Interesting Study, Grain or No Grain?

[luvs2ride1979]

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=12559

Tracking Young Horse Reactions on Different Feeds

by: Montana State University

Young horses might be easier to train if they temporarily lay off the sweets, according to a Montana State University (MSU) study that tracked behavior of 2-year-olds in training and compared it to their nutrition program.

The extra energy provided by sweet feed during the early stages of training made the horses in MSU's study more disobedient and fearful than horses that only ate hay, said Jan Bowman, MS, PhD, an animal nutritionist at MSU.

The study involved 12 closely-related Quarter Horses that came from one Idaho ranch, Bowman said. Wade Black, instructor of the MSU Colt Starting class and one of Bowman's graduate students, trained the horses for three weeks, five days a week at MSU's Miller Livestock Pavilion. Half the horses ate only hay, which was a mixture of grass and alfalfa. The other horses ate five pounds of sweet grain a day in addition to the hay. Both groups ate as much hay and drank as much water as they wanted.

Each horse wore a pedometer adjusted to its stride and attached with an Ace bandage to its left front leg above the knee. They also had a combination wristwatch-heart monitor hanging from their saddles. The watch displayed minimum, maximum, and mean heart rates detected by an electrode belt.

Black trained the animals for 30 or 40 minutes a day without knowing which animals had eaten grain and which ones hadn't, Bowman said. She and Black also recorded heart rates and the number of steps the horses took during training. They assigned scores for behaviors displayed, including obedience, get-up-and-go, and separation anxiety.

"Results suggest that trainers under time constraints could increase their training effectiveness during the early stages of training by not feeding excess dietary energy," Black wrote.

Bowman and Black conducted some of the experiments during the summer of 2007. Black presented their findings to the American Society of Animal Science in June this year.

He is still analyzing some of the data to see how the grain affected the horses' adrenaline during training.

The study doesn't mean that trainers should keep grain away from horses forever, Bowman said. They might consider withholding it just during the early weeks of training.

Bowman noted that all of the horses in MSU's study gained weight during the study. It didn't matter if they ate hay alone or hay with grain.

Their paper will be submitted to the Journal of Animal Science.

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So, if both sets of horses gained weight, my thought would be, why feed grain at all??? Just stick to "calmer" hay with a little balancing supplement like a ration balancer or a vitamin supplement mixed with a few handfuls of something to mix it in. Sounds cheaper and better in the long run to me :cool:.

PS: I thought of you when I read this PeggySue ;).

[luvs2ride1979]

Another interesting one.
http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=11202
Study Shows Horses Able to Absorb Fatty Acid Supplements

by: Stacey Oke, DVM, MSc

Illinois researchers studying the effect of nutritional supplementation with essential fatty acids (EFAs) reported that EFAs are absorbed systemically after oral administration and alter the normal pool of fatty acids in the bloodstream of horses.

Administration of EFAs, including the omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docohexaenoic acid (DHA)--the two acids most commonly found in EFA supplements--is known to have beneficial health effects in humans, particularly influencing blood pressure and heart disease.

According to study co-author Sheryl S. King, PhD, professor in the Department of Animal Science, Food, and Nutrition at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, the effects of EFA supplementation are less well-known in horses.

King said that scientists hypothesize that EFAs have anti-inflammatory and other properties that could be used to manage such conditions as equine osteoarthritis, lung inflammation, exercise-induced hypertension, lung bleeding, and breeding issues.

In this study 16 horses were fed a particular marine-derived EFA-containing supplement designed to deliver a combined dose of 0, 10, 20, or 40 grams of EPA and DHA per day. (I'm guessing Fish Oil)

"Results revealed that blood plasma levels of both EPA and DHA were significantly increased in supplemented horses compared to the control horses after only three days of supplementation," said King. Peak concentrations occurred after seven days of supplementation and EPA and DHA levels decreased rapidly by Day 9 after the supplement was discontinued.

In addition to changes in EPA and DHA blood levels, administration of the supplement significantly altered circulating levels of a variety of other fatty acids normally found in horses' blood.

According to King, "Orally administered EFA supplements are clearly absorbed and result in widespread alterations in fatty acid levels found in the circulation."

Additional research is essential to determine the overall impact of EPA- and DHA-containing supplements in horses and appropriate doses.

The study, "Circulating fatty acid profiles in response to three levels of dietary omega-3 fatty acid supplementation in horses," was published online on Jan.11 and will appear in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Animal Science.

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Sounds like they fed fish oil to the horses. Flax oil and Rice Bran oil are also high in Omega 3s. Another article (http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=9307) on The Horse said a horse can digest up to 20% of their diet by weight in fats daily without harmful effects. For a horse eating 25 lbs of food a day, that would be 10 cups of oil daily :eek:.

[WashingtonBay]

I guess I kinda wonder why it took a study to tell people the first one. I mean.... don't we all know the phrase "feeling his oats?" I mean, I'm not sure I'd intentionally try to de-energy them (they're going to have to learn how to control their energy anyway eventually), but if I had a young horse who seemed a little too hot, the first place I'd look is taking some of the octane out of the diet.

[Peggy Sue]

I am glad you posted these now I dont' have to go and read them later tonight LOL

[luvs2ride1979]

I guess I kinda wonder why it took a study to tell people the first one. I mean.... don't we all know the phrase "feeling his oats?" I mean, I'm not sure I'd intentionally try to de-energy them (they're going to have to learn how to control their energy anyway eventually), but if I had a young horse who seemed a little too hot, the first place I'd look is taking some of the octane out of the diet.

