Dr Nerida Richards, PhD
FeedXL Pty Ltd
FeedXL is a combination of NRC nutrient requirements and customised nutrient requirements based on our own research as well as information taken from the most recent and comprehensive text on equine nutrition, ‘Equine Applied and Clinical Nutrition’1
In brief, digestible energy is always determined as per NRC requirements as we could find no evidence to support adjusting it from the levels determined by NRC. In practice, DE requirement for an individual horse is an estimate. Many factors, including climate, level of natural exercise the horse undertakes and the actual diet and how efficiently or inefficiently it is digested will impact a horse’s actual DE requirement.
Crude protein and lysine are set as per NRC for pregnant & lactating mares, spelling and lightly worked horses and growing horses. But we slightly elevate both crude protein and lysine requirements for horses in moderate to heavy work as well as breeding stallions. We are perhaps a little conservative on protein and lysine but also see good evidence in practice to show that when crude protein and lysine requirements are met using high quality protein sources we are able to support pregnancy and lactation without the loss of muscle in broodmares and we get well grown and developed yearlings and 2 year olds, allowing us to conclude that the NRC requirements where used are adequate… provided the underlying diet is well formulated.
Calcium and phosphorus requirements are elevated across the board above NRC requirements and are closely aligned with the requirements set by Prof Pat Harris1
Copper, zinc and manganese are similarly elevated across the board from NRC with the exception of spelling horses that are calculated as per NRC requirements. The largest elevations are seen in the growing horse and pregnant mare diets in an attempt to reduce the risk of developmental orthopaedic diseases like OCD.
Selenium is elevated above the NRC requirement. The NRC state that their recommended daily intake for selenium is the level required to prevent classic deficiency symptoms and that more is potentially useful to maintain more optimal immune function. Thus FeedXL uses an elevated selenium requirement that aligns closely with Geor et al1.
FeedXL follows the NRC recommended daily intake for iodine for all classes of horses.
Iron follows the NRC recommended daily intakes for all horses except those in moderate, heavy and very heavy work where requirement is elevated to account for iron lost in sweat.
Sodium, chloride and magnesium largely follow the NRC requirements. There are some small variations, with growing horses sodium requirements being slightly higher than NRC and magnesium being higher for pregnant and lactating mares.
Potassium requirements are higher than NRC across the board but this was more from a practical ‘user interpretation’ standpoint in FeedXL. Because forages are so high in potassium, if we used the NRC recommended daily intake for potassium, we would see several hundred times the required amount in diets and this was worrying for our FeedXL users. Because potassium is so safe we have elevated the requirement to reduce the amount of worry for people analysing diets. In 20 years of formulating diets I have not seen a potassium deficiency, even with our elevated requirement, nor is it necessary in all but very unusual cases to add potassium to diets.
Very little is actually known about vitamin A requirements in horses. In FeedXL, Vitamin A requirements are guided by Geor et al with Vitamin A elevated across the board from NRC requirements. Likewise vitamin E levels follow a similar trend.
Vitamins D, B1 and B2 are as per NRC requirements.
Vitamins B5, B6, niacin and folic acid are calculated based on small amounts of research in horses as well as humans, rats and pigs. The recommendations for these vitamins are relatively conservative because there are no established NRC equine requirements, but they serve to ensure diets are meeting what we estimate to be the likely dietary requirement for horses.
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
Let’s take a look at two common mistakes horse owners make:
Underfeeding, which can lead to health and performance issues because certain nutrients are not being met.
And,
Overfeeding, where you are supplying more than you need of multiple nutrients. At best, overfeeding is a WASTE OF MONEY! At worst, it will cause nutrient toxicity and can make your horse very sick!
One of the most important reasons you use a tool like FeedXL is to identify and correct nutrient deficiencies in the diet that result from ‘underfeeding’.
Common mineral deficiencies include copper, zinc, selenium and iodine while common vitamin deficiencies include vitamin E and vitamin B1.
