FeedXL Newsletters
#25: Bighead
Bighead is a disease resulting from long term calcium deficiency in the diet. Bighead has severe effects on your horse, making movement painful and lameness a constant issue. Luckily though, it is a condition that is easily avoided by carefully balancing your horse's diet.
#24: Identifying Pastures - Part 1
Part 1: Ryegrass and Tall Fescue
Pasture is an ideal feed base for any horse's diet. It is an economical feed ingredient that provides an excellent source of energy, protein, vitamins and some minerals. Added to this is the benefit of the physical and mental stimulation grazing provides. Horses are born to graze.
However, some pastures can cause serious problems for horses. In Part 1 of this series, we will look at pasture plants that can cause endophyte toxicity. The two most common pasture species that can lead to endophyte toxicity are ryegrass and tall fescue.
#23: Feeding Horses That Tie Up
Tying up is a painful condition for a horse and a frustrating one for you as an owner. Symptoms can range from severe muscle pain and distress, apparent colic, excessive sweating, elevated heart and respiration rates, a stiff gait, muscle tremors and a reluctance to move to more mild and elusive symptoms that just involve the horse feeling stiff, lazy or slightly lame.
Whether your horse suffers with severe tying up or a mild form, it will limit your horse's performance and sense of well being, so the more you do to reduce the frequency and severity of bouts of tying up, the better your horse's performance and health will be.
#22: Feeding Flaxseed
Flaxseed (also known as linseed) is a valued feed ingredient amongst horse people. How it should be used has long been the subject of considerable debate. Its safety for horses has always been under question and methods of preparation are many and varied. This FeedXL newsletter looks at what flaxseed can add to your horse's diet, if it is safe to feed and how it can be prepared for feeding.
#21: Feeding for Behaviour
There is nothing quite as unnerving or unenjoyable as riding a horse that is completely full of itself and constantly reacting before thinking. On a more subtle level a horse that won't concentrate or continually overreacts to aids is frustrating. While education plays a major role in determining a horse's behaviour under saddle, feeding can also have an impact. What you feed, how much you feed and when you feed it can make a big difference. Here are some tips for feeding to assist your horse to maintain a calm and responsive attitude under saddle.
#20: Seaweed - Miracle Supplement or Massive Con?
There has been much debate about the potential benefits to be gained from feeding seaweed to horses. On one side, we have seaweed being reported as a multifunctional supplement that will act as an anthelmintic, antacid, immuno-stimulator, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, anti-ulcer, heavy metal scavenger, fertility enhancer, nerve calmer, thyroid stimulator and skin and coat conditioner. From the other side, seaweed is called nothing more than a con, containing potentially dangerous levels of iodine and precious little of anything else. So who is right, and is there any middle ground to be sought in this argument?
#19: Feeding Pregnant Mares
Pregnant mares carry your hopes and dreams, be it for the next big champion or just a quiet riding companion. Regardless of what you are breeding, good care of the mare during her various stages of pregnancy has long term impacts on both her and her foal's long term health and athletic capacity. Here are some tips for keeping mares healthy and breeding sound, strong and athletic foals.
#18: Feed Cooked Grains
While a lot of time is spent focussed on horses that can't eat grain in their diet, cereal grains such as oats, barley, triticale, corn, rice, rye, sorghum and wheat form a valuable component of many horse's rations. Selecting the most digestible grain based feed however can be confusing, with uncooked grains like whole, cracked and crushed grains being available as well as cooked grains like extruded, micronized, steam rolled or steam flaked and pelleted grains.
The question is, which form is best for your horse, the cooked or uncooked grains?
#17: Feeding After Exercise
When horses exercise they burn up stored energy supplies, damaging muscle tissue and losing water and electrolytes via sweat. After exercise it is important to replenish these energy, water and electrolyte stores and provide protein for muscle repair. Failure to do so can result in reduced performance, muscle wastage and slow recovery times. What you feed, how you feed it and when it is fed all play a role in determining how effectively you replace what your horse uses during moderate to high intensity exercise and how quickly they will recover.
#16: Feeding Before Exercise
The question of whether you should feed a horse before exercise is one that is commonly asked. Most of us were told over and over again by our parents not to swim for 30 minutes after eating or we would get a muscle cramp, so we generally tend to think that eating before exercise is not a wise thing to do. But is this the case for horses? The answer is yes and no...
#15: Keeping the Hindgut Healthy
Like humans, horses are classified as monogastrics, however unlike humans, horses have a highly specialized and enlarged caecum and colon, collectively known as the 'hindgut'.
In this newsletter we investigate the role the hindgut plays in maintaining overall health, what the implications are for an unhealthy hindgut and how you can keep your horse's hindgut healthy.
#14: Feeding the Oldies
There is little more precious than the old horse around the place. These oldies are often the dependable horses that look after a novice rider or give a young horse some confidence when out on the trails. Because they are so valuable and literally have a lifetime of experience under their 'girth', we want to do our best to keep them around as long as possible. While good veterinary, farrier and dental care are important for maintaining the long term health of your geriatrics, their health care should always be based on a solid foundation of good nutrition.
As horses age they go through several physiological changes that affect how and what you should feed to keep them as healthy as possible. Detailed below are four of the most important of these changes and how you can best manage them from a feeding and nutrition perspective.
#13: Keeping them Eating
There is nothing more frustrating or worrying than a horse that won't eat. Horses go off their feed for a variety of reasons which can include illness, unpalatable feeds or gastrointestinal disturbances such as hindgut acidosis. Thankfully though, there are some things you can do to get a horse eating again. Here are some useful tips for maintaining appetite.