My thoughts exactly, but, some people seem so convinced that horses NEED grain or feed pellets, they need some "experts" to tell them otherwise ;).

[Cat]

Good articles. Thankfully they just reinforce what I believed.

[Gypsy Rose]

Pretty much backs up a lot of what most of us already have discovered, lol!

[walkinthewalk]

My thoughts exactly, but, some people seem so convinced that horses NEED grain or feed pellets, they need some "experts" to tell them otherwise ;).

The horse feeding evolution that has taken place over the last 50 years is mind-boggling; and I allowed myself to get caught up in it when I married and moved my horses off my parents' 98 acre farm:eek:

Back in the old days, when livestock had plenty of pasture, all they got was "a handful of grain just to keep them coming in every night and to keep the grass belly off them".

We raised that grain. We raised the hay they ate. They ran, played and exercised on plenty of pasture land. There was no such thing as a hot horse because he ate too much of the wrong kind of grain; if the horse had a big motor it was because he was born with it.

Being brainwashed along with the rest of the equine world, I started feeding sweet feed in the early 80's. It satisfied MY sweet tooth and boy did the local feed store up the molasses for winter.

I continued that detestable habit until I moved to Southern California in 1998. The owner of the feed store I bought from also owned race horses. He looked me dead in the eye one day and said "it's none of my business, but you really need to get your horses off sweet feed".

I will spare the details of the ensuing conversation but that's the day I walked out of his store with a bag of Nutrena and never looked back.

I can't remember which one now because I can't get Nutrena in my area of Middle Tennessee.

The second major feed transition came in Spring 2007 when the horse in my avatar became metabolic. I took him off oat & corn based feed; he now gets pelleted rice bran.

After a few months, I thought "hmmmm, this works for him, I need to simplify my feeding life, I am putting the other three horses on his base diet".

I said all that to say I don't feed grain and never will again. I knew better all those years ago than to start feeding sweet feed but did anyway because "everyone else was and it was really cheap".

In this day and age there are a lot of "city horses". They don't have the "run free" opportunities that used to exist. Those horses on dry lots and living in stalls do need additional feed and supplements.

While we have 23 acres, right now, the horses are only on 12 of them, but they can't get anywhere without walking up and down hills, so they get plenty of natural exercise. Except for my metabolic horse, these fellas don't need an "inth" of what horses living in a small space need in terms of supplements.

That is a large part of the difference between feeding a horse today and feeding one 50 years ago.

I could get on my soapbox about mis-management as it applies to putting too many horses on a parcel of land and they ALL end up eating off roundbales because they soon have nothing but dirt ---------- but I won't:cowboy:

[Arrow]

I didn't know anyone still used sweet feed...:D

As for Arrow getting Stratgy and Calf Manna...well I ride him five times a week, and I think that's fairly hard work, so it makes sense to feed him more than forage. He drops weight so easily that forage alone won't do it, not all horses are the same. He probably wouldn't have made it in the wild with his genes. So I feed him the pellets.

[Arrow]

I guess I kinda wonder why it took a study to tell people the first one. I mean.... don't we all know the phrase "feeling his oats?" I mean, I'm not sure I'd intentionally try to de-energy them (they're going to have to learn how to control their energy anyway eventually), but if I had a young horse who seemed a little too hot, the first place I'd look is taking some of the octane out of the diet.

Remember that study from the 1980s? They rammed 100 big cars into 100 small cars and concluded that big cars are safer?

[rocknK]

Well........if I was a betting man. I'd bet on the "grain-fed horse" to win a race or do a good days work any time.

[WashingtonBay]

Right rockn. It doesn't have to be 'grain', it doesn't have to be 'sweet feed', but most horses need more than just hay to really bloom and perform over the long haul if they are working. If the hay is bland, maybe they need it even just in the pasture.

More fat, more protein, more calories for more energy. We want energy in our horses, don't we? We're keeping them around so they can pack us around further and faster than we could go ourselves, right? I don't build a life around keeping a horse docile through lack of calories... but if I had a green and hot one I wouldn't ADD any! At least until a few basic rules are worked out. Makes sense to me.

Arrow - funny post re the big cars. :D

[Peggy Sue]

More fat and protien but not sugars and starches there are safer ways to get the energy without giving them a sugar high

[TLC97]

Well I feed grain, but it does not have the sugars in it. I also avoid any thing with molasses added to it. Right now Cane is on meds and they told me to mix them with molasses to help him eat it. Well I mix it with his vitamins or mix it with mashed up apples.

These studies to me pretty much seem like common sense.

Peggy Sue-I have looked for a complete feed in my area, and no luck yet!!! GRRRR. I have talked to my feed dealer and he is looking into carrying some if I buy a bunch at once and can get a few others to feed it too.

[Peggy Sue]

If you pm or give me your zip I can help to a point ... as in I can find your dealers ...

Molasses are actually a very very LOW part of the sugars and starches in feeds ... depending on the amount used of course... corn is 76% sugars and starches... Oats are around 50%

[walkinthewalk]

I have talked to my feed dealer and he is looking into carrying some if I buy a bunch at once and can get a few others to feed it too.

If you are able to get your dealer to carry what you need, don't buy more at one time than you can use in 4-6 weeks.

Even pelleted rice bran will have bugs or moths flying out of it if it's kept too long. Ask me how I know that and I keep everything in the house where its "climate controlled"

I wanted to buy ahead so I wouldn't have to drive 20 miles to the feed store as often:(

Also be sure to check the expiration dates on anything you buy, especially if there are only one or two folks buying the product:)