Category: Horse Feed

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Fiber in Horse Feeds

In our previous post, we learned what fiber is and how a horse digests it,and we also learned that a horse consuming 1-1.5% of it’s bodyweight in quality roughage will satisfy its daily fiber requirements. In today’s blog we will review everything you need to know about fiber in horse feed.

horse feed being dumped in to bucket representing fiber in horse feedConsidering the Impact of Fiber In Horse Feed on Digestion

When it comes to any grain sources that may be added to your horse’s diet, fiber plays a much smaller role since the amount of fiber that is added by grains is relatively little, but the effect and digestive process is similar.

Managing Grain Portion and Avoiding Digestive Issues

When feeding the grain portion of the diet, ensure that your horse is not receiving high quantities of grain meals all at once – typically no more than 5-6 pounds of grain per meal at most. Because grains tend to be higher in starch than roughage, feeding too much at once can overwhelm the small size and quick rate of passage of food through the stomach and small intestine, and allow starches to pass undigested to the hindgut. Digestion of starches in the hindgut releases lactic acids that are toxic to the fiber-digesting microorganisms, which can result in a gas colic episode or laminitis.

Understanding Energy Content in Equine Rations

Generally speaking, when you look at a the tag from a basic equine ration, the higher the crude fiber level listed, the lower the energy content of the feed.  Of course, there are other factors that must be looked at, such as the fat level, and also possibly the sources of fiber.

Beet Pulp and Other Options for Increased Fiber in Horse Feed

Beet pulp, for example, is often referred to as a “super-fiber” due to the high level of fiber it provides while also providing roughly the same energy level as oats.  While soy hulls and dehydrated alfalfa are common ingredients used to increase fiber levels, a performance horse ration with a higher fiber level may make use of beet pulp to achieve both increased energy and increased fiber levels.

Ready to ensure your horse is getting the optimum nutrition at feeding time, every time? Find the perfect feed formulated specifically for horse’s needs with our Feed Selector Tool.

Feed Selector tool

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Nutrena Nutrition Tips: Feeding Horses During Reduced Work

Learn our top tips for feeding your horse during reduced work. Tiffany Pattison, a consultant for Nutrena, shares valuable insights and recommendations for modifying your horse’s nutrition plan to maintain optimal health and performance during periods of reduced activity.

Understanding Workload Changes

There are various situations that can lead to changes in your horse’s workload. If you show seasonally, your horse might experience periods of intense work during competition time and more relaxed schedules during the off-season. Trail riders, however, tend to ride harder in the spring, summer, and fall months, but take a break when the winter weather turns unfavorable. And of course, there is the unfortunate scenario of injury resulting in stall rest or limited turnout. By recognizing these factors, we can better prepare ourselves for adjusting our horses’ diets accordingly.

Selecting the Right Feed

When it comes to feeding, hay is the cornerstone of your horse’s nutrition. Always remember its significance and consult with a nutritionist for guidance if you have concerns. There are several different feed options available for your horse when their workload is reduced. There are high-fat pellets, textured feeds, and standard pellets, each with its own unique characteristics. It’s crucial to choose the feed type that aligns with your horse’s preferences and specific needs.

Weighing Your Horse’s Feed Accurately

Accurate measurement of feed is key to providing the right amount of nutrition to your horse. We all have our own ways of measuring, whether it’s a scoop, cup, or coffee can. However, it’s essential to establish precise measurements to ensure consistency. That’s where tools like a scoop scale or even a shipping scale can come in handy. Alternatively, you can weigh your horse’s feed in a ziplock bag to determine the exact amount. Remember, precise measurements lead to precise nutrition!

Adapting the Diet for Horses with Reduced Workload

It is a common misconception that you should significantly reduce feedings when your horse experiences stall rest or reduced work. That’s just not the way to go! Instead, adjust the feed quantities based on your horse’s activity level. Refer to the feeding instructions on the feed tags, which usually indicate recommended amounts for maintenance or light work. By following these guidelines, you’ll ensure your horse receives the necessary nutrition without unnecessary weight gain.

