|
Due to the doubling (and more) of hay prices, many people are tempted to feed lesser quality hay. This is a penny-wise and pound-foolish economy. Roughage is the most important part of your horse's diet. What you don't spend on the best hay you can get, you may have to spend on supplements or veterinary invoices. Poor quality hay can also cause poor performance, even if it does not cause illness, allergies or unthriftiness. Soaking Hay (Top of Page)However, we can't all choose our own hay, and sometimes the best hay is sold out when you need to buy. If you are on a budget, buying more expensive supplements or feeding more of a complete feed is not the answer. You need a way to make the hay you are stuck with better, so it doesn't go to waste. TIP: If you are stuck with stemmy alfalfa your mature horse cannot readily chew, or dusty or high sugar content hay of any kind that your insulin resistant or Cushing's' horse can't tolerate, you can make the situation better. Soak your horse's servings.
Links to Hay Resources (Top of Page)
USDA Farm Service Agency Web Hay Ads - Free Postings for Need Hay and Have Hay An Arizona directory of Arizona Hay Growers Hay Exchange Internet Directory National Listings by State Arizona 2008 Spring/Summer Health Alert (Top of Page) The following alert was issued on the website of the Arizona Veterinary Medical Association recently. This noxious weed can grow along your fence lines, and can also grow at the edges of hay fields and be in the hay you purchase. Be vigilant. Inspect turnouts and perimeters and remove weeds. Inspect hay when it is delivered. Break open flakes and inspect them in good light when feeding your horses. Health Alert for Equine
Veterinarians
Avoid making aged horses compete with younger or more dominant herdmates at feeding time. Even if your seniors spend most of their time in a pasture with a run-in shed, separate them when you feed their hay. Seniors who have the lowest ranking in the herd, and need to eat slowly, are susceptible to bites, kicks, and to being run off their ration by others. Not only may the senior horses fail to get their share of the hay, the stress of having to "defend" it at every meal, or watch out for another horse that may lunge at them can cause colic, bolting their food and choking, or ulcers. Best Group Feeding Practice (Top of Page)If you cannot get them to amble into individual pens with feeders that are slightly off the ground and individual waterers at feeding time, do the next best thing. Put the flakes out at least twenty feet, or 3.6m apart, with water sources in between, so a horse doesn't have to abandon his flake to wash down a mouthful with water. Rather than a straight line of feed and water sources, use a pattern of an equilateral triangle which enables the horses to better manage herd hierarchy and keep watch in a more relaxed manner. Reference: GA Rich and LH Breuer, Recent Developments in Equine Nutrition with Farm and Clinic Applications, (2002) 48th Annual AAEP Convention Proceedings, Pg 24. Feed Some Flavors Periodically (Top of Page)Even if you see your senior daily to groom, inspect, and do carrot stretches, and feed a tasty senior ration with delicious hay, studies have shown horses like a spot of variety on occasion. But treats made with sugar, molasses or corn syrup are not good, because they spike insulin levels, which can be very hard on the metabolism of an elderly horse - even if it is not insulin resistant or pre-Cushing's. Studies have also shown that horses like to browse a variety of hay, even when offered their favorite. While it is more difficult to test the nutrient levels of a pre-mixed hay, a large stable probably orders more than one kind. For example, popular southwestern U.S.A. choices are alfalfa, timothy, and bermuda. Orchard grass is popular in the Pacific Northwest, brome grass and lucerne elsewhere. A horse that prefers alfalfa will spend more time at a feeder that has a mix of alfalfa and a type of grass hay, than at one with straight alfalfa. Want to know which flavors your senior would probably enjoy, and which most horses do not like? Need a new flavor with which to mask his medicine? Researchers at Southhampton University Equine Behavior Centre under Dr. Debbie Goodwin did controlled experimental tests to rank the favorites.
Reference:
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
(2005) 95, 223 -
Older horses may have difficulty eating hay, or grazing pasture. Yet, they still need plenty of fiber, or roughage, continuing the balance of at least 60% of their feed. What to feed a horse who is having trouble chewing? What to feed an older horse when faced with rising hay prices? Horse owners have used these alternatives during droughts and other crises: Alfalfa (legume hays) Complete feed (more than 15% fiber)
These feeds should not replace long stem forage completely for horses, except "complete" feed. However, these supplements can add fiber to enable you to feed less long stem hay during drought or other hay shortages. Try to maintain a feeding plan that includes at least 5 pounds of long stem hay for a 1,000 pound horse.
