Rainbow Acres, LLC

If the basic diet is full of holes and out of balance, all the Dynamite supplementation in the world will not yield the optimum results to which our horses are entitled.
by: Dr. R. Golob and J. Sinner

Boo-Boo #1
A straight (or high percentage) alfalfa diet!
This is actually an article unto itself, titled "Reasons Not To Feed Straight Alfalfa" and it can be found in our website. To hit the high spots, here are the conditions that are precipitated by too much alfalfa:

• Diminished Performance

• Hypothyroidism

• Thumps

• Bad Attitude

• Tying Up

• Kidney Problems

• Scratches

• Increased Incidence of Disease

• Enteroliths

• Developmental Bone Disease

• Arthritis and Degenerative Joint Disease

• Colic

Most areas have generic or name brand sweet feeds with added A, D, E, and inorganic minerals. (Review your Minerals: Right on Target to help you remember that the oxide, carbonate and sulfate forms of minerals are inorganic i.e. relataively indigestible.) These inorganic minerals can cost the body more in energy to eliminate them than they benefit the body. Chelated minerals are in a "pre-digested" form for maximum availability, and a balanced profile of chelated minerals is necessary, along with the inorganic forms. We don't want you to add the Dynamite® products to a fortified sweet feed and unknowingly create an overload or imbalance of vitamins and minerals. The balance of Dynamite® products is quite subtle, and at the very least you will get less-than-optimum results by feeding them with a fortified mix. Less is more! A plain, dry mix of corn, oats and barley with Dynamite® supplements added, and HES Pellets(tm) if you need more protein/fat, will be a better choice.
Corn is controversial for many people. It contains less fiber and lots more energy per pound than oats, and corn thus has an undeserved reputation for being a heating feed. In fact, oats generate more b.t.u.'s (heat units) in digestion than corn does! Corn is an excellent feed for horses. Be sure to measure it by weight, not by volume, as it is very dense. Barley likewise is a denser, more energy-packed feed than oats, containing less fiber. Many horses become hyper on oats, because oats contain an alkaloid called avenin that is a central nervous system stimulant. Horses susceptible to avenin do really well on rolled barley instead of oats, possibly with some added corn. Oats and corn half and half by weight works well for many horses, or you can feed 1/3 each of corn, oats and barley, again by weight. Or barley and corn, or straight barley. You need to observe your horses' response, and also determine which grains are highest in quality in your area. Ideally, our Complete Pelleted Grain Ration(tm) is the optimal way to go.
The molasses issue is also a heated one. Organic blackstrap molasses from your health food store is a very healthful food, high in iron, and very alkalizing. Unfortunately, this is not the sort of molasses that goes on feed grains! Heavy molasses sweet feeds look yummy to the owner (like granola!) and many horses develop such a sweet tooth that they have to be coerced into eating plain grains. Wouldn't your kid rather have Cocoa Puffs than oatmeal? A naturally nutritious grain crop with high mineral content will also have a high brix, which is the measure of natural sugar content. Trouble is, the mineralization of our soils is declining at such an alarming rate that most foods lack minerals and taste like cardboard. So to get the animals to eat these devitalized grains, the feed companies began adding molasses as a sweetener. Molasses will also conveniently disguise any mold or discoloration, and will dampen down the dust and cover other "yuck" as well. That leads to another issue, because adding molasses also adds moisture, which increases the potential for mold. So, chemical mold inhibitors and preservatives are often added - see where all this is going? Some authorities believe that one of the major causes of hyperactivity in children is preservatives. Molasses is also high in fluoride, which occupies the iodine receptor sites and can thus lead to hypothyroidism. And there is even more! Energetically, the stressed pancreas causes soreness in the lumbar area, so horses on sweet feeds will nearly always have sore loins and be unable or unwilling to "come round" or to use their driving muscles in a strong manner. Sugar also encourages water retention, so horses on a sweet feed will look like they have gained weight, but it is not healthy muscle tissue, they are just bulked up with water at the cellular level.
Going back to hyperactivity, there are many thousands of horses out there who are "sugar monsters". I had a 5 year old gelding who accidentally got some sweet feed one day while he spent some time at a boarding stable, and I had to peel him out of the rafters when I got him out to work him! He was "sugar free" his whole life until that day, and he acted like he was on speed! Any significant amount of molasses will cause an insulin rush, and a blood sugar high followed by a major blood sugar crash. Some researchers have even correlated large grain meals (especially sweet feed) and the resulting insulin rush with developmental bone disease in young horses. This glycemic response negatively affects the bone-forming cells, and leads to decreased bone density in any horse. Ideally, grain should be divided into several small feedings a day to avoid this insulin rush.
While we are on the subject of grains for horses, we might as well address acidity. A by-product of grain digestion is propionic acid. We know all about over-acid conditions from reading Regan's columns and Your Health, Your choice, right? Horses that are acidic will tend to tie up, lose top line muscling, and be generally unthrifty. Haven't we all seen horses, especially at the track, who are eating 20+ pounds of grain a day and still look like greyhounds? Acid!! Horses were not designed by nature to eat large amounts of grain, nor to do the kinds of work that we ask of them. On Dynamite® products with our digestive aids, most people find that they can get by with far less grain because the horse is digesting the ration so much more efficiently. Cutting Futurity winner Scott Martin finds that he can feed only 3 pounds of the Complete Grain and maintain better weight and condition than on 8 pounds of the nationally-promoted sweet feed that he was using, along with better minds and fewer soundness issues! I know many pleasure riders, and even Western Pleasure trainers, who feed no grain, just 3 ounces of Dynamite Plus(tm) and top quality grass hay, with maybe a little alfalfa. Remember that most minerals are alkalizing, and especially the Dynamite Plus(tm) and Free Choices contain clay that helps to neutralize the acid as well. So - bottom line. Simple, plain grain or Dynamite Pelleted Grain Ration(tm) and TNT(tm) or Dynamite® or Dynamite Plus(tm) as a basic package will give you optimum and healthy results, and save you money as well! A horse with a balanced and healthy body, and eating a balanced grain ration, will be emotionally and physically sound.

