(Fwd) Re: (Fwd) Re: Sweet feed

Greenall (greenall@vermontel.com)
Fri, 10 Jan 1997 03:29:04 +0000

Comments about nutrition have been most interesting and I read them
all. No one is saying what you should do, but the posts provide
wonderful food for thought. I agree that staying as close to nature
is the best, but when one encounters metabolic problems in an
otherwise heathy horse during a ride, why not help them? By very
careful management, my Morgan has continued in this sport even after
I thought we were all done. I am forwarding a post from Sarah Ralson
at Rutgers who has been doing nutritional studies on horses for what
seems like forever, right Sarah?

Yes, I've been lurking on ridecamp-there
are, as you have read, many pro's and con's
to molasses based feeds. Molasses is palatable,
holds additives in to the feed so the horse can't
sift them out, contains very beneficial levels of
calcium and potassium. However, based onmy research
and that of Laurie Lawrence in Kentucky, for two
to 4 hours after a meal of sweet feed the horse has
a high blood glucose and insulin, and, if no hay is
fed with the grain, a reduced blood pH that can persist
for up to 3 or 4 hours-not good for endurance. Laurie showed
that if horses are exercised after the sweet feed, the high
glucose plunges and they actully have lower blood glucose
after 30 minutes of exercise than horses that were fed
only hay or not at all. Many horses, however, compete
very well on sweet feed. Pelleted or extruded feeds do not
cause as a severe change in glucose and pH, even though most
pelleted feeds also contain molasses-I don't know why this
occurs, but it was a consistent finding in my lab.
Bottom line: if you have a horse that is prone to tying up,
feed pelleted or extruded feeds instead of sweet feed and o MOrgans ;-) )nly
in the amounts needed to maintain good weight-6 to 8lbs a day for the
average Arab, less for your airfern Morgans;-), avoid
large meals of any sort of concentrate before a ride (but
free choice the hay at all times), pay attention to your
electrolyte supplementation, and avoid
alfalfa hay (calcium too high) during training.

Oh-BTW-Duncan was asking about the connection between
copper and selenium. Work done by Nadia Cymbaluk back in
the '80's demonstrated that high copper intake enhances
excretion of selenium from a horse's body. I once created
a selenium deficit by supplementing copper without checking the Se
content of the feed...so supplement Cu with caution, especially
if you are in a low Se area.
You can forward this to the list if you want-

Happy New Year!
Sarah Ralston,VMD,PhD
Dip American College of Veterinary Nutrition
Associate Professor
Cook College, Rutgers University
Ralston@aesop.rutgers.edu
John and Sue Greenall
greenall@vermontel.com