These deficiencies can have pretty dramatic long-term consequences for your horse including slow wound repair, gastrointestinal damage, poor immune response, hooves and joints that fall apart, muscle damage, especially during exercise, poor behaviour, muscle wastage and weight loss.
If the deficiencies are severe, diseases like severe neuromuscular disorders can occur.
It’s REALLY important to meet your horse’s needs for all of these nutrients! So we are really glad you are here.
Your first task with FeedXL should be to assess your horse’s current diet.
To do this, simply enter you horse with as accurate information as possible.
Once your horse is entered, choose or enter your pasture or free choice hay (and if you get stuck at this step be sure to jump on live chat and ask us for help!).
Then, enter your horse’s feeds and supplements as accurately as possible… we highly recommend grabbing yourself a small set of scales to weigh any feeds and supplements. Plus a set of luggage scales to weigh your hay!
Next, you go to the results page and here you will see which of your horse’s requirements are met and which are not!
And at this point it is interesting to ponder whether any issues you may have been having with your horse are due to any of the deficiencies you may have found.
You might also like to head over to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group and discuss what you found with your fellow members!
First, if you are underfeeding, you can try increasing the amounts of the feeds or supplements you are already using in the diet. If you increase them, does this fill all the gaps in your horse’s diet?
(Just keep in mind if you increase a feed too much you may just make your horse fat, which means this isn’t a good option… what works in this situation? It’s best to add a supplement or balancer pellet). And you can also watch here as I go through a diet for ‘Ash’ that uses two feeds and yet requirements are still not met.
It is so worth the effort to find these deficiencies in your horse’s diet because they could explain a lot about your horse’s health, appearance and behaviour!
Next, let’s look at overfeeding…
Overfeeding is where you are supplying more than you need of multiple nutrients.
It usually happens when you add supplements on top of feeds on top of supplements! It’s how we feed when we are ‘unsure’ if we are giving our horses everything they need!
At best, overfeeding is a WASTE OF MONEY!
At worst, it will cause nutrient toxicity and can make your horse very sick!
So in the same process as we went through yesterday, if you haven’t already, enter your horse’s current diet and look for any nutrient excesses. (Log in here or sign up if you’re not yet a member).
Are you feeding well above what your horse needs for some nutrients, are there any nutrient toxicities, could you reduce some of the feed or supplement amounts to reduce these excesses?
If you are not sure where it is best to have some nutrient levels and what is ‘normal’ (because you will never get a diet where everything sits at 100%), I highly recommend reading this article: ‘Do you need to get every nutrient to 100% on the FeedXL graph?‘.
And you can watch here as I am able to completely remove one supplement and reduce another by 25% in ‘Smarty’s’ diet.
One of the most common pieces of feedback we get from our members centres around saving money by not overfeeding.
If you are overfeeding, try reducing the amount of the feeds and/or supplements in the diet. If you decrease them, can you bring the levels of nutrients down to where they should be (and again if you’re not sure, refer to ‘Do you need to get every nutrient to 100% on the FeedXL graph?‘) WITHOUT creating any nutrient deficiencies.
If neither of those options work, you can try a couple of things.
You could add another feed or supplement on top of the ones you already have to fill in the gaps.
In some cases this is a good option. For example, your diet may be a little low on vitamin E… it is very easy to just add a vitamin E supplement (you can find these in the blue ‘Balancers and Supplements’ tab under ‘Antioxidants’).
But in a lot of cases adding a second feed or supplement may not be the best option.
For example if you are already using a vitamin & mineral supplement but still have deficiencies in the diet, it is a waste of money using this ‘unbalanced supplement’ and fixing it with still more supplements.
If this is your situation, I would suggest taking the unbalanced supplement OUT of the diet and completely and replacing it with a more balanced one, so that you can use one product.
It’s just a matter of finding the perfect supplement to balance your horse’s diet!