Beet Pulp (Top of Page)After the sugar has been extracted from sugar beets, the remaining chopped pulp is dried and bagged, or turned into pellets to use as feed. There is so little sugar left, that some feed companies add molasses to improve the bland taste. Chopped or pelleted beet pulp is easier to chew and digest than hay. It provides a good source of calories (about 10% protein) and fiber (about 18%). So beet pulp gives less energy than grain, but it has less starch, too, so, as long as molasses isn't added, it is safe for insulin resistant horses, and is not hard on their digestion. While it isn't as high in fiber as hay, it can safely replace up to 50% of a horse's hay ration. If a 1,000 pound horse eats 20 pounds (2% of his body weight) in high fiber hay daily, then up to 10 pounds can be replaced by beet pulp. Traditionally, horse owners soak beet pulp about 8 hours in an equal amount of water. Avoid soaking where it will freeze, or in hot weather, quickly mold or sour. Serve a portion in cold weather than can be eaten before it freezes or, in hot weather, before it sours. One of the main reasons for soaking is to encourage the horse to try the new feed, which isn't too appetizing to horses until they get used to it. Mixing it with their former grain or complete feed helps introduce it as well, and you need to do so gradually with any change of feed to give digestion time to adjust. You might find after your horse becomes accustomed to the beet pulp and you transition to feeding chopped pulp dry, that the pulp is eaten before his hay. Many owners prefer to keep soaking or at least moistening the pelleted form, to avoid choke. If your mature horse is insulin resistant, and you need to keep weight on without sugar, you can still use beet pulp that has had molasses added. Just soak, then rinse thoroughly to remove the molasses. While beet pulp has enough calcium, it does not have enough phosphorus in proper balance, or as many vitamins and other minerals as hay, so a supplement program needs to take this into account. Beet pulp may stretch your feed dollar considerably, and be worth considering. Five of the major senior equine complete feeds on the market use beet pulp as their main base ingredient. Soybean Hulls (Top of Page)Pelleted soyhulls are a good source of highly digestible fiber for horses and are slightly lower than oats in nutritional value. They are low in starch, and low in lignins, the tough cellulose of hays, so they are easily broken down (fermented) by the cecum bacteria. This makes them particularly useful for aged horses whose digestion is not as efficient as it once was. All horses can eat soyhulls safely for up to 50% of their fiber needs, and soyhulls are inexpensive, a by-product of soybean production. However, they are not very palatable to most horses, so most horse owners use soyhulls to replace about 50% of the regular hay and mix them with a sweet feed. If you mix them with a balanced sweet feed, you are changing the nutritional balance of the sweet feed. This should not be a serious problem for a mature horse at maintenance if you are feeding the mixture for a few months, such as to increase calories during winter. Don't bother with unpelleted soyhulls. They are awkward to handle and blow around in the feeder, and can be inhaled while your horse is eating. Soyhulls are the main ingredient in three major brand senior equine complete feeds on the market, and the secondary ingredient in four others. They are a major ingredient in many low-starch (non-soluble carbohydrate) horse feeds. Rice Bran (Top of Page)For many years stabilized, calcium balanced rice bran was an inexpensive wonder food for senior horses. Highly palatable, most horses really like it. The meal form is best moistened to the consistency of cookie dough. We mixed it with senior feed for our aged horses that refused grass hay but couldn't chew their alfalfa, or used it to replace grain for lay-ups. Medicine in a ball of rice bran was a treat for horses that just knew any wheat bran had medicine in it. Rice bran is the most nutritious part of the rice grain, containing rice oil, which contains large amounts of omega-3 fatty acids and gamma oryzanol. Omega-3 fatty acids are called essential fatty acids as they are required in the horse’s diet and are responsible for many basic cellular functions. The bran is the richest part of the rice, and removed to make white rice for humans. However, because it is so high in oil, it can quickly become rancid. Extruding it stabilizes the oil to prevent, or at least slow, this spoilage, making the "by-product" a better food than the people are eating. Improvements in hair coat and hoof condition are some benefits of increased omega-3 fatty acid intake. Gamma oryzanol is only found in rice bran, and has been found to have powerful antioxidant properties. Purified forms of gamma oryzanol have been marketed as equine supplements to increase muscle mass. Rice bran is also a rich source of biotin and other B vitamins necessary for healthy skin, hair and hooves. Today, a bag of rice bran costs twice what it did four years ago, partly because all feeds have been affected across the board by the subsidized ethanol craze, and partly