The likelihood of your horse developing a condition, such as colic, founder, or chronic diarrhea, that requires professional veterinary care increases significantly with these three events. Why? Although spring pastures, foaling and the first horse show of the season appear to be unrelated, they all can and do impact equine digestive efficiency and nutrient utilization, and they all do it pretty much the same way! Each event usually results in a significant increase in carbohydrate intake and, more importantly, a significant change in the types of carbohydrates being consumed. It’s your horse’s inability to cope safely with this change that is the root cause of the problem.

For mares nursing foals and horses in training, the most common and the most economical way to deliver these calories is in a grain-based concentrate or sweet feed. The source of these calories is soluble carbohydrates, both sugars and starches. Although a portion of these carbs are digested directly by the horse itself, most of the carbs pass to the hindgut where they are broken down by the bacteria that naturally live there into fatty acids, a natural equine energy source. Without sufficient numbers of the right bacteria, what results is the growth of potential harmful bacteria, bacteria that actually produce substances that can be toxic to the horse rather than beneficial. The same thing is true with spring pastures. As most pastures are predominately grass, starch is not a problem, but sugar is. Spring pastures are high in soluble sugar. The sugars in grasses are not readily digested by the horse itself, but require bacterial fermentation to be utilizable. Without sufficient numbers of the right, essential bacteria, these sugars are used instead by the wrong ones. The end result is the potential for the production of the same toxic end products that can result from the necessity of feeding high grain and sweet feed diets.

All this is preventable when ReStore™ is part of the feeding program. ReStore™ is a patented, research proven technology that stimulates the growth of the naturally occurring, good bacteria. Controlled university research and 10 year’s worth of veterinary supervised field studies have proven that ReStore™ increases microbial yield and efficiencies by 20%. No other product or feed additive can make and substantiate this claim. With stable microbial populations, sugars and starches, regardless of source, are converted into a chemical form most easily and efficiently used by the horse. This prevents the chain of events that can ultimately lead to that call to the vet! What is even better is that by increasing feed efficiency and nutrient utilization, mares milk better, stay in top condition and breed back and stick; your performance horse will work better and require less feed to stay at the top of his game; and, your pasture horses can go out and just be horses without you worrying! All this comes in a 30lb pail of ReStore™.

Spring 2008, Biovance Life Sciences, Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska introduced a new, natural feed supplement exclusively for draft horses called Catalyst-Rx™.

Catalyst-Rx™ provides the draft horse with a safe, efficient source of concentrated energy and protein, as well as providing the essential vitamins and minerals draft horses require to meet their genetic potential.

Catalyst-Rx™ is fortified with ReStore™. The ReStore™ technology (dietary supplement) was researched, developed, and patented by Biovance as a much needed solution to metabolic and physiologic equine problems. ReStore™ increases nutrient utilization, while at the same time, controls a number of problems associated with digestive upset, such as colic, chronic diarrhea, and chronic weight loss. No other technology exists or does what ReStore™ can do for the equine industry!

Testimonials:

• “Hitch” ready horses, in a shorter time, on less feed.
• Significant savings in feed and management costs.
• Maximizing use of every pound of feed fed, hay included.
• “We simply can’t afford to do it any other way!”

- click here to view the Catalyst brochure -

Spring is a time for new beginnings. For horse owners, spring brings new beginnings with the arrival of the foaling season. It is a magical time of year watching a new foal discover the wonders and power of its own body. Every foal is a clean slate, every one a new story. How the story turns out, and how each foal reaches its full genetic potential, is overwhelmingly dependant upon the care and management each foal receives during its formative months.

Long bone growth is equally dramatic. At birth, foals are about 60% of their mature wither height. However, they easily will grow at least another 10 inches by the time they are 4 months old, which bumps this up to 80%.

To reach 50% of its mature weight and 80% of its mature height by 4 months of age, the foal needs to consume, and be able to utilize, significant quantities of protein, energy, and minerals. Most of the weight gain to 4 months is attributable to muscular development. This fact, compounded by the importance of protein to long bone growth, makes protein, the first limiting nutrient for normal development.