#12: Feeding the Laminitic Horse
Laminitis can be time consuming, painful for your horse and heartbreaking for you. A proper diet can make it a whole lot easier.
Low sugar is vital (we could get all very technical here and call sugars non‐structural carbohydrates, water soluble carbohydrates, starches, ether soluble carbohydrates or non‐fiber carbohydrates, but let's just keep it simple and say 'sugar'). Sugar results in high blood insulin after eating and is believed to be the major cause of laminitis and certainly most cases of grass or pasture laminitis. Good quality protein is important for aiding in hoof tissue repair and meeting requirements for vitamins and minerals is also a must.
#11: Feeding the Easy Keeper
The mistake a lot of us make with an overweight horse is just thinking that we shouldn't feed it very much at all, and generally feed it a very low quality diet (straw for example) or lock it up so it can't eat much at all. The problem with doing this is that while you will do a good job of restricting calories and causing weight loss, you will also be severely restricting protein, vitamin and mineral intakes, and in doing that, you are going to cause more health problems than you can imagine.
#10: Alfalfa (Lucerne) Hay - Friend or Foe?
Known as lucerne in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, alfalfa hay enjoys a varied reputation amongst horse people, with some using it as a highly valued component of their horse's diet and others avoiding it with almost religious fervour. So, who is right? Is alfalfa hay a suitable forage for horses? Or are there other more suitable forages? The answer is yes, and yes. Alfalfa hay is a valuable forage for horses when fed to the right classes of horses and in the correct amounts for its full benefit to be realized. The following article looks at the nutrients contained in alfalfa hay and its many and varied uses in the horse industry.
#9: Choosing a Feeding Method
Complete Feeds, Concentrates/Balancer Pellets and Supplements—Choosing how to feed
While there are many commercial feed and supplement options available, they can be classified into 3 broad categories; complete feeds, concentrates/balancer pellets and supplements. Depending on your own personal preferences you can use one or a combination of these options to put together a diet for your horse.
This article will take a look at what the 3 options are, how they should be used and the advantages and disadvantages of each one.
#8: Avoiding Gastric Ulcers
Equine Gastric Ulcers: Using feeding management to reduce their incidence and severity
Equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS) is a major equine health problem worldwide. Some studies have reported an incidence of ulcers in performance horses in excess of 90% of horses training. A more recent study conducted in Western Australia found 53% of horses had ulcers.
#7: Feeding Horses in Winter
Winter can be a tricky time of year for feeding horses, especially if you have older horses or horses that lose weight easily. Feeding the right diet during winter will help keep your horses healthy and in good body condition. Here are some tips on how you can do it:
#6: Feeding for Weight Gain
7 Simple steps for putting weight on your horse
While many of us struggle to keep weight off our horses (and ourselves!) it seems a large number of horse owners have equal trouble when it comes to putting weight on their horses. Putting weight on, and keeping weight on a horse that is a "hard keeper" can sometimes be a frustrating task for the horse's owner. But, it needn't be a difficult thing to do.
#5: Building Topline
It doesn't matter which equine discipline you are involved in, building and maintaining a strong topline on your horse is important. Strong toplines attract judges or buyers and also help ensure the horse's back remains strong and healthy.
While work and correct muscle conditioning play a huge role in developing and maintaining topline, nutrition plays an equally important role. To build topline you need to provide the right nutrients. Here are some tips on feeding for topline.
#4: Feeding for a Brilliant Coat Shine
There is nothing more pleasing to a horse owner's eye than a brilliant, shiny coat. And aside from looking great, a shiny coat also indicates the horse is healthy inside and out. Question is, how do you make your horse shine? It is really quite easy if you follow these simple steps.
#3: Bodyweight Estimation - Which Method is Best?
Bodyweight estimation—which method is best?
Having an accurate bodyweight for your horse is critical when formulating your horse's diet. Overestimating your horse's bodyweight may mean you feed too much, resulting in weight gain and wasted money on feed that is surplus to your horse's needs. Underestimating could result in underfeeding your horse, possibly causing weight loss and nutrient deficiencies.
#2: Biotin - Should you Supplement?
Biotin is a vitamin essential for many functions in a horse's body, including: fatty acid synthesis, protein and energy metabolism and cell proliferation.
The question is, how do you know how much to feed your horse?
In equine nutrition biotin is best known and most commonly used to positively influence hoof quality. There are many biotin supplements available. Some contain only biotin, others also have nutrients like methionine and organic zinc. These supplements are marketed as hoof supplements and the one thing they usually have in common is they are expensive. The question is, does your horse actually need supplemental biotin?
#1: Why Body Condition Score?
How much should you feed your horse?
Feeding your horse the right amount of feed is important to:
- Prevent unwanted weight loss or weight gain
- Prevent diseases like colic and gastric ulcers
- Prevent unruly, uncontrolled behaviour when being ridden
The question is, how do you know how much to feed your horse?
The first golden rule of horse feeding is always feed your horse a minimum of 1% of its bodyweight per day of forage. So for a 500 kg horse, the absolute minimum amount of hay, pasture and chaff it should have access to per day is 5kg. Your horse should preferably be fed around 2% of its bodyweight per day as forage. Feeding this amount of forage will keep your horse's gut healthy, keep your horse happy and help prevent colic and gastric ulcers.
The question then is, is this amount of forage enough to maintain your horse's bodyweight? The only way you can answer this question is by regularly condition scoring your horse. Condition scoring is a practice used to determine the amount of body fat your horse is carrying and will give you an indication over time whether your horse is gaining, holding or losing weight. This in turn helps to fine tune your horse's diet.