Chapter 1

Soil Deficiencies, Causes and Results

My adopted Australia is a country, like the Texas Panhandle and parts of Wales, where there are serious, naturally inherent soil deficiencies. Calcium and magnesium are the minerals most usually lost in these areas either due to millennia of leaching or from haphazard surface mining as has happened in Wales. Iodine is another victim of leaching, and all three — calcium, magnesium and iodine — are often in very short natural supply in these regions of the world.

Nowadays any country where modern chemical farming is practiced also suffers from induced deficiencies, due generally to the acidifying and inhibiting action of artificial manures and fertilizers. Soil erosion also plays a part in the reduction of important soil nutrients. In the horse world these deficiencies are particularly serious, and it does not seem to matter whether we are discussing the United States, the United Kingdom or Europe.

In the 1950s, tests were done over a fifteen-year period in the United Kingdom at the Haughley Experimental Centre by a soil scientist named Schuphan. He established that 28 percent of minerals and vitamins were missing from the finished farm product grown with the use of chemical farming. The research further showed that with organic farming all these essentials were available to the user of the crop, and it did not matter if the crop was grass, cereal or roots.

In Australia, as in many places in the United States, soil analyses from widely differing areas all show deficiencies in calcium and/or magnesium, and sulfur to a greater or lesser extent. On the other hand, the average soil analysis in New Zealand shows adequate levels in most of these minerals. This probably explains the excellence of many of the race horses that are reared in that country. Lack of calcium and/or magnesium are the major causes of leg and bone troubles as will be seen in later chapters. Shin soreness, for example, was not a problem in the racing industry thirty years ago. In fact, it was unheard of — at least in the United Kingdom where I worked.

Nature usually provides an answer, in this case it is dolomitic lime, or dolomite. There are a number of dolomite mines producing good grade material in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Dolomite is made up of calcium and magnesium, with the former in slightly higher proportion according to the area where the mineral was mined. However, other minerals, usually known as trace minerals, may also be deficient either inherently or where modern chemical farming methods have been practiced. These include boron, copper, cobalt, zinc and selenium. Iodine is not strictly a mineral, but is often missing — it can also be inhibited by heavy feeding of legumes, as will be shown later in this book.

On the other hand, sulfur is a casualty of modern farming. Normally this mineral would be adequately supplied in a horse's diet by bran or rolled wheat, of which it should be a natural component. Again, our technology has overrun itself; the use of triple superphosphate fertilizer and other toxic chemicals, which was done in wheat growing areas in an attempt to revitalize the soil, has, according to CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industry Research Organisation), made sulfur totally unavailable. Sulfur-deficient horses are inclined to suffer from exterior parasites and, according to the CSIRO Rural Research Bulletins and Dr. Richard A. Passwaters, without it they cannot assimilate their food fully. The latter emphasizes that the amino acids of sulfur are necessary for synthesizing selenium.

For these reasons, much of the feed which we buy for our horses is deficient in many, if not all, the necessary nutrients — and some of it is possibly actively harmful as well. For example, feed too high in iron means that all the vitamin E in the horse's system may be destroyed. Feed too high in salt means that potassium may suffer the same fate. Both vitamin E and potassium are absolutely essential for sound, healthy horses, particularly horses intended to be used for sustained activity like racing or eventing. A study of the soil analysis in Chapter 2, which is not an unusual example, will show that iron and sodium are often above the desired level or badly out of balance.

Another effect of an imbalance in soil nutrients is that an excess of one will lock up others, making them unavailable to the user. For example, excessively high phosphorus will lock up calcium and magnesium; the effects of too much iron and salt are explained above. Therefore, if the fodder is grown on soil that is badly out of mineral balance, it can, and often does lead to ill health in the animal that eats it.

There are many books on this subject for those who wish to learn more, but much of the information on this subject is only just beginning to be fully understood. For example, many so-called infectious diseases appear to be quite easily controlled by balancing the minerals in the horse's diet. In milking animals like cows and goats, mastitis may be avoided by ensuring that the beasts receive supplementary dolomite (dolomitic lime) and occasionally copper in their rations. Foot rot in cloven-hoofed animals can be virtually eliminated if they are receiving their full copper requirements (so can seedy toe in horses). When the animal is correctly supplemented, these infections just do not occur, even when there are predisposing factors. Sheep farmers who are feeding organic minerals report an amazing improvement in overall health, and almost complete absence of many so-called disease conditions that had previously plagued them, particularly worm problems.

Unfortunately, soil deficiencies appear to be increasing. Selenium deficiencies were fairly rare fifteen years ago, now many new areas lacking in the mineral are being discovered. Again the cause seems to lie in the overuse of acidifying chemical or artificial fertilizers which have locked up sulfur so the stock cannot use the available selenium anyway.

Pat Coleby's Natural Cures for Top-10 Horse Ailments

Chapter 1, "Soil Deficiencies"

Chapter 3, "Improving and Maintaining Pastures"

Chapter 6, "Non-Invasive & Natural Remedies with Notes on Drugs"

Click here for high-resolution cover scan for reproduction

Return to Pat Coleby PR home page