Initially, the foal is heavily dependant upon its mother’s milk for protein as well as for energy and at least some of the minerals. Its digestive system is geared to make the most of this one nutrient source. However, partially because most mares are not good milkers, and partially because the nutrient profile of mare’s milk is not sufficient to meet the nutrient demands of the rapid growth of modern horses even if the mare is a good milker, the foal must have access, and more importantly be able to utilize, alternate nutrient sources as soon as is possible.

Within hours of birth, you will notice your foal nibbling at everything within its reach. Although all babies explore their environment in this way, in horses, this process is critical. Foals are essentially born notobiotic, which simply means bacteria free. This includes a total absence of the essential bacteria that live in the large intestine. Without these bacteria, the foal is unable to utilize fully other dietary sources of the essential nutrients needed during this critical phase of development.

During the foal’s oral adventure, bacteria shed by the mare in feces as well as other sources in its environment, will be ingested and begin populating the gut. The faster this happens, the sooner the foal will be able to use other nutrient sources such as creep feed, pasture or hay to supplement its mother’s milk, supplementation that we have already seen to be essential to performance.

There have been numerous documented observations from horse owners and veterinarians around the country concerning the positive impact a product marketed under the name “ReStore™” had on a foal’s weight gain and body condition.  Click here to read some real life stories.  This product is designed to stimulate the growth rates and efficiencies of the large bowel bacterial populations. By increasing numbers of these bacteria, the manufacturer of ReStore™ reports that feed utilization in foals is improved and amino acid availability (the building blocks for bone and muscle) increased. Weight gain and body condition are simply an expression of this fact.

After three years of field and clinical observations with nursing foals born, the conclusions are consistent - significant improvements in growth rates, and “bloom” in foals. This growth can be best characterized as primarily frame and muscle growth, the kind of growth that results in sound and useful horses when they mature. This foal response to ReStore™ is further validation that the future of successful equine management lies with the rediscovery of how and why the horse functions as it does. Technologies such as ReStore™ that enhance the normal digestive process are a step forward in the right direction.

Understanding how your horse digests carbohydrates is the first step to getting the results you want from your feeding program. You don’t have to become an expert on the equine digestive tract to understand how it works. But it is important to grasp the basic concepts of the physiological and metabolic processes of the horse and how they affect nutritional strategies.

 

The horse is lucky heir to millions of years of nutritional heritage

 

The horse is a prey animal. For millions of years it was the target of flesh-eating pred-ators. During its physiological evolution, it developed a unique digestive system as one of the crucial traits necessary for survival. It’s a system designed to handle continuous limited inputs as the horse grazed up to 20 hours a day while it covered up to 30 miles a day with the herd.

 

The system that evolved is truly marvelous. It’s a system for an animal that had to depend on speed for survival. It’s a system unencumbered by the size and weight of a large stomach. It’s a system that supports the metabolic processes that allow the horse to produce from forage and browse all the protein and energy it needs for growth, and maintenance.

 

Dr. William E. Julien, nutritionist and veter-inarian, says, “I believe the cause of most horse maladies is based on nutritional mis-

 

 

management and refusal to accept the fact that nutrition is physiology. The problem goes way beyond simply how much protein or energy is fed each day.”

 

The evolution of the horse’s unique digestive system supports his thesis: Nutrition must begin with physiology, the biological functions and vital processes of the living organism.  Metabolism, the chemical and physical processes that convert ingested feed into metabolites that support growth, maintenance and energy, is dependent on physiology.  You can’t have one without the other, but you’ve got to consider physiology first.

 

How your horse digests carbohydrates

 

Carbohydrates for horses can be divided into those that can be hydrolyzed and those that must be fermented. Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction in which a feedstuff reacts with water (with the help of enzymes) and is changed into one or more other substances, such as starch into glucose. Feedstuffs that cannot be hydrolyzed enter the cecum and large colon. Here they are fermented by resident micro flora to produce volatile fatty acids and structural nitrogen.

