And the, the growth curve of a fetus is pretty low those first couple trimesters.
And then towards those last three months, it really peaks.
I mean really goes up, really big.
So that's where the foal really gains a lot of it's growth.
And so consequently, it's putting a little bit more demands on mom.
So you can see is, they get later in gestation and parturition would
be after that 11 month you know, as they go down their energy requirements
are going up here and we shift more to feeding a little bit more
concentrate, they need a little bit more protein and a little bit more lysine.
Okay, now lactation I always like to say, is probably
one of the most energy demanding times in a mare's life.
And that's because she is taking all her stored nutrients on
top of her diet and, and producing milk for those foals.
So if you go back to our body condition score,
scoring system, that's why we say mares should be, broodmares.
Mares that are producing foals should be in a six and
a half, because they're going to lose some weight during that lactation cycle.
So you can see in those first few months, first three months, it's
a 50/50 diet and they have
really high protein requirements, high energy requirements.
So they're, you're feeding her as much as you safely can.
To meet those, those energy needs to produce lactation.
Now, as that foal nurses less and gets more nutrients from other sources in
its diet, it's [INAUDIBLE], it's putting less pressure on mom to produce milk.
So, she won't drop as much weight.
Now the the final class is talking about working horses.
And, again this is something that you, you know, you would have
to play with your individual animal, again individual metabolism comes into play.
But, you know, and what I consider light or moderate
work, some people may say that's really heavy work or whatnot.
So, you know, what I would consider light work is just occasional riding.
You know, you're really not pushing the animal too much.
You know, just doing some, some pleasure riding or you know,
riding out down, down some trails, maybe not so, so heavy.
So, you're still a predominantly forage based diet.
So, you can see 65% there.
Now, as you get into more moderate work, you know, everyday work.
Or really intense work, like polo ponies
and these endurance riders, or thoroughbreds on
the race track, you're feeding more of a concentrate diet, versus a hay diet.
So this is probably one of the few classes where you
would see feeding a lot more grain than hay, in any horses.
And, and when I worked on the racetrack we fed them a ton of grain.
And it seemed like it was still like, when I went back to body condition scoring.
Those young thoroughbreds, really were, they looked skinny to me.
I mean because it's so hard to keep condition on 'em,
even though we were feeding them a very energy dense diet.
So again, something you're going to have to play
with on your own, with your own individual animal.
Now, I'll give you some final tips.
Like, I've, I've been saying these animal's metabolism, you know, varies.
So you'll hear things in the horse industry like, you
know, it's a hard keeper or it's an easy keeper.
Hard keeper means it's an animal with a very quick metabolism.
They're really hard to keep weight on.
So, there's different strategies, feeding more fat.
y, you know, more energy dense diets to try to keep weight on.
Versus the easy keeper, which I hear quite a lot, especially with obese animals.
You know this animals an easy keeper meaning, and I'm just feeding him hay.
And they're still putting on weight.
And we, and we see this with donkeys too.
Because donkeys, you know, put on weight, generally, relatively easily.
So there's different strategies you can do.
You know, reduce the type of hay you're feeding
or you, some people soak hay to, to get
some of those nutrients leached out or those carbohydrates
really, those simple sugars to, to get leached out.
So you'll, you'll hear that and you have to make sure you're, you're aware of that.