07/22/2024
I imagine the feed companies may come after me for this one but . . .
Why are so many people feeding their horses like they are training for the Grand National? In my equine evaluations I always ask what the horse is eating. So often its alfalfa and/or timothy cubes or pellets, senior feed for an eight-year-old trail horse, feeds full of sugar and carbs, feeds with high protein, plus additional supplements, vitamins, minerals etc.
Then the owners can't understand why their horses are full of energy, are a handful to ride, or are anxious and nervous.
When I recently asked a new client why she was feeding her ponies alfalfa pellets, she was honest enough to say she really didn't know, it was what others had suggested.
While I'm NOT a veterinarian nor a nutritionalist, I have had decades of experience feeding horses and had a lot of success creating calm, quiet, fully engaged, healthy, well-trained, responsive horses.
I've also noticed that while I have very little, to NO problems with colic, laminitis or metabolic issues, such problems seem to be increasing these days.
So my thoughts as to why horses are anxious, nervous, spooky and otherwise difficult, why are we seeing so much online about laminitis or metabolic issues—might be answered in the way we are feeding our horses. Consider the following:
1. Most equine senior feeds contain 14% or more protein. I've seen some as much as 17%
2. The molasses in sweet feed and/or pellets adds a lot of sugar to the horse's diet.
3. For the most part, vet schools use information from the feed companies to train the vets, and feed companies make more money from processed, mixed feeds than from simple whole grains. (Similar to buying boxed, processed food in the grocery store as opposed to fresh produce.)
4. Most mixed feeds, i.e. sweet feeds. pellets, etc, contain fillers such as soybean hulls, wheat middlings, hay, rice bran, beet pulp and other fillers to bulk up the feed. Horses aren't designed by nature to eat a diet of wheat, rice bran and or beet pulp.
One owner I knew years ago used to take hay to the local feed mill to have it ground up and added to some processed (crimped, cracked, rolled, etc.) grains to create his own feed. The folks at the feed mill told me they added molasses to, “cut down on the dust.”
Another problem with mixed commercial feeds is, when grains are processed, i.e. crimped, steamed, rolled, cracked, ground or otherwise processed into mixed feeds, they immediately lose part of their natural oils, vitamins, etc. Of course the feed companies put some vitamins back in, but a lot of these are also heat processed—meaning the body can't break it down and get the full benefit from it.
We can compare processed feeds for our horses to us eating white bread as opposed to whole grain bread.
For several decades now, I've fed my horses whole oats and a good basic supplement that allows them to get the maximum from their food. This of course goes along with a good mineral supplement and free access to grass and/or a good, but basic, grass hay (No I don't get it tested and stress out about the protein content, etc.).
My Thoroughbred (Count of War), who was my cavalry mount, stayed healthy on ½ scoop of oats a day. He only colicked once in his life—when someone fed him sweet feed.
When we were riding to New York City, I would feed Count as much whole oats as he wanted at night and again the next morning. Unlike sugar filled, processed feeds, when he'd eaten all he wanted he would stop.
What I've noticed is:
1. My horses don't always seem starved for food, i.e. dragging me to every bucket or blade of grass they can find.
2. My horses have good quality muscle with a shiny healthy coat, even before I groom them. Skin problems are almost non-existent.
3. They are calm and happy with NO anxiety or nervousness.
Once, when I ran a boarding stable, I opened up a new pasture. The boarders' horses walked out and immediately started tearing at the untouched grass. My horses, that had been on whole oats for some time, took the time to explore the pasture, check out the fences, then calmly picked a spot and began grazing. I think that says a lot.
AND YES I've heard the hysteria about horses having whole oats in their manure. Sure, a few grains will pass through—that is one way nature spreads seeds. It's NATURAL.
Another thing I like about whole oats is, it gives the horses what we used to call “bottom.” This is an old horsemen's expression describing a horse that had reserves, that could pick up and keep going, even if the trail was long and hard. While alfalfa and timothy are great sources of bulk food, they do not give horses that bottom that a good trail horses, foxhunters, etc. might need for getting up that hill, or keeping up with the hounds.
And before the haters get started, I love alfalfa, timothy and other quality bulk feeds. I feed them when conditions call for it, such as to add some warmth for my horses in the winter. I also feed bulk feed, such as hay and grass first, THEN supplement with oats per the individual horse's requirements.
I know there are horses out there with weight gain challenges and/or metabolic challenges that need more, or should not be fed grains. But I can't help wondering if some of these metabolic issues, the prevalence of colic and laminitis and other diet related issues these days, might be a direct result of over feeding high protein, sugar and carbohydrate filled, over processed feeds?
Just wondering . . .
