb and utilize the nutrients from their food so they don’t start developing health issues.
I also found that just providing the right feeds is often not enough to ensure that your horses are receiving optimal nutrition. Most horses do not consume optimal amounts of all the nutrients by diet alone. This is because the grains and forages we feed our horses no longer contain all of the essential nutrients.
Some of the reason why are:
- Your horses’ feed is grown on de-mineralized and worn out soil and has next to nothing for nutritional value.
(When was the last time your pasture or the hay farmers pasture was fertilized to meet proper nutrient standards?)
- Refining and processing of your horses’ feed removes nutrients.
(Over heating is common in manufacturing and destroys nutrients.)
- Manufacturers of commercial feed often add chemicals to increase production that are toxic to your horse. (Anti-caking agents are used to prevent build up in the processing machines but are made with toxic metals like aluminum that you feed your horse and don’t even know it.)
- Air and water pollution (acid rain or toxic metals) are in the soil that the food is grown on causing elevated levels of aluminum, cadmium, lead, arsenic, and beryllium. (Horses can be more sensitive to environmental pollution than people and specific nutrients are critical for them to stay healthy.)
- That’s why I said earlier supplementing your horse’s diet with proper nutrients in the right ratios is essential when trying to balance your horse’s diet.
Balancing my horse’s diets using the NRC’s guidelines was the right way to go. I now knew what I should be feeding them instead of guessing. This was a big eye opener for me. But there is a even bigger eye opener that I’m going to share with and it’s going to make you question what supplement companies have telling us for years.
Remember what I said before about the nutrients being in the proper ratios and amounts?
They need to be this way in order for them to have an effect in your horse’s body. Every mineral in the body has an effect on every other mineral in the body. Having just one mineral out of balance can affect all the other minerals in your horse’s body leading to problems. By giving your horse the right combinations they are able to absorb and utilize the nutrients in their bodies.
Here’s the big eye opener...
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Most supplement companies look at your horse in separate parts; skin, hoofs, joints, digestive system, immune system, respiratory system, etc. and they make their supplements to fit those problems.
So you wind up having to buy more than one supplement and not knowing if you are giving more of one kind of nutrient than another. By doing this you risk unbalancing your horses’ body.
These supplements are called allopathically supplements. Allopathically supplements are formulated and used for a specific problem. For example one supplement is used for the immune system, one for the digestive system, one for joints and bones, etc.
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Find the life stage that best describes your horse or health situation
Each supplement has a specific purpose and ONLY addresses the part of the body that is exhibiting symptoms. By using isolated supplements your horse may be missing other nutrients that are needed to make them work properly.
It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way!
Armed with this information the first thing I did was go to work balancing my horse’s diets using the NRC nutrient guidelines. Doing this by hand wasn’t an easy task because of all the formulas involved. It took a lot of hours doing it by hand. But because of the pain and I didn’t like math I developed a software program that did all the calculations for me. This made it less time consuming and more accurate.
 The next thing I did with the advice of a holistic vet was have a hair mineral analysis done on my horses. The hair mineral analysis showed what mineral ratios and mineral levels were unbalanced, that they had toxic levels of aluminum, high inflammatory stress, sensitive to sugar, slow recovery from stress and slow metabolism.
This was all important because it was the information I needed to have a supplement formulated for my horses. This was the second part I needed in getting my horses healthy to help their bodies going in the right direction. The supplements helped to improve the balance and condition of my horses’ bodies by focusing on strengthening their body defenses by enhancing energy and helping to restore biochemical balance.
Giving them a balanced diet and a complete supplement is what helped to improve my horse’s health and condition by slowly balancing their body chemistry. It did it incrementally rebuilding their health layer by layer so the effects would be long term. By investing the time and effort needed in my horse’s supplementation program they starting getting better.
The first positive sign was increased energy and appetite, not being depressed and moving less stiff by the fifth week. Over time all of their individual symptoms became lesser.