due to the discovery of many other horse owners of the value of low-sugar, high fat, easily digested feeds. Be sure to use stabilized (so it won't spoil quickly) rice bran that has had calcium added, because it is high in phosphorus and these two minerals must be balanced. You can buy stabilized rice bran and add the calcium yourself, purchased from a feed mill, often in the form of bone meal or limestone, if you have the time to measure carefully and mix to achieve at least a 1:1 phosphorus to calcium ratio. Rice bran that has not been calcium balanced is considered inverted. That is, instead of the calcium at 1.2-2.0 to 1.0 of phosphorus, there is more phosphorus than calcium. This extra phosphorus can actually hinder the horse's digestion from getting the benefit of calcium found in other food, and ultimately "leach" calcium from the horse's bones. Pelleted rice bran can be fed dry or moistened, but you will pay more for the convenience. Many low non-soluble carbohydrate complete feeds, including some for mature horses, are now based on rice bran as the main ingredient. Some popular U.S. brands include Equi-Jewel, ADM's Natural Glo, Senior Glo and Moor-Glo, a popular brand in Australia and New Zealand is CopRice's NutriRice Veteran Wheat Bran (Top of Page)Highly palatable and high in fiber, wheat bran has been used as a laxative either weekly as a warm bran mash, a holiday treat instead of grain, or to treat mild colic. Avoid adding expensive supplements to wheat bran, because it passes so quickly many supplements won't have the time to be absorbed. It's main benefit following a colic is to get the horse to eat a little something that will restore or maintain gut motility, and act as a "marker" that when it passes, we can know there is not a complete blockage somewhere along the route. Because it is fed wet (never dry) it also helps get a small amount of water into a sick horse that isn't drinking. As an occasional treat with veggies and fruits, the horses may "wolf" it down, especially if it is warm on a cold winter morning, but some may experience mild gas or diarrhea from a large serving. Remember that sudden changes of feed affect the microbes in the hindgut. Besides, wheat bran is about 15% protein, so switching to it to avoid "tying up" from feeding too high an energy feed on a day off isn't going to work. Cutting back on regular grain or complete feed on your horse's day off is better than suddenly feeding a big sloppy bran mash his intestines are unaccustomed to. Unfortunately, wheat bran is a poor substitute for hay. Due to its laxative qualities, too much bran can lead not just to diarrhea, but also dehydration. The laxative effect actually comes from irritating the intestinal lining and killing the normal gut flora, releasing toxins. Wheat bran fed daily also has been associated with forming mineral "stones" in the digestive tract, called enteroliths. Wheat bran is high in phosphorus and low in calcium to a 10-12 to 1 ratio, even more "inverted" than rice bran. A daily serving of wheat bran can leach calcium from the horse's bones, and has been blamed in the past for causing "big head disease." It's negative health effects actually helped discover how important the proper calcium to phosphorus ratio in the horse's diet is. As a preventative for colic before traveling, ensuring that the horse drinks plenty of water is a better technique. Wheat bran can be fed regularly as up to 5% of the horse's feed, introduced gradually like any other new feed. By adding a small amount of wheat bran to a horse's regular beet pulp, soy hulls, or other feed, you can encourage a picky eater to clean up the meal. It doesn't need to be moistened to prevent expansion in the horse's small stomach, but to prevent it blowing around the feeder and being inhaled, due to its light fluffy consistency. If you feed alfalfa hay, which is high in calcium, or timothy or orchard grass hay, which are just right, and a balanced complete feed, this bit of wheat bran can "stretch" your feed dollar without harm. Oat Hay and Straw (Top of Page)Oat crops that are not harvested as oat grain can be harvested as oat hay that horses can eat. It needs to be cut when the leaves and stems are still green and the grain is in a soft stage, or it becomes oat straw, which is okay for bedding, but too tough for feed. The oat hay has a similar energy and protein content to grass hay, but has less calcium, and more nitrates. It is especially likely to have too high a nitrate level if over fertilized or subjected to drought. Horses must not have more than 0.5% nitrates in their total ration. NOTE: This is why you can't graze your horse on a pretty manicured heavily fertilized lawn. If the pesticides and herbicides don't poison him, the nitrates in the typical lawn fertilizer will. If you use oat hay, make sure it is tested for calcium and nitrates. Then, when you are sure the nitrate levels are safe, when added with any other feed your horse eats, also see if you need to supplement calcium. Senior Horse Complete Feed (Top of Page)Most feed manufacturers now offer Senior Horse pelleted feeds specifically formulated to provide the fiber and protein with a good balance of vitamins and minerals.
