ONE-ON-ONE NUTRITION SUPPORT
NEED HELP WITH A TRICKY NUTRITION CASE? OR WOULD YOU LIKE HELP WITH PUTTING YOUR DIETS TOGETHER IN FEEDXL?
Our nutrition and customer support team is happy to offer one-one-one support to help you with sorting out the nutrition for your horse.
If you have a horse that…
- Has laminitis
- Ties up
- Has Gastric ulcers
- Won’t gain weight
- Won’t lose weight
- Is hyperactive
- Has or is at risk of bighead disease
- Has something going on with his health that you can’t put your finger on.
- Has any problem you think might be related to nutrition
Or if you are just plain confused with all the options and opinions and information
We can help!
And while we are helping with nutrition, we can also show you how to use all of the features of FeedXL! Sound good?
Let’s get started!
(Note: You must be an active member of FeedXL to access this service. Not a member? Click here to join right now!)
How This Works
- Submit the form above to let us know who you would like to work with and how many sessions you would like.
- We will send you a PayPal invoice.
- On payment of the invoice, you will receive a calendar invite to choose a time that works for you for the consult.
- We will also send you a ‘background information’ sheet for you to fill in to give us as much detail as possible so we can make best use of our time. This also lets our team discuss any particularly difficult cases. This is not essential, but it is recommended.
- At the time of your consult, we will contact you via your chosen method (we recommend choosing Zoom).
- During the consult we will log-in to your own FeedXL account and make any diet changes directly in your account. We will rely on you to take notes during our session as we can’t offer follow up reporting at this stage.
- If you need additional assistance, we will ask you to book another consult session.
MEET OUR NUTRITIONISTS
WE’RE ON A MISSION TO HELP YOU FEED YOUR HORSE BETTER. SAFER. SMARTER.
Dr Nerida Richards B Rur. Sc (Hon1) PhD RAnNutr
Nerida graduated from the University of New England with a degree in Rural Science in 1999 and a PhD in Equine Nutrition in 2004. Nerida is a registered animal nutritionist (equine) with the Nutrition Society of Australia.
Nerida founded Equilize Horse Nutrition in 2003 and has been working as a consulting equine nutritionist ever since, providing high level technical support to feed and supplement companies in Australia, Japan, USA and Europe.
The last 16 years has seen Nerida work with more than 30 companies, focusing on product development, education, research and on-farm support. Nerida also developed and commercialised FeedXL and has led the FeedXL team since 2006 to bring a science based, yet practical method of assessing equine rations to the horse industries of the world!
A true country girl at heart, Nerida has always had a love of horses, a passion for agriculture and a zeal for and natural understanding of nutrition. In her typical style of combining credible science with practical knowledge and a bunch of props she stole from her kids, Nerida shares her knowledge in a way that is easy to understand and simple to put into practice to improve the health and performance of your own horses.
While Nerida covers all areas of equine nutrition, her particular areas of interest are in gut health, laminitis, safe feeding of high energy feeds (particularly cereal grains), nitrate toxicity, managing large breeding farms, growing horse nutrition, pasture nutrition, bighead disease, mycotoxins and feeding the performance horse.
Eira Ney MSC
Eira graduated from the University of Helsinki, Finland and holds both Bachelor ́s and Master ́s degree in Animal Nutrition from the department of Animal Sciences. She has deepened her knowledge on equines doing additional studies in Netherlands, at the University of Wageningen and in the United States, at the University of California, Davis. She wrote her Master’s Thesis on how horses diets starch concentration, starch intake and NDF concentrations effects on hindgut fermentation (Meta-analysis, 2016). Currently she lives in Northern California with her husband and 1.5-year-old son Jasper.
Eira grew up on a small Finnish dairy farm that also had senior horses. Working dailyon the farm and with the horses gradually led her to her passion for equine nutrition. She is fascinated by the function and mechanisms of this amazing hindgutfermenting system that we are trying to comprehend.
“As we have domesticated horses, we have taken them to an environment that doesn’t necessarily support their natural eating behavior hence it doesn’t stimulate the gastrointestinal tract in the designed way. Luckily, as we learn more and gain knowledge, we have been able to change our management styles and design ways for horses to be more comfortable and stimulate those natural eating habits.”
If you were to ask Eira what are her favorite aspects in equine nutrition, she would definitely say gastrointestinal structure and function as well as feeding management
Tarsha Walsh B.LSc(Hon)
Tarsha Walsh is a world renowned endurance horse nutritionist. From growing up with horses she studied Livestock Science specialising in Equine Nutrition at UNE. Tarsha did her honours in NSC content of commercial horse feeds in Australia. After graduating Tarsha went to Kentucky USA, to continue some studies with Kentucky Equine Research Centre and assisted the Australian WEG team in 2010 with feeding and quarantining their horses.
Tarsha has since relocated to Abu Dhabi with her husband and 3 children Koby, Cheyse and Macey where she works at a private endurance horse stable. For the past 7 years Tarsha has managed the feeding of 400+ horses on a daily basis covering all aspects of performance horse nutrition, pre race, during race and recovery periods.
Over the time feeding so many horses Tarsha has gained invaluable experience in all aspects of horse nutrition her passion is to ensure horses are fed correctly in order to maintain gut health to optimise their individual performance. Tarsha’s work covers all aspect of blood works, heart rate monitoring, Body condition scoring and performance evaluation.
Nikita Stowers MSC
Nikita is an independent Equine Nutritionist based in the Waikato, New Zealand. She has one horse of her own currently as well as a pet donkey who is a great but naughty paddock mate! She obtained both her undergraduate and Masters degrees from Massey University where she carried out extensive research in Equine growth and development, performance, mineral nutrition and investigated common feeding practices for horses in NZ.
She has worked for several companies in NZ and overseas as a consultant and nutritionist and now enjoys helping horse owners all over NZ. She loves challenging cases and believes no question around nutrition is a silly one. Nikita has used FeedXL within her own practice for many years and is looking forward to helping others with their FeedXL journeys!
Samantha Potter MSC
Sam’s passion is to support and educate horse owners in all areas of equine nutrition through independent nutritional advice. Sam’s background lends her to have a scientific yet practical approach to equine nutrition.
In 2009, Sam completed a Bachelor of Equine Studies and it was during this time she developed an interest in equine nutrition. Pursuing this passion, Sam went on to complete her Honours followed by her Masters degree in equine nutrition at The University of Melbourne. Both these research-based degrees focused on methods for measuring obesity in horses and ponies, development of novel methods for measuring obesity and identifying the incidence of obesity in Australian pleasure horses.
To compliment her studies, Sam has a number of year’s practical experience in the equine industry competing at pony club and EA events, working at racing stables, thoroughbred studs and with equine veterinarians. Since 2015, Sam has worked as an independent nutritionist and enjoys supporting horse owners manage their horse’s nutrition in her role with FeedXL.
When Sam’s not focused on equine nutrition, you’ll find her juggling being a Mum to little Dulcie or working on the family’s sheep property.