Walking On Volume 3, Issue 1, January 2016 | Page 14
For the Health of It
Supplementing the Supplemented Feed
©BRETT AND SUE COULSTOCK
By Juliet M. Getty, Ph.D.
For an adult horse with moderate activity, feed
.75 to 1.0 lbs per 100 lbs of body weight.” These are
the feeding instructions for a popular commercially
fortified feed. If your horse weighs 1100 lbs (500 kg),
you’ll need to feed 8.25 to 11 lbs of feed per day. For
enough calories? Enough protein? Enough vitamins
and minerals? Yes, to all of the above and more. That’s
a lot of feed! That could amount to three to five twoquart scoops (depending on the weight of the feed) per
day. And you’ll need to divide it into multiple feedings
since meal size should never exceed 4 lbs (your horse’s
stomach is small compared to the rest of his digestive
tract).
Chances are excellent that you don’t feed anything
close to the suggested amount. Does it matter? Yes.
Most of what you pay for when you buy a fortified
feed, are the fortifications. You pay for the vitamins,
the minerals, and any special ingredients such as flax-
seed and soybean meals to provide omega 3s and protein. The only way your horse will benefit from these
nutrients is to feed according to directions. Modify
them and you’ll need to “supplement the supplement.”
For example, this feed provides 100 IUs of vitamin E
per lb. If you fed half of the recommended amount, say
5 lbs, your horse would only receive 500 IUs per day.
That’s the bare minimum, according to the National
Research Council, for a 500 kg horse. Most equine
nutritionists agree, however, that this horse at maintenance would do better at amounts closer to 1,000 IUs
per day. Furthermore, as activity increases, so does the
vitamin E requirement. Therefore, supplementation
would be appropriate.
Other nutrients such as omega 3 fatty acids, vitamins A and D, minerals such as copper and zinc, and
a host of feedstuffs provided to offer enough fat and
protein, may need to be supplemented when less than
recommended amounts are fed. As you can imagine,
it becomes very tricky to figure out just how much to
supplement. You could simply give half the supplement dosage if you are feeding half the fortified feed
dosage. But to do this accurately, you should figure
out how much your horse would have gotten if fed
the recommended amounts, and then calculate how
much supplement to feed to make up the difference. If
you’re not comfortable with crunching numbers, your
best source of information would be a qualified equine
nutritionist.
Bottom line… pay attention to labels, weigh your
feed using a scale, not a scoop, and keep your calculator handy when making adjustments that supplement
the supplement.
Juliet M. Getty, Ph.D. is an independent equine nutritionist with a wide U.S. and international following. Her research-based approach
optimizes equine health by aligning physiology and instincts with correct feeding and nutrition practices.
Dr. Getty’s comprehensive resource book, Feed Your Horse Like a Horse, is available at www.GettyEquineNutrition.com -- buy it there
and have it inscribed by the author, or get it at Amazon (www.Amazon.com) or other online retail bookstores. The seven separate volumes
in Dr. Getty’s topic-centered Spotlight on Equine Nutrition series are available with special package pricing at her website, and also at Amazon in print and Kindle versions. Dr. Getty’s books make ideal gifts—check her website for holiday specials.
Find a world of useful information for the horseperson at www.GettyEquineNutrition.com: Sign up for Dr. Getty’s informative, free
e-newsletter, Forage for Thought; browse her library of reference articles; search her nutrition forum; and purchase recordings of her educational teleseminars. Reach Dr. Getty directly at [email protected]. She is available for private consultations and speaking
engagements.
14 • Walking On