 

The hindgut’s normal function is the fermentation of non-hydrolyzable carbohydrates. For example: hemicelluloses, cellulose and ligno-cellulose, and soluble fibers are all fermentable carbohydrates.

 

But hydrolysis has its limits. When the horse’s small stomach and intestines can’t handle the load, the excess hydrolyzable carbo-hydrate moves to the hindgut where it is fermented with the remaining non-hydrolyzable carbohydrates.

 

The hydrolyzable carbohydrates are now where they don’t belong; this triggers rapid fermentation and disrupts the normal pH of the hindgut. This rapid fermentation and change in pH can also cause significant negative modifications in resident bacterial populations, favoring organisms that can actually harm the horse!

 

The digestive system now has a carbohydrate overload.

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From Maine to California, and all points north and south, summer days mean high temperatures, high humidity, and an amble opportunity for direct exposure to intense summer sun light. These conditions can be a recipe for severe heat-related stress in all types of horses, not just the equine athlete. Foals, pastured horses doing absolutely nothing, even stalled horses are all at risk! Fortunately, heat stress, is a problem easily prevented by implementing sound, common sense management strategies. Providing access to fresh, cool water, salt and shade; using fans to ensure adequate air flow for housed horses and scheduling workouts during the cooler times of the day, are all examples of simple solutions that go a long way to managing against heat stress. There are however other factors, that are not as obvious, but are equally as critical in avoiding problems. One of these is your horse’s diet, and how efficiently that diet is utilized.

Horses, like cows, depend upon a bacterially driven fermentative process as part of normal digestion and nutrient assimilation. In cows, this is accomplished by bacteria that naturally live in modified portions of the stomach, called the rumen, while in horses, fermentation occurs in the ceacum and colon of the large intestine. Without these bacteria and their activities, both cattle and horses could literally starve. This process comes at a price however. Fermentation is a chemical process that generates heat. Basically the harder bacteria have to work to ferment the diet, the more heat is produced. The key to summertime nutritional management in both cattle and horses is to feed diets that are easily and efficiently fermented, thus minimizing this unavoidable byproduct of normal equine and bovine digestion.

In horses, the most effective summer diets are based upon feeding high quality forages, and calorically dense concentrates. This roughly translates into feeding legume hays such as alfalfa, or grass hays with a high sugar content. Invest in le gume hays that are at least 18% crude protein, and grass hays that are at least 12%. Hays of this quality are also rich in electrolytes, nutrients that are lost in significant quantities when horses sweat. Supplement these forages with concentrates high in fat, and made with ingredients that are readily digestible, such as processed small grains, and oil seed meals. Such a diet goes a long way in helping reduce the risk of heat stress but they too come at a price.

High quality hays and highly digestible concentrates are inherently rich in simple starches and sugars. Unless these are converted by the hind gut bacteria into safe, effective sources of energy, such diets increase the risk of founder, and other issues related to carbohydrate metabolism. Legume hays also contain significant quantities of soluble nitrogen that is often wasted, unless acted upon by these same essential hind gut bacteria. The advantages these diets provide in managing against heat stress are lost if the risks associated with feeding them are not eliminated. ReStore™, a patented, research proven technology stimulates the growth of the naturally occurring bacteria that minimize the risk of feeding to manage heat stress. Controlled university research and 10 year’s worth of veterinary supervised field studies have proven that ReStore™ increases microbial yield and efficiencies by 20%. No other product or feed additive can make and substantiate that claim. With stable microbial populations, sugars and starches, regardless of source are converted into a chemical form that is most easily and efficiently utilized by the horse. The heat of fermentation is reduced and the water holding capacity of the diet increased, which helps maintain gut flow, and actually stimulates the desire top drink, a problem often encountered in heat stressed horses. So enjoy your horse, enjoy your summer and keep him cool with ReStore™.