By far the easiest way to do this is by using our ‘Find Supplements to Fix this Diet’ button. When you click this button, FeedXL will sort through EVERY ONE of the thousands of supplements in its database and find the best ones to fit your horse’s diet.
Check out how the supplement finder works here.
It is so worth doing the work on your horse’s diet, because you can improve your horse’s health, appearance and performance PLUS save yourself some money.
Go spend some time seeing if you can reduce or even remove some products from your horse’s diet and still keep it balanced!
Note: If you are still on the BASIC plan in FeedXL you will discover that this feature is not available on our Basic plan… so, you can either upgrade for access to the supplement finder (definitely your best option as these tools supercharge how useful and easy to use FeedXL is!)
OR you can head over to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group and ask your fellow members for recommendations for supplements are that have balanced diets similar to yours.
Be sure to give them some basic details of your horse and diet (screen shots from FeedXL work well) AND also your location in the world so the recommendations are relevant 😊
If you are using a feed that is not balanced the same process applies, you can use the ‘Find Feeds to Fix this Diet’ button (check it out here) OR you can ask for recommendations from your fellow members!
And remember if you are really stuck we are here to help! For quick questions you can catch us via email (support@feedxl.com) or live chat (look for the icon in the bottom right of FeedXL when you are logged in).
If you’d like more detailed help, you can book a one-on-one consult with one of our team of nutritionists!
This may sound and feel a bit overwhelming, but just take your time, ask us lots of questions when you need to and lean on your fellow members and we will have you balancing diets superfast in no time!!
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
Forage is the Single. Most. Important component of your horse’s diet… for a whole bunch of reasons!
So it’s REALLY important to have ENOUGH forage in your horse’s diet and it’s also a wonderful idea to have a VARIETY of forage in the diet.
Here’s what that will look like:
So be sure to meet the minimum daily forage requirement!
Then my very best advice is, don’t stop there!
The more forage you can get into your horse’s diet, the better!
So here is a tip… in FeedXL, enter all of your horse’s forages, pasture, hay, chaff, forage cubes or pellets, haylage… anything that is considered forage!
Then go to the results and look at your horse’s ‘Total Daily Feed Intake’ amounts. Is it at 100%? Or is it less than 100%?
If it is at 100% or above (extra stars for above!), look at your horse’s nutrient graph, looking specifically at the Digestible energy level. Is it between 90 and 100%?
If it is, and ALL you have in the diet is FORAGE this means forage can be used to meet 100% of your horse’s daily Digestible Energy (calorie) requirements and you are unlikely to need a feed!
(You will however still need to add a supplement to top up mineral and some vitamin levels and may need to add some high quality protein – more on this here.)
This high forage diet, especially if it contains a variety of forage, is the closest diet you can get to a horse’s natural diet and will be the best in terms of gut and overall health for them!
If your horse’s energy is too low (less than 90% OR your horse is currently losing weight on an all forage diet) then you will need to add some higher energy ingredients to the diet. But keep in mind that you still want to keep as much forage in the diet as you possibly can!
Some suggestions for higher energy ingredients include sugarbeet pulp, copra meal, lupins, lupin hulls, higher energy forages like alfalfa/lucerne, oils and if they are safe for your horse, oats or other cereals (like corn/maize or barley) AS LONG AS THE GRAINS ARE COOKED!
The trick is to add as little of these ingredients as possible in FeedXL to meet that digestible energy requirement so you keep as much of your forage in the diet as possible!
So keep adding small amounts of your chosen high energy ingredients and keep checking your results to see when you have added enough energy.
If your horse is on free choice pasture or hay you will notice that as you add a new ingredient your horse’s pasture or free choice hay intake will go down as you ad other ingredients.
For example if your horse’s free choice forage intake is 10 kg/day…
And then you add 0.5 kg/day of oats, free choice forage will go down to 9.5 kg/day…
Because your horse only has so much room in its gut for feed each day. So as you increase in this example, oats in the diet, your free choice forage intake is reduced proportionally.
