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Discussion on Calcium and phophorus
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Member:
maggienm
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Posted on Friday, Jan 15, 2010 - 11:54 am:
I am the first to admit I am completely dumb about understanding horse nutrition so please have patience.
I am looking at two different mineral contents and one from a horse crunch I have purchased in the last year.
One lists calcium as 12% ph as 8%
the second cal as 14% ph as 14%
the crunch cal as 2.8% ph as 1.5%
which one seems best? Are the ratios acceptable?
The article on cal/phos (I think) says a ratio of 3/2 is good unless the horse is in more active work then 3.5/2.5 is better.
what % are the numbers of? It seems like 12% means it is 12 out of 100 and still needs 88%?
I wouldn't expect the crunch to have much as it is a pelleted feed, not a mineral supplement.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Sunday, Jan 17, 2010 - 11:34 am:
Hello Lori,
It seems you are having trouble understanding the ratio expressions. These are not percentages but the relative ratio of the weight of the calcium to the weight of the phosphorous. If you have a cal/phos ratio of 3/2 that means for every 3 parts that are calcium you would have 2 parts of phosphorous by weight. So if you have 3 oz of calcium then you would have 2 ozs of phosphorous.
As to which supplement would be best you have to understand the recommendations apply to the whole diet so to know which would be best requires knowing the amount in the rest of the diet. Knowing the ph of the substance really does not mean much to me as we do not have any information on how this might effect absorbability. I know some human products that add citric acid because they say it helps but how this might apply to horses is unknown and research that led to recommended amounts were certainly not done on ph adjusted feedstuffs.
DrO
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Member:
maggienm
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Posted on Sunday, Jan 17, 2010 - 1:40 pm:
oh so taking my first example which is listed as
12% to 8% you could say there are 12 parts calcium to 8 parts of phosphorus?
If that is right it makes more sense.
when I wrote ph I intended phosphorus not ph as in acid/alkaline level.
thank you.
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Sunday, Jan 17, 2010 - 4:46 pm:
Ohh that makes more sense, how dense of me.
You would be right, the relative percentages by weight would also be the relative proportion of the two nutrients.
DrO
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