There are over 100 million horses, donkeys and mules in the world today and owners of these animals can be found on almost every continent and in almost every society. The Horse Course will cover many unique aspects of equine ownership and touch upon the science behind many of today’s management practices.
Nutrient Requirements
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From the course by University of Florida
The Horse Course: Introduction to Basic Care and Management
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From the lesson
Feeding Management
The topics this week will focus on equid nutrition. Understanding how and what to feed these animals is one of the most important aspects of basic care. We will start with digestive anatomy, how to evaluate your animal’s nutrient requirements, and then jump into feeding management. We will round out the week discussing colic and other nutritional disorders.
Meet the Instructors
Chris J. Mortensen, Ph.D.Professor
Animal Sciences
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Alright, welcome back and in this lecture we're going to
kind of, cover briefly the nutrient requir nutrient requirement of horses.
Now as review you know, again we, we talked about
you know, largest portion of annual cost after housing so.
You know, a lot of my strategy too with, with students and
horse owners is trying to protect their pocket books that make sure
you're not spending too much on your animal when, when you don't
need to and then we tend to, especially here in the United States.
We tend to overfeed our animals or overfeed the nutrients
they require so, that's why covering nutrient requirement is so important.
And we can see it in our obese pets everywhere you know, running around.
Again we talked about neglect and, and a lot of that's just due
to, to lack of knowledge and then obesity is, is a problem in horses.
So again, here it is.
You know I've told you I was going to tell you.
You know, we're going to base how much we feed on the weight of
the animal and that last lecture talks about you know, how we can do
that with a weight tape or do those measurements and again, as review,
we feed two and a half to three percent of body weight per day.
So what does that mean?
So let's, let's look at an example.
It's very easy just to use a 1000 pound horse or 450 kilogram horse.
So, if we do two and a half to three percent of body weight
per day, you know, that's going to be 25 to 30 pounds of feed per day.
There, you see it in kilograms.
So that's, that's a lot of food compared to what we eat.
And I always, always recommend any horse owner have a, a scale in their barn.
Like as you see in this picture here, they're weighing their hay.
And one of the things we, we always say in
the horse industry is, oh just feed them a flake of
hay, because the, these hay bales, you can flake them
apart, take that flake and just throw it to your horse.
Well, I did an experiment once in, in, at an extension
event where I was speaking to a lot of horse owners.
And I said, okay, let's look at a flake of alfalfa
versus a flake of coastal versus a, a flake of Timothy grass.
And we took 'em and I grabbed 'em.
And actually I took a big flake and a small flake
and they varied anywhere from four pounds to eight pounds per.
So, again, that's how it varies.
That's why it's important to, to weigh out your feed before you, you do that.
Now we feed a, a foraged based diet.
All diets in, in horses and any of the
equids, donkeys and the hybrids, needs to based in forage.
And then we use grains or concentrates, and fats and vitamin-mineral
mixes and all these other things to, to help meet their nutritional
requirements if, if for whatever reason as we'll see, in the next
few slides that we, we can't meet it based on forage alone.
Which, the reason these, these animals need that increase in their dietary
requirements is generally because we're, we're doing different things with them or
you know, we're exercising them, we're riding them we're, we're going over
big jumps with them, you know, we're doing dressage, dancing with them.
So that increase their, their nutrient requirements.
So with your feeding strategy, again the weight of the animal is very important.
Then it's also important to look at the stage of life.
Because, in, in these images this wingling.
Right here, that's a wingling.
Is going to have very different requirement versus a yearling
or a two year old, versus a mature horse.
They, they're all going to have a different nutrient requirements.
Just like us as growing humans, you know?
Our children, as they age, need more
nutrients, more protein, other things in their diet.
Okay, and then the other thing is activity.
So, if you have a horse that's just kind of a companion
pet, out on your pasture, or out in front of your house somewhere.
You don't need to feed em anything as long
as that pasture's well maintained or let's say, you
don't have a pasture, you can just feed 'em
hay, you don't really have to give them grain everyday.
You know, you can meet their nutrient requirements just based on forage.
But, once we start to ride them, and do some different activities,
or we intensely exercise them and, and do some of these intense activities.
We're definitely going to need to feed them
more to meet their, their greater nutrient requirements.
So you know, we're, you know, we're going to kind of
break down how I'm going to present this to you and
the first thing is digestible energy or, or DE and
basically, the easiest way to say this is, it's calories.
It's the fuel in the body.
You have to think of you know, filling up the gas tank every day.
We do it in our own diets.
We eat, we get energy, our fuel tank, our body burns the energy.
If we don't burn it all off, it gets stored as fat, or we just excrete it.
We don't use 'em all, the nutrients, or if we don't meet our nutrients and empty
the tank, then we'll start, you know, attacking
our body reserves to meet those nutrient requirements.
So it all starts with energy.
In horses we, we say this as Mega Cals.
So that's a million calories per pound.
Human diet roughly, what 2000, 2500 calories per day?
So these animals require a heck of a lot more energy
than, than we do and you know, looked up you know,
how to measure a calorie and that's basically, you take one
gram of water and you, you increase it a degree cel Celsius.
