copper deficiency, sweet itch and WLD

Gillies_mom · copper deficiency, sweet itch and WLD

Last October I was chatting to my vet and mentioned that my girl has sweet itch, he had recently read an article about a link between sweet itch and copper deficiency, so I asked if he could test my mare, he did a blood test, copper was in the normal range, at 17.9umol/l, the normal range is 14-22umol/l, so we left it at that. This year I started trimming my mare's hooves, she had white line disease, I was giving her a rasp once a week, disinfecting daily and the WLD still wouldn't go, then I read a Japanese paper linking WLD to copper deficiency, hmmm how interesting.

So I've been giving her copper-trition for 4 weeks now and so far so good, the sweet itch seems much less of a problem to her, and the WLD is definately going. How great is that? I couldn't be happier.

Kate

karmikacres

Yes, Copper/zinc deficiencies are at the root of most skin, hoof and coat issues. Have to be careful just adding things as it is the ratios that are important. Iron:Copper:Zinc:Manganese should be at a 4:1:3:3 ratio according to Dr. Kellon. If you want to learn more than you would ever want to know about equine nutrition, Dr. Kellon gives online courses that are excellent.

We've seen lots of improvements in our horses by simply balancing their nutrition. Just one example - we rescued two horses in November that had severe rain rot and worms. We treated them for the worms and fed them properly (balanced minerals) and the rain rot went away on it's own. No treatment at all.

The body has an amazing capacity to heal itself given the right fuel, environment and exercise.

Karen