On the label, but not into the body, that's the story if you are not including amino acid chelated minerals in the diet. As a quick review, minerals must be bound to amino acid molecules (protein building blocks) in order to be efficiently absorbed. The amino acid seems to act as sort of a Trojan Horse for the mineral. Also, the molecular weight needs to be below 1500 daltons and the electrical charge of the mineral needs to be neutralized so it does not combine with a mineral of the opposite charge and thus become an unavailable compound. The carbonate, or oxide, or sulfate forms of the minerals are not nearly as available to the body as a true amino acid chelate. Imagine trying to push a volleyball, or even a tennis ball, thru the mesh of your screen door. This is what happens in the intestine when a large molecular weight mineral such as calcium carbonate comes along......it simply does not work until the body has used some dietary protein to combine with the mineral to absorb a little of it, but most of it sails right on out into the manure pile (or septic tank, for people). With horses, you all are familiar with the legendary bone structure of the Irish horses, or the Kentucky breds. This is because the soil overlays limestone which is calcium carbonate. The grass roots grow down into the calcium-rich soil, and plants have a great ability to chelate the soil minerals so when the horse eats the grass or hay, that calcium is available. As Jim says, "If you put an iron nail into the soil, the plant that grows there will be rich in iron. But I dare you to put a handful of nails in the feed bucket and have the horse get that iron." Yet this is just what most feed companies are doing -- adding calcium carbonate, or iron oxide or copper sulfate and so on. Even the NRC recommendations for the amount of a mineral that a horse needs are based on inorganic mineral forms, amazingly enough, and likewise the US RDA for people. Isn't it amazing that this information is not yet taught at the University levels or applied to government standards?