TIP: Read labels and compare brands as well as price and availability. The protein, fiber and fat content can vary considerably from one brand to another. The base of one senior complete feed may be soybean hulls, while another may be based on beet pulp. The horse's digestion needs to get used to a change of feed gradually. Don't buy a brand that you cannot obtain from more than one vendor in your area, and don't switch brands abruptly. As your senior ages, it is a good idea to introduce a senior feed with his grain, then in place of his grain, so that you transition him gradually over the years to eating more senior and less of the difficult to chew and difficult to digest foods. Whichever brand of senior feed you choose, read the label carefully for feeding directions, and for the nutritional values, and the vitamins and minerals that were added. Since most are intended to be a "complete feed" that the horse could live on with nothing else, you want to be careful not to over-supplement with other feeds or add-ons that would cause a calcium imbalance or too much sugar. Even though the staff equine nutritionists of major feed vendors work full-time formulating complete feeds especially for life stages (foal, broodmare, performance horse, senior) the academic scientific research lags behind. Most academic research is funded by grants from horse associations dedicated to promoting breeding and the sale of new horses. So the emphasis is on studies that benefit breeding mares and stallions, foals, and young performance horses. Little to no research is funded, completed and available concerning senior nutrition. Fortunately, commercial feed manufacturers have a vested interest in serving this huge market, and are willing to re-invest profits to do their own research to better serve senior horses. TIP: Purina Mills runs periodic contests with prizes such as a one year supply of senior horse feed for owners who have well-maintained seniors with interesting biographies that use their products. Visit their website for more information. Proper Storage (Top of Page)
Store hay a safe distance from the stable or pens. Hay and shavings fires kill horses every year. Cover hay with a tarpaulin, or store it in a hay shed to protect it from wind, rain, snow and sun. Prevent access to the hay by rabbits, snakes, ground squirrels, gophers, skunks, opossums, raccoons and other small critters that can defecate or urinate in your precious feed, and after feasting on it, overpopulate on your land. A solid wall 2-3 feet high on a concrete pad, is best. Small animals can dig under the wall if it is constructed on dirt. Prevent access to the complete feeds and grains by birds with a screen or mesh or wire fence above the solid wall. Once pigeons, sparrows, and other birds discover your feed, they can peck holes in the bags quickly, and within days flocks from all over the neighborhood will move residence to your place. Birds are lovely, but the more there are, the more they eat, poop, and suddenly take flight, startling horses. That guano also spreads diseases. If you keep smaller amounts of complete feeds and grains, such as wheat bran, rice bran, sweet feed, oats, store them in metal trash cans with lids, or metal feed bins, rather than paper or plastic containers or wooden bins. Mice can chew holes in wooden bins and plastic trash cans to get at the feed, and metal cans, lined or unlined, last longer. Install good lighting in your feed and hay storage areas. Lights deter thieves, enable better inspection of feed when it is delivered and stored, and enables better inspection of feed when you are preparing a meal for your animals. Secure the hay and feed storage areas with a gate you can lock. Gates with locks prevent a horse that has escaped his stall or pen from gorging himself, and prevent unauthorized people from helping themselves to feed or hay. This causes problems beyond extra expense. A barn manager orders based on calculations for the feed schedule for the horses in the barn. If even one resident is taking an extra flake every day that the barn manager does not know about, that is 30 flakes per month his calculations are off. This can mean running low on hay for the entire barn at the wrong time for a small stable. Don't argue with one another. Instead, secure this precious resource that needs to be properly managed for the benefit of all. Emergency Supplies (Top of Page)Enough hay, hay cubes, pellets, and/or senior complete feed for at least three days should be inventoried at your stable at all times. Never allow feed supplies to fall below this level. Even if there are no weather emergencies that prevent feed deliveries, what if:
If you don't believe that these kinds of problems occur at least once in a while at stables, farms, and ranches, you just haven't been around them long enough. It is simply irresponsible to allow feed levels to fall below a prudent minimum safety margin - ever. Backup 55 gallon water drum in the event of fire, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, flood, or other loss of water supply leaves horses in danger. This is part of your comprehensive emergency plan. A single horse needs 10 to 15 gallons of clean, uncontaminated water per day, even more when exercising strenuously or in hot weather. In the event of a disaster, a three-day supply should be on hand. Thus, your 55 gallon drum stores three to four days of water for one horse, or not more than two days of water for two horses. If your stable does not have a disaster plan and the appropriate supplies, give them our website or e-mail address so we can help pull it all together for them. Quakekare has many items. Here's the link to a water drum. 911supplies.com also offers products for your kit Del Camino article web page on Equine Disaster Planning Financial Emergency Assistance for Individual Horse Owners and for Equine Rescues and SanctuariesDue to rising feed costs, weather conditions, and the current economic downturn, some horse owners and some horse rescues that have had a large influx of horses need financial help to buy feed. If you find yourself in this situation, do not wait until the situation is desperate. Visit the Emergencies page and go to Emergency Assistance (individuals) or Emergency Assistance for Horse Rescuers for suggestions and links to groups that can help and do understand. Dental Care (Top of Page)For your senior horse to get the maximum benefit of his feed, and for you to get the maximum value for your dollar, you need to keep his digestion, beginning in the mouth, at as high an efficiency level as possible. Aging teeth need to be monitored closely. Visit our page with helpful information on the care of the senior horse's teeth and mouth. If you normally scheduled your veterinarian to examine your horse's teeth and mouth annually, and needed to float his teeth about every 12 to 18 months to remove hooks and ramps, cut that schedule in half for an older horse. For a horse with parrot mouth, wave mouth, teeth already missing, or an arthritic jaw, uneven wear probably means you already give him dental care every six months, and are already extra vigilant for the symptoms given above. If your horse cribs or wood chews you probably already have his teeth checked twice a year, and watch for cracks, loose teeth, and infection. While taking care of any new problems, you can discuss the results of these checkups with your veterinarian, to decide when it is time to change to a feed that is easier to chew, or doesn't need chewing at all. Other Resources (Top of Page)The Del Camino Products and Services catalog offers some horse products of interest to owners of senior horses.
Articles (Top of Page)American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) Health articles. They are all available as HTML documents on the AAEP website http://www.aaep.org. You can also subscribe to their newsletter if you visit their website.
These are .PDF format versions.
You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open them.
PDF Articles Feeding the Geriatric Horse, 2003 Older Horse: Special Care and Nutrition, 2005
Supplement Articles
Books (Top of Page)
Equinezone Horse Supply - http://www.equinezone.com
|
Thanks
for visiting and come back again soon! Add us to your browser's
Favorites list so you can find us easily.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The aging people learn to wear
hearing aids, and eyeglasses. They learn to wear support stockings
and dentures. They drink Ensure and take Senior Multi-vitamins and MSM
and glucosamine and chondroitin and baby aspirin. .
If you do not start with a
baseline for your new horse, and maintain an schedule of objective
assessment, you and your horse can be the victims of selective memory.
Especially with people and animals we see daily, our minds adjust between
the image we see and the one we remember. It is easy then to deny that
a horse is losing condition or gaining weight, as you get accustomed to
higher or lower holes on the cinch or saddle billets. Fortunately,
equine health care professionals and researchers who needed to conduct
scientific controlled studies realized this and in 1983 Dr. Henneke
devised a
simple chart anyone can use. With the high cost of horse feed anyone
who is on a budget or cares about their horse should have one posted in
their feed room or client tack room for frequent reference. Blindly
experimenting with feed, or listening to the well-meaning opinions and
anecdotes of other boarders is gambling with your horse's health and your
money.
If you do not know the nutritional value of the
hay you are feeding, it is a guessing game which supplements to feed your
horse. The nutritional value varies from one hay cutting to the next
at the same farm. To avoid over supplementing, and to avoid excess
sugar in your senior's diet, you can test both your hay and your pasture
forage. You need a hay probe to get the core samples from your hay
bales, a pair of grass shears or scissors to gather pasture samples, and a
testing service. Lab tests take about a week for turnaround, but are
well worth the fee. 
Besides lower nutritional value, and less
palatability, poor quality hay is often "picked through" by the horses, or
dragged around the feeding area, resulting in much more waste. Poor
quality hay may not have been cured long enough, so the high moisture
content causes not just mold to grow which can cause colic, but also
bacteria and fungus that can cause coughs, respiratory ailments, and liver
disorders. It can also catch fire. Also, poor quality hay is
more likely to be dusty and contain poisonous weeds like nightshade or
ragwort, yeast, and parasites or insects, such as blister beetles that can
cause colic or toxic allergic reactions, or worse. Most poor hay can
be spotted in good lighting when you look, feel, and smell.
Protect your supplies from fire, spoilage,
weather, rodents, insects, curious horses, and neighbors or boarders who
help themselves causing you to run low unexpectedly.