Exploring the Role of Diet Balancers

Enter diet balancers, the superheroes of horse nutrition during periods of reduced workload. These highly concentrated and balanced feed options, such as Nutrena’s Empower Topline Balance, provide all the essential nutrients your horse needs without adding excessive calories. Diet balancers are especially beneficial for horses on stall rest or light work, helping maintain their hair coat, hoof condition, and muscle strength. By incorporating a diet balancer into your horse’s feeding routine, you’ll keep them in tip-top shape, even when exercise is limited.

By understanding your horse’s changing workload, selecting the right feed, measuring accurately, and incorporating diet balancers when necessary, you can ensure your equine companion receives the optimal nutrition throughout every stage. Remember, a well-fed horse is a happy and healthy horse.

Ready to ensure your horse is getting the optimum nutrition at feeding time, every time? Find the perfect feed formulated specifically for horse’s needs with our Feed Selector Tool.

Feed Selector tool
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Nutrena Nutrition Tips: Feed Freshness and Storage

One of the many components of feeding horses properly is feeding fresh feed. This video will walk you through some simple steps to ensure that you are purchasing the right amount, storing it properly, and feeding it correctly to your horse, so that he always receives the freshest feed possible.

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The Health Benefits of Fermentation for Horses: Strengthening Gut Health and Immune System

.The nutrition industry is beginning to understand what role fermentation, gut bacteria and gut microbiome play for horses. Science has just scratched the surface and is beginning to understand the activity of the microorganisms in the digestive tract and the mechanisms of action related to those microorganisms and food choices.

Understanding the Role of Fermentation in Equine Nutrition

Fermented foods are gaining attention in the human nutrition space, but what horse feed in someone's hand representing the benefit of fermentation for horses does that mean for our equine companions?

Research studies increasingly suggest fermented foods offer powerful health benefits, including gut health promotion, inflammation control, and overall well-being. “Fermented foods” are being emphasized by registered dietitians as something to not ignore in food selections.

Harnessing the Health Benefits of Fermented Foods for Horses

So, how do we share these benefits with our horses without inviting them to eat Kombucha, yogurt, avocados, sauerkraut, and pickles?

A balance of good quality forage as the base of the horse’s diet and a feed concentrate that includes fermentation metabolites is key to maintaining healthy gut flora and a strong immune system You might be asking, how do I know what is an effective and beneficial fermentation product? And how do I know my feed or balancer concentrate contains this?

Unveiling the Science: Fermentation Metabolites and Their Impact on Horses

I have invited a guest writer Christine W. of Diamond V to share more information and some supporting science regarding fermentation metabolites.

“Fermentation metabolites produced by Diamond V are unique, bioactive compounds that work naturally with the biology of the horse to strengthen and empower the immune system, support digestive tissue integrity, and promote a healthy microbial community.  Hundreds of these compounds are produced from a proprietary anaerobic fermentation process of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and work synergistically inside the animal to help them perform to their full genetic potential.  

These compounds help the horse’s immune and digestive system function normally in face of the many stressors and challenges, specifically hauling, training, breeding, herd dynamics, and environmental factors.

In other words, this specific species of yeast, produce several products or compounds that are beneficial to the microbiome in the horse’s hind-gut.  When the horse’s gut is working optimally, everything from digestive to immune function is set up to be resilient in the face of stressors and challenges that might otherwise compromise animal health and performance.”

Strengthening Digestive Health with Fermentation Metabolites

Fermentation metabolites benefit your horse’s digestive tract by supporting a healthy gastrointestinal microbiome. The millions of little bacteria that live in the digestive tract  ferments complex carbohydrates resulting in volatile fatty acid production. These acids impact digestion, absorption and the overall gut health. On a feed label you might see yeast culture listed (or S. cerevisiae extract). When fermented by the horse’s microbiome, S. cerevisiae yeast culture metabolites have multiple benefits. They support tissue strength and integrity, contribute to a stable hind-gut pH, and promote a healthy gut microbial community. Additionally, they help maintain a balanced immune response in the face of stressors.