Most people just read a label and say "Hey, look, this brand has more calcium, or iron, or whatever than that brand, and it is cheaper, too!". You might as well save your money entirely, because not only does the body not use the inorganic minerals very effectively, the organs of elimination are stressed by dealing with the unusable portion of the mineral and indeed can't always excrete it, so it can build to toxic levels in the tissues. Many horses and people are toxic and out of balance from mineral overload, in unavailable form. This is why, as a side note, many people observe that their horses become hyper if they feed some supplements, as the body goes into "red alert overload" mode. Inorganic calcium floating around, for example, can do a lot of ugly things. It can occupy the iodine receptor sites, causing the thyroid to slow down with resulting obesity, infertility and other problems. Since calcium goes to areas of heat and inflammation, unusable calcium can deposit in and stiffen joints, tendons and ligaments and provide great raw material for forming splints, spavins, and ringbone. In the kidneys and bladder, it can form stones. By suppressing magnesium, an unusable calcium overload contributes to tight muscles and anxiety. It can even cause the parathyroid glands to lose the ability to store and release calcium from the bones when needed, and you can end up with thumps in an endurance horse, or even a tied up horse. That cheap non-chelated mineral formulation from the catalog or discount store is looking a little more expensive all the time, isn't it? And yet, many medical advisors and TV advertising will even tell you to take antacids as a source of calcium........not only is that virtually unusable calcium, but supressing the stomach acid pretty much guarantees that the calcium will not be digested at all. Duh? My beloved aunt, who passed away a couple of years ago, was a registered nurse who suffered from osteoporosis to the point that she was totally stooped and under 5 feet tall in her old age, and yet she stubbornly clung to the advice of her internist to take her antacids for calcium.

So, the astute readers among you are asking "Why are there also some inorganic minerals included with the chelates in the Dynamite® horse and dog products?" That is because research has shown that feeding 100% of a mineral as a chelate is too hot for horses, and for dogs to a certain extent. These animals in the wild do have a certain ability to utilize natural mineral deposits like some clays and dirt, much more than can a human. Indeed, the carbonate forms can act as a buffer. Also, the same research proves that the addition of about one-third of the particular mineral in chelate form "primes the pump" for better absorption of the non-chelated form of the same mineral in animal formulations. It is like the body gets the frequency of that mineral and then recognizes the need for it more effectively. A balance is preferable. (And this is also why we don't recommend feeding the Dynamite® products with a Brand X fortified feed - you can easily overload the system and create imbalance as you make the inorganic minerals in the feed more digestible). It is important that the full spectrum of minerals be supplied in chelated form. A cute trick that some feeds and horse supplements are using now is to include chelated copper which will really give a nice coat and bloom quickly, but then to save some money they don't include the related minerals like zinc, iron and manganese in chelated form. Conversely, Albion labs research has shown that you can create a copper deficiency in a dairy cow in just four days if the inorganic iron levels in the feed or water are too high. Yikes. Likewise feeding some of the iron tonics to horses can eventually suppress the copper and manganese needed for tendon and ligament strength. Balance is a key here, not short term gratification traded for long term disaster.

Trust the research behind Dynamite® products, going clear back to when Citation won the Triple Crown in 1948 on the original chelated mineral bloodbuilder formula that morphed into today's Dynamite® for Horses. We had a newspaper article a few years back in the monthly meeting notes, where a sportswriter was lamenting that the Thoroughbreds of today are nothing like in years past. It is unusual for a 3 year old to make all of the Triple Crown races let alone win them all, they usually drop like flies thru the season from various injuries and fatigue. Yet Citation not only competed in the series and won, as the article noted, he ran and won races before and in between the Derby, Preakness and Belmont! This is also a great place to mention the value of HumiZyme RX for putting more minerals back into the soil so that your pasture or hay can chelate them into the feed............but that is another article!