Does my horse need a ration balancer?

There are major differences between a ration balancer, a conventional supplement, and a bioavailable multivitamin and mineral supplement formula. How do you choose?

Ration balancers

A ration balancer is essentially a multivitamin and mineral supplement providing amino acids, vitamins, and minerals that may be lacking in the diet. Ration balancers are generally fed at 1-2 pounds per day, per horse.

Ration balancers began fifteen or so years ago to balance a diet of forage with straight grains such as barley, corn or oats. Companies making ration balancers expanded the concept when they realized that horses on just forage alone, or easy keepers on commercial feeds, were not getting the full recommended amount of commercial feed servings (pounds) per day, and needed a ration balancer as an option.

Ration balancers are pelleted and can be fed as a standalone feed with forage. These balancers generally use soy, alfalfa meal, and wheat middlings mixed with cane molasses as a food base. The remainder of ingredients are minerals and vitamins, sometimes artificial flavorings, and maybe some inactive probiotic strains.

Multivitamin and mineral supplements

A multivitamin and mineral supplement provides amino acids, vitamins, and minerals that may be lacking in the diet. Generally supplements are fed by ounces, not pounds.

Conventional multivitamin and mineral supplements may or may not be in pellet form. Common ingredients include alfalfa meal, distillers dried grains with solubles, or corn distillers dried grains with solubles, soy, and wheat middlings, sometimes with molasses. The remainder of ingredients are minerals and vitamins, frequently artificial flavors, sometimes with active probiotic strains.

Both ration balancers and conventional multivitamin and mineral supplements use the same form of minerals: carbonates, oxides, 2-bond chelates, sometimes higher-bioavailability chelates like gluconates and citrates.

What about bioavailable multivitamin / mineral supplements?

BioStar’s Optimum line is an assortment of wellness formulas with high-bioavailability mineral proteinates, plus vitamins, spirulina, chia seeds, coconut meal, pumpkin seed meal, and undenatured whey protein. This variety speaks to the wide spectrum of microorganisms in the gut, helping to support diversity, which is the essence of a healthy gut microbiome.

Ration balancers and conventional vitamin/ mineral supplements do not provide this range.

Highly bioavailable minerals

Bioavailability is very important with minerals. However, they are usually found in the earth. How does the body recognize these rock-derived minerals as essential components it can use?

In basic terms, ground-up rock is called inorganic, because to the body, it is mostly unusable in that form. When a mineral is chelated (bound to an organic molecule like an amino acid, citric acid, or malic acid), the body is able to utilize the mineral because, once chelated, it is now recognized as an organic mineral and can be rapidly taken up in the small intestine.

Plants can’t utilize inorganic minerals either, so they chelate (bind) them with their own amino acids to create an organic form they can use.

The minerals in BioStar’s Optimum supplements are proteinates. This form of mineral uses amino acids from rice to form an 8-bond “cage” around the mineral molecule, similar to a plant’s chelating mechanism. BioStar’s custom proteinate blend is made by a mineral proteinate company that also makes custom formulas for brands such as New Chapter, Garden of Life, MegaFood, and Ancient Nutrition.

Most ration balancers and conventional vitamin/ mineral supplements do not use proteinates. Commonly, ration balancers and multivitamin and mineral supplements use 2-bond amino acid chelates for specific trace minerals. Calcium and magnesium used in ration balancers (and in many conventional multivitamin and mineral formulas) are in the carbonate and oxide form, which is essentially non-bioavailable ground-up rock.

An 8-bond chelate, like the proteinates at BioStar, is far stronger and more stable than a 2-bond chelate, and is thus able to survive passage through the stomach to the small intestine. It is also more expensive to produce, but is considered the gold standard.

For more on chelates, see:

Real ingredients with real sources

BioStar’s Optimum supplements provide: 

• Vitamin A in the form of beta carotene from carrots
• Vitamin D from mushrooms
• Sodium and trace minerals from Celtic sea salt
• Fulvic and humic acids from reed sedge peat to enhance cellular function
• Digestive support from fennel

Most ration balancers and conventional vitamin/ mineral supplements use sources such as petroleum esters, benzene, coal tar, or are synthetically produced.

BioStar’s Optimum wellness formulas provide a matrix of antioxidants, polyphenols, enzymes, amino acids, and fiber to support wellness and healthy exercise.

Advantages of ration balancers versus supplements

Ration balancers:

• Are very convenient: scoop and serve.
• Can be added as top dressing to a complete feed to provide more vitamins and minerals without a lot of calories.
• Come in a wide variety: senior formulas, low-NSC formulas, with turmeric, GI support, with fly control, to enhance toplines.

Supplements:

• Allow the choice of your own feed base: alfalfa, timothy, orchard grass or teff hay pellets or soaked cubes, which maintains the “forage first” essence of horse biology and health.
• Allow the choice to avoid ingredients that can trigger common food sensitivities in horses like soy, wheat, rice, corn, flax, and for some horses, alfalfa.
• Allow the choice to avoid molasses or sweeteners.
• Have serving sizes considerably smaller than ration balancers.
• Come in a wide variety: senior, joint support, metabolic support, GI tract support, digestive support, ulcer support, muscle building, or extra hoof support.
• Like a ration balancer, can also be top-dressed and added to commercial feed.

Which is best for my horse?

Read the labels. Read the product analysis as well as the list of ingredients. All ration balancers and multivitamin and minerals are not alike.

When comparing amounts of minerals on a label, check the ingredients for the source of the mineral. For example, if calcium carbonate is not chelated, the horse will need twice to four times the amount of this mineral compared to a proteinate because of the low bioavailability.

Prioritize what you think the important factors are in your horse’s health. If there is an ingredient or ingredients in a ration balancer or a multivitamin mineral you are unsure of, ask the company.

Note: Horses make their own B-vitamins. Whether your horse needs additional B-vitamins is a personal choice. If you want a food source, look to nutritional yeast.

BioStar’s Wellness Formulas

BioStar has a wide range of formulas to choose from.

• Optimum EQ original formula
• Optimum 2.0 with mineral proteinates
• Optimum Senior with mineral proteinates plus holy basil for stress
• Optimum JS with mineral proteinates and joint support
• Optimum Senior JS with mineral proteinates, holy basil, and joint support
• Optimum Healthy Weight with Crominex 3® for metabolic horses
• Optimum GI with mineral proteinates plus gastric support from Lion’s Mane, pectin, and lecithin
• Optimum Defense with mineral proteinates plus immune support from bovine colostrum, quercetin and medicinal mushrooms

As always, when it comes to your horse’s health: Trust your intuition.