My 22 year old mare with the EPM stopped dragging her hind legs and had more balance so she could be ridden again and stopped having a chronic nasal discharge. I tell people when I got her I thought she was such a gentle and quiet horse but that all changed as she got better. She was just sick.
My 30 year old mare that was losing weight and looking like skin and bones started putting weight on consistently, her hair stopped falling out, the white specks were no longer visible on her body, her hooves stopped breaking down and her lameness subsided.
But my biggest success and most time consuming was with my stallion Rio who was diagnosed with collapsed hocks at eight months. Believe it or not it was death sentence for him. The vet explained to the original owner that there was no know treatment for this condition and that he would be better of being put down.
Find the life stage that best describes your horse or health situation
So I adopted him and by two years old using a balanced diet and a complete supplement, the vet confirmed that his hocks were no longer collapsing. He was cleared to be with other horses and have unlimited exercising which would help him rebuild bone making his hocks stronger. He no longer shook uncontrollably because the pain as well subsided.
To see Rio’s progress as he got better (It’s a video and it’s on horsemoms.com).
And my nurse mare foal that is five years old now has had the vet out only for shots. She too gets a balanced diet using the NRC’s life stages and complete supplement daily. It is because I applied the same nutritional principals of a balanced diet and a complete supplement daily right from the start when she was eight months old that she has remained healthy.
This nutritional process I used on my horses can help other sick and injured horses get healthy and keep healthy horses from getting ill.
As a Horse Mom I know you would like your horses to experience
the same kind of long term health, quality of life and an active life style.
This is where I come in.
I’ve spent the last 10 years learning everything there is to know about horse nutrition, supplements and how your horse uses them. I also had the added benefit of having the help and guidance of a licensed nutritionist that has spent over 20 years researching equine nutrition and analyzing horses’ diets. He has helped over 10,000 horses by formulating and blending custom supplements based on their diet and body chemistry. He was the nutritionist that helped my horses.
For a long time I have watched other horse moms go through what I went through. I have even helped a few using diet and supplements to help their horse’s look and feel better. It doesn’t happen overnight and those that made the commitment to give their horses time to rebuild and balance their body chemistry saw results.
So I did two things the first was developing software that could help other horse moms create and balance their horse’s diets using the life stages of the horse. The software is called Equine Nutrition Wizard.
The second thing with the help of the same nutritionist that helped my horses was formulate 13 complete supplements using the life stages of the horse so the vitamins and minerals would be in the proper ratios and amounts. But I didn’t stop there I also added essential amino acids, metabolize Plus to detoxify and eliminate toxic and heavy metals, immune builders, anti-oxidants, Joint and bone nutraceuticals, probiotics, herbs, silicon, and omega 3,6, and 9 fatty acids for complete health and nutrition.
 I’ve learned that these extra specialty supplements help sick horses get will faster and stay that way and help well horses stay healthy for life. I called these supplements Horse Moms All-In-One supplements.
If you already have a horse that is chronically ill and you have tried everything to help them feel better, the Equine Nutrition Wizard diet software and Horse Moms All-In-One supplements will help your horse.
If your horse is already in good health, then the Equine Nutrition Wizard diet software and Horse Moms
All-In-One supplements will help your horse maintain their health for life.
You might want your performance horse able to meet the physical rigors of training, conditioning and competition. Ensure your foal will grow normally without bone or joint problems. Help your senior horse regain health, vigor and mobility. Support your pregnant mare’s health and unborn foals bone, joint and muscle growth. To make sure your nursing mare has enough milk to feed her foal.
Whatever your horse’s situation is, the diet software and All-In-One supplements will help them.
To get started click on the life stage or situation that best describes your horse. You will learn those specific growth, breeding, health risks and injuries that can occur during the different life stages of your horse. You will also learn information about what nutrients go into each Horse Moms All-In-One Supplements and how they help your horse’s body.
Click on the Link to find the life stage that best describes
your horse or health Situation
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