Really hope that all helps! If you remember lots of forage PLUS a variety of forage your horse is going to be so far ahead in term of health and nutrition!
If you have read this far, kudos to you!
Big thanks for being here and remember if you have questions, just ask!
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
One of the pitfalls of feeding your horses without actually calculating what you are feeding is paranoia that maybe your horse isn’t getting enough of the most important nutrients. That maybe he is missing something and this is going to cause problems, or make him sick!
As a horse owner I am sure you experience this feeling of ‘maybe I should just add a little bit more…’ or ‘maybe I should add that supplement I was told about because it sounds important, I meet those requirements…’ or ‘I’ll just add this, and this (and this) and even this just to be sure I am covering everything!..’.
Problem is, feeding like that still doesn’t ensure you actually meet requirements. AND it is So. Very. Expensive!
This is where FeedXL comes in… when you can feed with certainty because you know what you are feeding is meeting requirements you no longer need to add extras as a ‘just in case insurance’. With FeedXL you can see which requirements are met, and which may not be and adjust your diet accordingly.
This diet, for a mare named Smarty is the perfect example of this. Smarty’s owner has done a great job of putting together a diet that meet’s all of her requirements, but watch as I am able to completely remove one supplement PLUS reduce another supplement by 25%. Meaning every 4 days now she gets essentially a FREE dose… or put another way her supplement bucket will last 25% longer and cost her 25% less!
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
You have spent time researching feeds and found 2 you really like. You have carefully monitored your horse’s body condition and are only feeding enough of these feeds to maintain good bodyweight. You are feeding a largely forage based diet.
You are doing everything right!.. Except.
The small amount of feed being fed is not enough to cover your horse’s vitamin and mineral requirements… which will eventually result in hoof, joint, performance, immune function and general health issues! Problem is, you won’t see that until something big happens.
This is the problem with vitamin and mineral deficiencies. You can’t see them until all of a sudden the really blow up in your face! Hooves fall apart. Joints break down. The immune system becomes so compromised that it can’t mount an effective immune response to a simple disease challenge. Performance suffers. Infertility shows up.
Watch as I walk through Ash’s diet here. Ash has a lovely diet. Except… it doesn’t meet requirements. So we switch out two feeds for one balancer pellet. And now we meet all requirements with less feed!
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
Forage based diets are THE best! There are so many reasons why, if you can, you should feed diets that are close to 100% forage. BUT, forage only is not enough. 95% + of the forages I see analysed don’t contain enough of one to several minerals to meet a horse’s requirement.
Plus for horses in heavy work, lactating mares and young, growing horses forages often do not contain enough calories or protein to properly meet requirements.
And this is exactly what is happening here. Watch as I run through an 18-month-old filly’s diet. Her owner plans to feed a variety of hays, which is PERFECT! But the hay alone is not able to support correct growth and development.
We use FeedXL to have a look at a couple of feed options that will fill in all the diet gaps left by the hay!
Simple, just one feed.
Cost-effective, it’s not multiple feeds and supplements.
Balanced, with the right nutrition the filly will grow and develop correctly, hopefully with bones and joints that remain sound for her lifetime!
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
Looking from the outside, most of us as horse owners are pretty good at knowing how much feed our horse needs. We can see weight change which gives us a visual clue that the horse is not being fed enough (resulting in weight loss), or too much (resulting in weight gain).
What we can’t see are vitamin and mineral deficiencies. And the problem is, these often won’t show up as something we can see until they result in disaster… hooves falling apart, joints breaking down, an immune system so compromised that it can’t mount an effective immune response to a simple disease challenge.
Here is a classic example of a diet where the horse’s owner has done a truly great job in putting together a forage based diet with just enough of a single feed to maintain excellent condition! BUT the small amount of feed is not enough to meet the horse’s basic vitamin and mineral requirements.
