FeedXL Equine Nutrition Team

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Entries by FeedXL Equine Nutrition Team

Identifying Pastures: Part 1

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Pasture is an ideal feed base for any horse’s diet. It is an economical feed ingredient that provides an excellent source of energy, protein, vitamins and some minerals. Added to this is the benefit of the physical and mental stimulation grazing provides. Horses are born to graze.

However, some pastures can cause serious problems for horses. In Part 1 of this series, we will look at pasture plants that can cause endophyte toxicity. The two most common pasture species that can lead to endophyte toxicity are ryegrass and tall fescue.

Feeding Horses That Tie Up

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Tying up is a painful condition for a horse and a frustrating one for you as an owner. Symptoms can range from severe muscle pain and distress, apparent colic, excessive sweating, elevated heart and respiration rates, a stiff gait, muscle tremors and a reluctance to move to more mild and elusive symptoms that just involve the horse feeling stiff, lazy or slightly lame.

Whether your horse suffers with severe tying up or a mild form, it will limit your horse’s performance and sense of well being, so the more you do to reduce the frequency and severity of bouts of tying up, the better your horse’s performance and health will be.

Feeding Flaxseed

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Flaxseed (also known as linseed) is a valued feed ingredient amongst horse people. How it should be used has long been the subject of considerable debate. Its safety for horses has always been under question and methods of preparation are many and varied. This FeedXL newsletter looks at what flaxseed can add to your horse’s diet, if it is safe to feed and how it can be prepared for feeding.

Feeding for Calm Behaviour

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There is nothing quite as unnerving or unenjoyable as riding a horse that is completely full of itself and constantly reacting before thinking. On a more subtle level a horse that won’t concentrate or continually overreacts to aids is frustrating. While education plays a major role in determining a horse’s behaviour under saddle, feeding can also have an impact. What you feed, how much you feed and when you feed it can make a big difference. Here are some tips for feeding to assist your horse to maintain a calm and responsive attitude under saddle.

Seaweed for Horses: Miracle Supplement or Massive Con?

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There has been much debate about the potential benefits to be gained from feeding seaweed to horses.
On one side, we have seaweed being reported as a multifunctional supplement that will act as an
anthelmintic, antacid, immuno-stimulator, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, anti-ulcer, heavy
metal scavenger, fertility enhancer, nerve calmer, thyroid stimulator and skin and coat conditioner. From
the other side, seaweed is called nothing more than a con, containing potentially dangerous levels of
iodine and precious little of anything else. So who is right, and is there any middle ground to be sought in
this argument?

Feeding Pregnant Mares

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Pregnant mares carry your hopes and dreams, be it for the next big champion or just a quiet riding companion. Regardless of what you are breeding, good care of the mare during her various stages of pregnancy has long term impacts on both her and her foal’s long term health and athletic capacity. Here are some tips for keeping mares healthy and breeding sound, strong and athletic foals.

Grains for Horses: Cooked or Uncooked?

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While a lot of time is spent focussed on horses that can’t eat grain in their diet, cereal grains such as oats, barley, triticale, corn, rice, rye, sorghum and wheat form a valuable component of many horse’s rations. Selecting the most digestible grain based feed however can be confusing, with uncooked grains like whole, cracked and crushed grains being available as well as cooked grains like extruded, micronised, steam rolled or steam flaked and pelleted grains.

The question is, which form is best for your horse, the cooked or uncooked grains?

Feeding Your Horse After Exercise

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When horses exercise they burn up stored energy supplies, damaging muscle tissue and losing water and electrolytes via sweat. After exercise it is important to replenish these energy, water and electrolyte stores and provide protein for muscle repair. Failure to do so can result in reduced performance, muscle wastage and slow recovery times. What you feed, how you feed it and when it is fed all play a role in determining how effectively you replace what your horse uses during moderate to high intensity exercise and how quickly they will recover.

Feeding Horses Before Exercise

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The question of whether you should feed a horse before exercise is one that is commonly asked. Most of us were told over and over again by our parents not to swim for 30 minutes after eating or we would get a muscle cramp, so we generally tend to think that eating before exercise is not a wise thing to do. But is this the case for horses? The answer is yes and no…

Keeping the Hindgut Healthy

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Like humans, horses are classified as monogastrics, however unlike humans, horses have a highly specialised and enlarged caecum and colon, collectively known as the ‘hindgut’.

In this newsletter we investigate the role the hindgut plays in maintaining overall health, what the implications are for an unhealthy hindgut and how you can keep your horse’s hindgut healthy.

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