What is a balancer for horses?

A balancer is a concentrated pellet, containing a lot of vitamins and minerals, and you only need to feed a small amount. Often, you only need to feed a maximum of 350 grams per horse (600 kg) per day to provide all the necessary vitamins, minerals, and trace elements that the horse needs daily. For comparison; with concentrate feed, you often have to feed a minimum of 2 kilos to achieve the same levels of vitamins and minerals. The advantage of this is that you provide your horse with the necessary nutrients without the extra calories from grains or other by-products. It's preferable not to feed grains and starches, as they not only result in more conversion to glucose but also require the body to need more vitamins and minerals. Therefore, always choose a brand that doesn't use added grains, molasses, or other supplementary sugars. Good examples are: Vitalbix, Agrobs, Metazoa, Equilin, and Equifyt.

A handful of concentrate feed doesn't meet the daily need for vitamins and minerals

Nowadays, fresh grass and forage contain fewer vitamins and minerals than years ago. Often, the soil contains little zinc and copper, two very important trace elements for horses. This means that horses need a supplement in addition to sufficient forage to meet their daily vitamin and mineral requirements. Especially in summer, as grass provides calories, protein, vitamin E, and fatty acids, but no longer enough of the other vitamins and minerals.

Many horse owners mention that their horse or pony doesn't receive much additional feed. This is great because of the reduced calorie intake. Often, only a handful or half a feed scoop of a specific concentrate feed is given alongside (limited) forage. And that's it, no supplements, nothing at all. But did you know that you often have to give more than 2 kilos of a basic pellet/muesli to meet the recommended daily amount of vitamins and minerals for a horse weighing around 500 kilos? Most horse owners give much less than the recommended amount because their horse doesn't need it in terms of energy and calories. This means that these horses don't receive enough nutrients (vitamins and minerals) for all bodily functions.

What about energy?

Energy from feed can be released quickly or slowly. When a horse receives concentrate feed with a lot of grains, the energy is released quickly (sugar burning). This results in spikes in blood sugar levels, and your horse quickly burns through its energy supply. This can lead to horses being hot initially and then 'crashing' shortly afterward. Naturally, a horse is built to derive its energy from slowly released energy (fat burning). The main energy source for a horse is fibers from forage such as hay and grass. The digestion of fibers releases volatile fatty acids that the horse can convert into slowly released energy. Energy from fibers is released slowly, unlike energy from sugar and starch.

During the transition from sugar burning to fat burning, horses may experience a temporary dip in energy. But after about 2-3 months, you will notice that the horse actually has more energy because fat burning releases more energy. So don't worry if you switch your horse to a grain-free/sugar-free product, it will be fine and will actually provide more energy in the long run!

A horse with a condition needs more minerals

Horses with sweet itch, laminitis, CPL and other conditions are often kept very slim. These horses are extremely sensitive to sugars and grains, but these horses actually have an increased need for minerals due to recovery and maintaining immunity. There are few concentrates suitable for these horses, and large quantities (over 0.5 kilos per feeding) are definitely not recommended. For this group of horses, it is therefore particularly important to provide a good high concentrated mineral balancer.

A pony with laminitis cannot recover properly without additional minerals, as these are the building blocks for recovery. Therefore, always give grain-free balancers to ponies and horses with laminitis. Optionally combined with liquid minerals from the Bering Sea.

Conclusion: small quantity, with lots of vitamins and minerals

In comparison with concentrate feed, a balancer is much richer in minerals and vitamins. It provides the horse with its daily requirement of vitamins and minerals without added grains, starches, or sugars. The less you need to give, the more concentrated the balancer is in vitamins and minerals. This can be a bit of an adjustment for many horse owners, as with concentrate feed, you often have to give a minimum of 2 kilos per day to achieve the same levels of vitamins and minerals. This is because concentrate feed often contains added grains and starches. That's why with a balancer, you often only need to give around 50 grams per 100 kg of body weight. And yes, this is truly enough, alongside sufficient forage. This provides the horse with the nutrients to recover during/after illness and to perform work. An additional benefit is that you're providing almost no calories, making a balancer also very suitable for overweight horses.