Check the video out as I walk you through Lacey’s diet, which perfectly demonstrates what is happening in so many horse’s diets.
The good news is, with just a little bit of time spent in FeedXL and the addition of a single supplement, Lacey’s diet can be fully balanced to keep her healthy and happy in the long term!
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
If you can, you should just feed your horse forage. Pasture, hay, haylage, chaff, forage cubes.
Forage is the most natural source of calories and protein for your horse. And it does the best job of keeping your horse’s gut and its bacteria and fungi (the microbiome) functioning as it should.
We know, from mounting research, that keeping all the microbiome critters happy is a HUGE key to keeping our horses healthy.
Many horses (my own included) do really well on a forage only diet. Mine get their pasture, a small amount of alfalfa (lucerne hay) and some grass hay when the pasture is lush (to keep up their fibre intake). Even when they are working pretty hard this is enough to maintain their condition. They don’t need a feed.
BUT, just forage is not enough!
‘What!?’ you say? But you just said feed only forage?!
Yep, I did. But here’s the thing…
Forage only diets, in 95%+ cases, are not enough to meet a horse’s mineral requirements. And depending on the quality of your forage or the age of your hay, it probably won’t meet vitamin requirements either!
So my horses maintain their weight just on pasture and hay. BUT, they would be severely deficient in copper, zinc, manganese, selenium, iodine and sodium all year round. Then depending on the season (like the 3 years of drought we had between 2017 and 2020), they would also be low on vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin B1.
Horses that are low in these nutrients will eventually start to have issues with joint and hoof health, immune function, energy generation and muscle damage during exercise. And the problem is, you often won’t see a problem until something goes really wrong!
So you really must top these nutrients up using a supplement or balancer pellet.
Let me show you how this looks in FeedXL for my horses on our pasture:
So forage only diets are brilliant! But please, to keep your horse healthy and strong, be sure to top up the nutrients that are commonly missing from forage only diets!
And if you want a really easy way to check what your horse’s diet might be missing, let FeedXL show you. FeedXL is completely unbiased and won’t ever push you to buy a feed or supplement product. It simply works out what your horse needs. Adds up what is in the diet and then shows you if his nutrient requirements are met.
Then YOU can pick whatever product you like from any company you choose to fill the gaps! It is simple, accurate and great insurance for your horse’s long-term health!
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
Hay slow feeders come in many sizes and designs. The principle behind them is to a) reduce waste, and b) slow intake of hay.
Our FeedXL members occasionally ask, “how do I take into account the use of a slow feeder?” The simple answer is you probably don’t need to. While slow feeders are a fantastic tool for slowing the intake of hay, they generally don’t limit your horse’s daily intake of hay i.e. it just takes them longer to eat the same amount of hay. This has several benefits including maximising the time your horse spends eating (mimicking grazing behaviour) to prevent boredom and reduce the risk of developing gastric ulcers.
To enter the amount of hay your horse is eating from a slow feeder each day into FeedXL, just weigh the hay you are putting in the slow feeder and enter this amount in FeedXL
If you’re wanting to reduce the intake of hay for weight control, you ideally need to feed a set (restricted) amount in your horse’s slow feeders per day (rather than free access to a round bale or similar). While a slow feeder will be beneficial in reducing the time taken to eat the restricted amount of hay, keep in mind that you may need to still divide the hay into more than 2 feedings per day.
To get a gauge on how regularly you need to top up your slow feeders, spend a day or two observing your horse’s hay intake (from the slow feeder) and take note of how long it takes them to finish the hay. Ideally, you don’t want your horses going longer than 4 to 5 hours without eating.
P.S. If you want to use a slow feeder but you can’t use anything with a net because your horse has shoes, check out The Savvy Feeder, we think they are brilliant!
We would love to welcome you to our FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group. Ask questions and have them answered by PhD and Masters qualified equine nutritionists and spend time with like-minded horse owners. It’s free!
Click here to join the FeedXL Horse Nutrition Facebook Group
