Several years ago,
Tanna came up anemic in a routine blood test done by my vet. At the time, I was
feeding a hodge-podge of vitamins, so I went looking for a single good
multivitamin. On the recommendation of another rider, I looked at HorseGuard's Mega-Dose.
I am a numbers girl
and I have an extensive spreadsheet set up to evaluate my horses' entire ration
for nutrients. I plugged the numbers in for Mega-Dose and was pleased with the
overall addition to the rations and was able to replace several supplements I had been feeding. In February 2006, I began to feed the horses 3
oz of Mega-Dose a day.
On a recheck several
months after feeding Mega-Dose, Tanna was no longer anemic. Count me happy.
I continued to feed
Mega-Dose for years. And continued yearly blood work on all my horses to keep an
eye on any anemia problems that might pop up.
In March 2012, Tanna
again came up anemic. I was concerned, but gave him Red Cell for a month and a
recheck showed him ok. I couldn't just add Red Cell to his ration, though. Red
Cell has massive amounts of Vitamin A, as does Mega-Dose. Even his feed (Nutreena
XTN and Omolene 100) has some Vitamin A in it.
I finally got around
to re-evaluating the rations and to my absolute surprise, Mega-Dose changed
formulations somewhere along the way, decreasing the amount per pound of many
vitamins and increasing the dosage from 1.5 oz per 500 pounds of animal to a flat
4 oz recommendation.
Here is the
Guaranteed Analysis of Mega-Dose as of January 2013 as shown on the Horse Guard
website:
And the Guaranteed
Analysis from a bucket from 2006 or 2007.
To further belabor
the point, I've put the "Per Pound" numbers side by side in the
following table to show the changes to the formula. Only 2 values increased.
One was Biotin to a nice 128 mg per pound instead of 85.28 mg per pound. The
other was the addition of Magnesium. Every other number dropped some or even
significantly.
Nutrient
|
Measure
|
Mega Dose 2006 (1 lb)
|
Mega Dose 2013 (1 lb)
|
Difference
|
Biotin
|
mg
|
85.28
|
128.00
|
42.72
|
Calcium
|
g
|
3.73
|
2.80
|
-0.93
|
Choline
|
mg
|
667.00
|
500.00
|
-167.00
|
Cobalt
|
mg
|
16.00
|
12.00
|
-4.00
|
Copper
|
mg
|
800.00
|
300.00
|
-500.00
|
Folate (Folic Acid)
|
mg
|
9.80
|
8.00
|
-1.80
|
Iodine
|
mg
|
10.60
|
8.00
|
-2.60
|
Iron
|
mg
|
2,132.00
|
400.00
|
-1,732.00
|
Lysine
|
g
|
3.73
|
2.50
|
-1.23
|
Magnesium
|
g
|
0.00
|
0.70
|
0.70
|
Manganese
|
mg
|
935.00
|
0.70
|
-934.30
|
Pantothenic acid
(B5)
|
mg
|
107.00
|
80.00
|
-27.00
|
Phosphorus
|
g
|
3.00
|
2.50
|
-0.50
|
Riboflavin (B2)
|
mg
|
117.00
|
88.00
|
-29.00
|
Selenium
|
mg
|
28.60
|
12.00
|
-16.60
|
Thiamin (B1)
|
mg
|
67.00
|
50.00
|
-17.00
|
Vitamin A
|
IU
|
266,500.00
|
200,000.00
|
-66,500.00
|
Vitamin B12
|
mg
|
0.40
|
0.30
|
-0.10
|
Vitamin B6
|
mg
|
80.00
|
60.00
|
-20.00
|
Vitamin D
|
IU
|
21,320.00
|
16,000.00
|
-5,320.00
|
Vitamin E
|
IU
|
10,666.00
|
5,000.00
|
-5,666.00
|
Zinc
|
mg
|
2,132.00
|
800.00
|
-1,332.00
|
Vitamin C (absorbic
acid)
|
mg
|
675.00
|
510.00
|
-165.00
|
Methionine
|
mg
|
24,000.00
|
2,500.00
|
-21,500.00
|
I am very annoyed at
myself for not catching this sooner and I honestly don't know when the formula
changed.
I guess the lesson
for me is to re-evaluate the ration every so often to be sure something hasn't
changed.
As a result of this
discovery, I have decided to discontinue use of Horse Guard's Mega-Dose and go
with a different option.
I'd love to hear what your favorite multi-vitamin is as I research new options for my horses.