Unlocking the Potential: Improved Nutrient Absorption and Immune Function

Horses with a strong digestive tract are better able to absorb nutrients from the foods that they eat. Research has shown that harmful substances are less likely to permeate the gastrointestinal cellular wall. Think of it as closing your screens on your windows to keep bugs out of your house, but to allow fresh air and good things to flow in. A strong gut is essential for horses to absorb vital nutrients such as amino acids, fats, vitamins, and minerals. It acts as a barrier, safeguarding overall health by preventing harmful bacteria and substances from entering the bloodstream. Absorbing beneficial nutrients and eliminating harmful substances enhances horses’ performance and allows them to reach their full potential. Supporting their immune and digestive systems helps horses cope with the demands of hauling, training, and adapting to changing environments.

 
Ready to ensure your horse is getting the optimum nutrition at feeding time, every time? Find the perfect feed formulated specifically for horse’s needs with our Feed Selector Tool.
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This article was written with collaborative authors Heidi A., Emily L., and Christine W.

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Avoiding a Hay Belly

As equine nutrition experts, we have often heard ‘my horse has a hay belly, what should I do differently?’ Or,” he’s really big in the belly but he doesn’t have good muscles.”   Apart from a broodmare belly, post-colic surgery effects or a parasite situation, the answer sounds like a nutritional imbalance.  The good news is, once you know what a nutritional imbalanced hay belly is and what causes it, you can make adjustments in your program and avoid it in the future.

How To Identify The Problem

A Mare named Willow who has had 4 foals, and as a result, tends to show characteristics of a hay belly.
Willow has had 4 foals, and as a result, tends to show characteristics of a hay belly.

Have you ever seen a young or growing horse with a big belly while the rest of their body looks small? Or a mature horse that has a midsection that hangs low, while ribs are visible and muscles along the back and hindquarter are hard to find?  How about the ‘pregnant gelding’ situation?  All of these are describing a hay belly.  On a regular basis, you should conduct a body condition score on your horse to check for muscle mass as well as appropriate fat deposition in key areas.  It’s important to check all areas indicated, since a rib or belly check alone doesn’t provide all the information.

Causes of Hay Belly

When too many low-value calories are consumed without adequate protein (including essential amino acids), the body stores the calories as energy in cells yet the needed protein isn’t available to maintain muscle mass. In the absence of adequate protein, muscles atrophy while stored energy increases. Over time, a hay belly emerges as muscle mass over the top is lost and gut size may expand.

The biggest factor is overfeeding fiber high in Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) while under feeding adequate levels of quality protein. NDF is a measurement of cell wall content in plants such as grasses.  As the plant matures, it builds up stronger cell walls so that it may hold itself upright.  The stronger these walls, the less digestible these cells are for a horse.  So when fed very mature hay, your horse is less able to digest that hay, as compared to hay with a lower NDF value (less mature).  In addition to being higher in NDF, the grasses also tend to be lower in the quality proteins; important nutrients for developing and maintaining muscles.

How To Prevent Hay Belly

First, feed the best quality hay that you can find in the correct amount for your horse’s body weight, age and activity level. The hay that is smooth and ‘leafy’ tends to have levels of NDF that are better for the horse to digest. Hay that is pointy to the touch or looks like it’s a green version of straw should be avoided as it simply offers little nutritional value for the horse.

How To Get Rid Of A Hay Belly If My Horse Has One?

First, check the quality and quantity of hay your horse is eating. If the quality is adequate, then it’s time to reevaluate the quantity fed.  A horse should be fed 1.0-1.75 pounds/100 pounds of body weight of hay per day.  Not a fan of math? Yea, me neither.  Here’s a quick answer: for a horse weighing 1,000 pounds, that would be between 10-17.5 pounds of hay each day, ideally divided into 2 or even 3 feedings. Check to be sure you’re not inadvertently overfeeding, or underfeeding if your horse is actually bigger than 1,000 lbs. Learn to estimate your horse’s weight accurately here.

The last piece of the puzzle is feed. Make sure that the concentrate you provide is offering adequate quality protein.  Total protein alone can’t support or develop ideal muscles.  The right balance of amino acids is needed to build and maintain muscle quantity and quality.  Look for feeds that guarantee levels of Lysine, Methionine and Threonine.  These three key amino acids are the most important for your horse. And lastly, check to be sure you’re feeding the appropriate amount of concentrate.  Feeding a balanced diet and adding some exercise to help develop muscle mass and tighten up that tummy is a great way to reclaim that belly! 

