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A diet with added fat is usually used to provide extra calories for
hard-working horses, or for horses lactating/ in foal.
You can only feed so much roughage (hay/pasture) before the horse fills
up and is not hungry anymore. When your horse requires more energy than
hay or pasture provides, you start to feed grain to "make-up" for the
deficiency in his energy requirements. At some point, you must stop
increasing the amount of grain fed to a horse to keep up with his energy
needs, otherwise, he will be susceptable to developing colic, diarrhea,
or founder. These problems occur because the starch which was not
digested in the small intestine reaches the cecum, and is digested by
the microbial organisms living there. The by-products produced by these
organisms are volatile fatty acids (VFA) and lactic acid, which can
cause cecal acidosis if too much is produced. However, many endurance
horses will require more energy than provided in the maximum tolerable
amounts of hay or grain. At this point, we start adding fats to the
diet to provide the horse with all of the calories he requires, without
risk of cecal acidosis.
You can safely add fat to a horse's diet until it comprises up to 20% of
the total feed intake per day (weight basis). However, it is highly
recommended to not exceed 15%; the 20% was determined through research
to determine the safe upper levels of fat intake. If a horse begins to
show signs of diarrhea or loose stools, etc., then the fat intake is too
high.
I personally would not feed fat to this "hypernervy" horse UNLESS his
weight has dropped, or you want to pull him off grain completely in
order to try and calm him down. Fats do have an advantage over grain in
that the effects of the extra energy are in the form of long molecular
chains instead of simple carbohydrates. When feeding grain, the horse
will usually have a "burst" of energy about 30 minutes after eating this
feed. However, with fats, this energy burst does not occur, and the
amount of heat created by digestion is low compared to grains and
roughage.
To this date, I have not found any studies, etc. which suggest that fats
will calm a horse down, unless a comparision is being made between grain
and fat digestion for meeting increased energy needs.
Maybe some potential solutions for the horse (forgive me if you may have
tried them all... it looks like you tried quite a few things ;-) ).
1. Does he have the companionship of other horses he gets along with?
Since horses are such social beasts, he may only need someone "friendly"
to him to nibble on his neck every once in a while to reassure his sense
of safety ;-)
2. How much time is he permitted in pasture? A horse is affected very
differently by 30 minutes turnout versus half or full day.
3. Is the barn noisy, or are any horses displaying stess within the
area? Horses sleep intermittently during the day and night - is he
standing with a hind leg cocked, eyes half drooped, ears relaxed, etc.
at anytime during the day?
4. Have you tried increasing the NUMBER of times you feed each day
(while maintaining the same amount of feed fed per day)? Twice a day
feeding sometimes do not work well with some horses who are more
"instinctive" and feel "starved" if they are not eating often.
5. On the same note, have you tried higher fiber feeds to allow him to
eat longer during the day? You'll probably need to feed more (in
weight) to meet his nutritional requirements, but it will keep him
eating for a long while.
If you do decide to feed fat, keep in mind that most vegetable fats
provide about three times more energy per unit weight compared to
grains. You can feed animal fat, but they tend to not utilize it as
well, and you must be sure that the moisture content is low. Horses
prefer corn oil as a source of fat --- make sure that is it kept in a
cool, dry place in a sealed container, away from light. Fats and oils
will go rancid very easily; rancid feeds and fats should never be fed to
horses.
Email me if you want more info. or some other ideas... I like my
"horsey" breaks from computer work! Hope it helps!
Kim (and 'Lee)
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On Sun, 25 May 1997 04:16:58 -0400 (EDT), AkhalTeke2@aol.com wrote:
Snip...
> I was told that feeding a high-fat diet (15-20% fat) could calm hypernervy
> horses and would like to try this out on a horse boarding in our stable,
> which *is* hypernervy, a nervous weaver. That guy upsets my own horses
> (including my sire), so I am *very* game to try out some things like that.
> But I don't want to make mistakes, your mails on fatty diets were split in
> judgement. The horse's owner is willing to try out some things, if chances
> are it would help. The horse in question gets daily turnout on the pasture,
> is certainly no endurance horse or even heavily used in other ways. He's fed
> currently according to the small work he does, lots of cut grass, good straw,
> a vit/min supplement, a salt stone, a bit of grain (not much, maybe 1-2
> pounds). We already tried to give him more work, hoping that this would
> change the nervosity, but it didn't, he simply got *more* nervous with more
> work. We left out the little oats he gets and he shed pounds fast. Now
> someone told me to try putting him on a high-fat diet, but I'd like to have
> some opinions on that large an amount. Also - would this mean that he must
> get much more work too (as so far more exercise resulted in simply more
> condition/fitness to do his thing I am a bit of two minds there)? So far I
> haven't experimented a lot with fatty diets or addition of oils, 4,5% is
> regarded "high" over here where I live and my own never had any problems this
> way.
>
> So - is that fatty diet idea a correct one? What kind of fat/oil should I
> add? How much at first and eventually? Are there dangers (given the few work
> he gets) in such a high-fat diet and if which? Anyone can think of another
> dietary solution (or other) for a nervy (he doesn't weave out of boredom)
> weaver? What is the nutritional idea behind the why high-fat would calm? Your
> input would be very much appreciated, as this thing starts to - LOL -
> enervate *me*, please feel free to also e-mail me directly!
>
> Thanks,
>
> AT
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