Manganese
What it does
Manganese acts as a helper to numerous enzymes involved in mineral and fat metabolism and is needed when cartilage is built — that is, where joints are meant to stay resilient. Immune defence uses it too.
Why it matters
In a normal ration this item is quietly met. It still belongs in the calculation — what gets checked is not only what is missing, but also what is already covered.
When it becomes critical
Undersupply is barely described in horses. The other end is more noticeable: very high manganese contents in green forage can interfere with iron uptake.
How much a horse needs
Maintenance comes to 420 mg a day for a 500 kg horse, or roughly 40 mg in every kilogram of dry matter — a level forage normally reaches on its own.
A trace element for building cartilage and bone and for carbohydrate metabolism.
Cited values
| Type | Value | Unit / context |
|---|---|---|
| Requirement | 4 | mg per kg BM^0.75 per day (maintenance; at 500 kg around 423 mg/day, equivalent to 40 mg per kg feed DM) |
| Requirement | 38.4 | mg/kg feed DM (maintenance) |
| Toxic from | 400 | mg/kg feed DM |
Careful when comparing: the requirement is given **per day**, the upper limit **per kilogram of feed dry matter**. These are different reference bases and cannot be compared directly. The upper limit is also not a target — it is the amount at which harm begins.
Interactions
- Manganese ↔ Phosphorus
- Manganese ↔ Phytic acid