Is Your Horse High on Spring Grass?



Cruz Bay's mom, Kelly at age 25

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that Cruz and I were supposed to attend a bomb-proofing clinic last weekend, which was to be the ultimate proof of how well the CoolStance was working.

Thankfully, it snowed and the event is now set for May 7^th.

Spring Has Sprung and So Has Cruz

I say ‘thankfully’ because, after the remarkable way he calmed down since being on CoolStance, the spring grass has shot up and so have Cruz's spookiness levels! He declines to listen to yours truly and every riding session is currently a ‘back to basics’ ordeal.

It took a few bad rides for me to put two and two together and come up with four. But I did finally make the connection between his being on more lush pasture and his new, bolshy attitude. He’s gone from virtually no NSC starch in his diet to way too much from the grass. (Although the CoolStance is keeping him from being borderline dangerous, which is what he was last year before I changed his feed.) 

What to Do?

So last night I researched online to see what I could do to mitigate the effects of the grass, until its high sugar levels die down again and I get my pre-spring horse back. I found some really useful information on an Australian website.

If your horse is being a butthead ‘cos of the new spring grass you may find this helpful:

http://www.naturalhorseworld.com/Articles-Nutrition.htm#magnesium

The article recommends chelated magnesium. I have noticed that Cruz is showing a new interest in his mineral block, which tells me he’s missing something in his diet. So I actually went so far as to order the site's chelated magnesium product, called Alleviate.

Since it’s not going to arrive from the Antipodes any time soon, I researched chelated magnesium products closer to home and found SmartPak’s Quiessence.

Since no expense is ever spared when it comes to the horse, I ordered a month’s supply based on the product’s 37 testimonials. Most of them were very positive re: calming effects - among other good results like loss of excess fat (not a problem with Cruz!).

If you Google ‘chelated magnesium for horses’ you’ll find other products out there, too. I just happen to like SmartPak as I use their SmartFlex joint supplement with great success on our twenty year old Irish Draft cross C.D. as well as Cruz.

So I’m hoping that chelated magnesium will give me back my well-behaved CoolStance horse in time for his first competition on 1^st May and that bomb proofing clinic the following weekend!

I shall keep you updated.

Update: I have been giving Cruz Quiessence in the spring for four years now, and highly recommend it. It really does counteract the effects of the sugar in the spring grass for him and keeps him on an even keel through those dangerous months. Not to mention fending off the dangers of laminitis aka founder.