 
Ready to ensure your horse is getting the optimum nutrition at feeding time, every time? Find the perfect feed formulated specifically for horse’s needs with our Feed Selector Tool.
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Group Feeding Tips for Small Facilities

Feeding TimeWe are a far cry from a fancy operation with four horses on my property to manage.  The horses in our herd live outside in one of two paddocks with fulltime access to a run-in shed which is divided in half.  They get rotational turn out onto the pasture whenever possible.

With the variety of horses we have, our little operation is anything but simple.  And oh how they vary!  One is a 32-year-old hard keeping Arabian mare with a princess complex who has progressively lost dentition efficacy in the last few years.  Next is her 14-year-old gelding son who is an air fern, aka quite possibly the world’s easiest keeper.  Finally the two Warmblood geldings, half-brothers both in light work.  One is a 16 hand, 10-year old fair doer while his brother (12 years) just under 16 hands, tends to be higher strung and a notch or two closer to being a hard keeper than his half-brother.

We feed good quality grass hay in small squares as we don’t have the storage space, equipment or desire to feed rounds. With these parameters, in combination with our variety of personalities, feeding time can be quite….interesting.  Over time, we’ve developed some strategies for making this living arrangement work.  Here’s a few you might consider if you have a similar herd situation:

  • Divide your herd by feeding needs and behaviors
  • Separate the bully of the herd.
  • If possible, put harder keepers with harder keepers, easy keepers with other easy keepers.
  • Keep an eye over time as the herd dynamics shift, the bullies can easily become bullied and go from ideal weight to underweight if you’re not checking regularly.
  • Check body condition score on a regular basis and be prepared to move horses around if dietary needs change.
  • Provide at least as many feeders as there are horses.  More if you can. Divide the ration of hay evenly among them.  This allows those who are bullied by others the chance to get what they need.
  • While on pasture, use a grazing muzzle on the easy keepers so that the harder keepers can have sufficient time with the forage.
  • When it comes to feeding concentrate, use paddock, pasture, round pens, arena etc.  to separate the herd.  This way, those who need a different feed type (example: ration balancer versus a senior feed) can get what they need and have time to eat it.
  • If you don’t have facilities to separate during the time to feed concentrate, consider guarding the slower eater so they can get sufficient time to eat their full ration. This may add time to the chore schedule, but it will help to ensure all horses are meeting their unique nutritional needs.

Keeping multiple horses with a variety of nutritional needs in a smaller space can be a challenge.  But with a little creativity and the right tools, you can be assured everyone gets what they need.  What ideas do you have to manage the variety of horses in your herd?

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Hay or Grain First?

A friend recently asked me what was the correct feeding order, hay George eating hay in his paddockfirst or grain? This is a great question, and despite the controversy, I cannot find any hard data that suggests feeding hay first will have an effect on the horse’s health, unless over 50% of the diet is concentrate per feeding.

First, you need to look at the big picture. Horses by nature are grazing animals, not meal eaters. A horse should be provided with 1.5 to 2% of his total body weight per day in forage, i.e. a 1000 pound horse would receive 15-20 pounds of hay per day, depending on caloric needs and type of forage. To minimize waste I like to see the forage placed in a slow feed net, this also helps to replicate grazing.

The dietary needs are then balanced with a concentrate that may vary in weight from 1 pound to no more than 5 pounds per feeding. This where you really need to pay close attention to the feed rate and directions on the product you select. Due to the small size of the horse’s stomach, it is never recommended to feed more than 5 pounds of concentrate at any one feeding.

Horses are continuous grazers, and will graze 18 hours in a 24 hour day. To maintain normal gut function, saliva is produced up to 30 gallons in a 24 hour day, during this gazing period. This helps the horse maintain normal gut function, stabilizing the intestinal pH and keeping ulcers in check. Not to mention the periodontal impact.

Having forage first can be a benefit for those horses that tend to bolt their feed or concentrate. Again we need to look at the big picture and time between feedings. I also realize that for large farms and commercial operations it may be more labor intensive to make the feeding process a two-step program. If you board your horse a great treat is providing a serving of an additional forage source, such as a hay extender.

So hay or grain first is really not the issue, rather a balanced feeding program and feeding schedule is key.

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