By: Sam Potter (BSc(Hons), MPhilVSc (Equine Nutrition)

Kikuyu is one of the common grass species found in horse pastures. It contains a compound called oxalate which binds most calcium found in the plant, making it unavailable for digestion by the horse when they eat it. This means that additional calcium needs to be provided elsewhere in the diet to meet your horse’s requirement. 

Other grasses which also contain notable amounts of oxalates including species of couch, paspalum, buffel, carpet, digit, pangola, panic and setaria grass.

Digestive EQ does contain a highly bio-available source of calcium, however it is not intended to be used as a supplement for meeting the increased calcium requirement (to balance the calcium to oxalate ratio) for horses grazing high oxalate grass species.

The amount of calcium supplementation required will depend on each individual situation and needs to consider the time your horse spends grazing, height of the pasture, your horse's age, weight and workload plus what other ingredients already form your horse's diet. 

We recommend using Poseidon Equine’s Feed assist program, FeedXL or an independent nutritionist to help you calculate your horse's calcium requirement and to assess if their diet is meeting these needs.

You might just find that with the inclusion of Digestive EQ in the diet, enough calcium is being supplied but in some cases extra calcium supplementation may be required in addition to Digestive EQ.