So that's where they get that measurement.
That's just kind of a you know, interesting factoid.
Now, the next thing we'll look at is diet proportions.
So the energy in the diet.
Then the proportions between forage or hay.
Versus concentrate or grain, so we're,
we're going to change those, those proportions as
we get around as the animal ages and then different ways we use them.
So just as an example with again going
back to that thousand pound animal very easily use,
and let's say it's a 50/50 proportion diet,
and so at three percent body weight per day.
That means we would feed about 15 pounds, or
six point seven five kilograms, of forage, so hay.
Or 15 pounds of concentrate or grain.
Same thing, you know, using the same thing.
Now, if you have a very well maintained pasture, you don't need to feed them hay.
They, they will get that 15 pounds plus by
grazing, so you don't have to worry about supplementing hay.
And we'll get into pasture management and when you would
supplement hay and, and those things in a later lecture.
Okay and then, the another thing.
To consider in the diet is lysine and you'll hear this.
Lysine is the limiting amino acid in, in all equids and
basically what that means is the body cannot naturally produce it.
All the other amino acids the horse or
donkey they, they can produce it on their own.
But, this is the only one that they can't, and they need to get it from their diet.
So they have to get this from their diet.
And generally, most of our forages and, and grains have it so.
Alright, so that's kind of what we're
going to cover with the different requirements.
So let's jump into classes, or the different classes of
horses, or as they age and see what those requirements are.
Now, looking at winglings, these are the, these are the guys that, you know, for
the first three months, they've mainly gotten all
of their nutrition from, from nursing from mom.
They will graze a little bit as those early behavior videos.
Showed you those, those cute [UNKNOWN] folds.
You know munching grass with momma.
They will start to get some of those nutrients.
But once they hit the four to six month age,
this is where we do a thing called Creep Feeding.
Where we'll start to feed them some grain.
And you can see these digestible energy requirements are really high.
Their protein requirements, this is the highest of
any class that we'll talk about, is the highest.
And how we feed them is, a 70% diet
in concentrator grain, and then a 30% diet in hay.
So, they're getting most of their nutrition from grain.
Now, as they age, that's going to shift as we'll see.
So, going on to the yearling you can see that energy requirements
a yearling or, or we call 'em year, long yearlings, the 18
month olds, you can see that digestible energy has gone down from
145 to the winglings to one point three and one point one five.
You know and this is, this is Mega Cals per
pound of feed, and then as that energy and protein
requirement, and even lysine requirement goes down, we start to
shift these proportions to more of a forage based diet.
So, even though they're still not on a, a more, you
know they're, they're on a, either half or, or mostly grain
diet, we start to shift to feeding these guys more, more
more ener energy through excuse more, forage through hay and, and pasture.
Now, I will say also.
That if these animals start to enter into
training, then that is going to shift their requirements.
They're going to get a little bit higher than they normally would.
And we'll talk about working your animals here in a minute,
but you know typically, horses around a year and a half age.
You know, certain disciplines will start exercising them routinely.
Now a two-year-old requirement, again, goes down and
we're shifting, our protein requirement goes way down,
and then we're shifting more to a, a hay based diet, or a forage based diet.
Now as a mature, so we consider a three-year-old or old,
you know, three, three years and older, as a mature horse.
You can see here, zero concentrate, zero grain.
So if you have this animal that's just out on pasture or, or really
not doing anything with them, they can be maintained on purely forage based diet.
Now, if they start to lose a little bit of body condition,
then you would want to introduce some
more concentrate to increase the digestible energy.
Here, okay, and also their protein requirement, here, okay?
Now, stallions, it, now this isn't geldings, these are intact boys.
Need a little bit more because we all know boys are weird right?
Here we are.
Because we're, definitely a little bit
more energetic and what's a stallion doing?
They're running up and down the fence most of the time.
Their whistling at the girls, hey look at me [SOUND].
You know over here.
And he's trying to get their attention.
So he's burning a lot more calories everyday, and so
that's why their diet shifts to a little bit more concentrate.
We're feeding a little bit more, a little
bit more protein, and a little bit more energy.
And that's again to maintain condition.
You know, maintain their body condition.
Alright, now spes, we're getting in some of the special classes.
And, and one of those is definitely pregnant mares.
And, the pregnant mare gestation, which we'll cover in, in the last week
we get into more repros, is 11 months, so 340 days, pretty long.
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.
So again, if they're losing fat, losing condition,
you want to increase the energy in the diet.
Or if they're gaining, you want to decrease energy in the diet.
And again, we're feeding more fiber and fat, and less carbohydrates.
So less simple sugars like, you know, corn
based diets and some of these other grains.
We, we really want to focus more on fiber and fat,
less carbohydrate, because of some of these nutrient disorders we're seeing.
So in the next lecture, we're going to kind of
break down the components of a diet, you know.
And I'll, I'll kind of walk you through what we feed
and, and talking about a forage, grains, and then, some of
the supplements that we do feed, and, and talk briefly about
adding fat to the diet to, to, to put on weight.
See you then.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
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