Horse Nutrition through ReStore from Biovance - Newsletter

Horses evolved in a grazing environment and their digestive systems can accommodate large quantities of roughage. However, because of the increased activity level of the modern work horse and the need for more energy, grain feeding has increased. Excessive grain feeding can result in a host of animal problems. Horses need to eat a minimum of 1.0 percent of their body weight as roughage (pasture, hay, or other forage) to ensure proper digestive activity and health. The use of long-stemmed forage in the diet may also help prevent management problems such as tail chewing, wood chewing, and coprophagy (feeding on fecal material).

The terms rate and extent of digestion were developed to explain the digestive process in animals and to help point out that there a several factors that affect feed utilization and subsequent performance.

a. Rate of digestion describes how fast a feedstuff is digested. Forages are usually considered to be slowly digested or broken down to absorbable nutrients. Grain, on the other hand, is digested at a much faster rate and, thus, high grain diets are more prone to metabolic problems associated with excessive carbohydrate or starch intake – acidosis.

b. Extent of digestion refers to how completely a feed is digested. No feedstuff is digested completely. Forages are typically less digestible than grains. In simple backyard terms, more undigested material (feces, manure) results from feeding forages rather than grains. From a nutritionist’s point of view, forages contain lower total digestible nutrients (TDN) or available energy than grains. This is why you feed more grain to high-energy performance horses.

By understanding factors that affect rate and extent of digestion, we can change how a horse responds to a feedstuff. One way to alter rate and extent of digestion is by processing the feed to reduce particle size, thus exposing more of the feed (increased surface area) to both enzymatic digestion in the small intestine and microbial fermentation in the cecum.

Rate and extent of digestion help us better understand how feedstuffs are utilized by horses, but they cannot explain all that is going on in the GI tract of your horse. There is also rate of passage and fermentation that occurs in the intestinal tract that impacts digestion and horse performance. Next time we will look at rate of passage.

Equine dentistry has made dramatic advances in the past decade. Previously most veterinarians focused on treating teeth problems in older horses. Today the focus has shifted to maintaining dental health throughout the horse’s life, thus preventing the development of serious dental problems. This newer approach requires annual dental exams and routine “floatings,” usually starting at one to two years of age.

Routine dental care focuses on two major areas. The first is to correct any dental conditions that interfere with chewing. This most commonly is the removal of dental points (i.e. sharp edges) along the premolar (cheek) teeth and assessment of proper alignment of the teeth.

The second area of focus is the bit comfort. The placement of the “bit seat” can often dramatically improve the horse’s performance ability by removing pain associated with interference between the teeth and the bit.

The best time of year to have your horse’s teeth floated is in the fall and winter.

Remember that routine dental care will maintain proper dentition, thus decreasing the chances of major dental problems as the horse ages. Routine tooth care is one of the best ways to extend a horse’s useful life.

In winter, most veterinarians spend a disproportionate amount of their time treating colic. Knowing why this is so can make your life and that of your veterinarian a lot less hectic.

Horses are most comfortable at temperatures above 45 degrees. When temperatures drop below 45 degrees, the horse is forced to use significant amounts of energy to help maintain body temperature.

The horse has two options to produce this needed energy: First, internally, from stores of body fat and muscle; and, second, externally, from energy provided in the diet — and more importantly — from heat generated by the bacterial digestion of forage.

Option one, using body stores, is really not an option. It soon becomes life threatening, especially in older horses.

The only acceptable way to manage the energy problem is option two: dietary management.

We can calculate how much extra energy is needed per day by subtracting the actual temperature, including the wind chill adjustment, from the 45-degree critical temperature.

For example, let’s say today’s temperature with the wind chill is 19 degrees. Subtract this from the equine critical temperature of 45 degrees and you have 26 degrees. Convert this figure to extra energy measured as calories needed by your horse. Under these conditions your horse needs 26% more energy.

Now, in this situation the natural inclination is to feed more grain or sweet feed since they provide more calories per pound than hay. But with this approach, although we may have met our calculated calorie needs with grain, we fail to generate that all important body heat generated by the bacteria of the large intestine. To do this we need to feed hay.

The increased feeding of grain in cold weather is a primary reason for increased incidences of colic.

Our experience has shown the safest way to keep your horse comfortable through the winter is to increase equally the amounts of hay and grain fed, and to top dress ReStore™.

We recommend top dressing ReStore™ products. Controlled studies have shown that when ReStore™ is added to the diet of growing and mature horses, improvements in bacterial populations in the hindgut occur. This positively impacts fermentation efficiency and nutrient utilization and results in a reduction digestive upsets ¯ especially colic.

Horses prefer water that is between 45 degrees to 65 degrees. As water temperature drops, water consumption decreases — another key factor in causing colic.

We have found that the combination of adequate amounts of hay fed in conjunction with ReStore™ will encourage your horse to drink more.

Understanding how equine critical temperature affects dietary management is the first step to help you prevent a dangerous and costly episode of colic.

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With love comes responsibility. And one of the best ways to meet that responsibility is to institute a preventive healthcare and wellness program through your veterinarian. Not only does it offer the promise that you can increase the life and enjoyment of your horse, but you’ll also be rewarded with improved wellness that can be seen and measured.

For example, you’ll notice improvement in one or more of the following: performance, appearance, growth, immune response, health, and temperament.

As illustrated above, nutrition is the nucleus of the wellness atom. Dental care, vaccinations, hoof care, physicals, and deworming are like the electrons of the atom — they all work together to both contribute to and benefit from the power of the program.

A diet fortified with ReStore™, an oral nutritional supplement from Biovance Life Sciences, should be an integral part of your wellness program. It enhances the natural digestive process of the horse, and it’s the most effective way to assure that your program is driven by sound nutrition.

"When competing on the road, it’s hard to keep weight on horses and hard to balance when they need more grain and when not to give too much. So when my vet told me that with Revolution™ ‘there will be no need to feed grain again’ — he caught my attention."

With these horses on Revolution™, I started to see many great changes. The colicky hard-keeper is fit with a good amount of weight and has shown no sign of colic since he was put on Revolution™.

The fragile-minded one became more focused and less nervous. And the youngster has kept his weight and mind. In fact, all my horses are more focused and don’t show the need to burn unused energy by pacing, pawing or trying to find an outlet when they’re in their stalls.

F.C. (Bud) McGrath
Prof & CoChair, English Dept
University of Southern Maine
Portland, ME
August 25, 2007

When my two year old Trakehner gelding started to have frequent colic episodes I treated him with a number of products over a period of approximately nine months. He had ulcers, but even after the ulcers were resolved, his colics continued. It was not until we started to use ReStore™ that the colics stopped. ReStore™ is now a part of his regular diet and he has had no recurrence of his colic episodes. Sincerely, Bud McGrath.

The average adult male horse has 40 teeth and females have 36 teeth. This large number of teeth is considered to occupy more space in their head than their brain, a fact that emphasizes how important their teeth are. It is wise to take proper care of these teeth through annual exams and floatings to correct and prevent dental problems. Winter months are an excellent time to accomplish this task.