Feeding Flashcards
What do horses eat?
- hay (grass or alfalfa)
- pasture
- Concentrates (pellets, sweet feed, extruded kibbles)
- Beet pulp, COB, soy hulls and or cubes
- mineral and performance supplements
- biologicals, pre-biotics
- water
What is the principle of the first limiting nutrient?
yield is proportional to the amount of the most limiting nutrient, whichever nutrient it may be
- performance and health of our horses will be reduced to the level of the most limited nutrient in their diets.
What are the 6 essential nutrients?
- protein
- carbohydrates (includes sugars, starches and cellulose)
- fat
- macro minerals/trace minerals
- vitamins (water soluble and fat soluble
- water
What are nutrient requirements of horses based on?
size, age and metabolic state of the horse
How do you calculate your horses weight?
- weight tape
- calculation in inches (distance from point of shoulder to point of rump X heart girth)
What can effect how much you need to feed your horse?
growing, lactating or pregnant, working/undergoing heavy training workloads, environment
-> combination?
What can reduce energy requirements in poor weather?
blanketing
What are some important factors to consider when feeding a horse?
- forage quality and access
- frequency of feeding
- health issues, teeth, parasites
- social order and fear
- access to water
- housing and climate
What will effect what you feed your horse in winter?
- weather
- age
- metabolic status
- work
- housing and management
- forage quality
What are two very important factors to consider when feeding a non ruminant herbivore?
quality and intake
How much of their daily dry matter intake will forage make up?
80%
What are two methods of forage analysis?
- core sampling or laboratory analysis
What is wet chemistry?
where your sample is analysed for its component nutrients using controlled chemical reactions in a laboratory
What are the advantages and drawbacks of wet chemistry?
Drawbacks: more time consuming and more expensive
Advantages: more accurate for some nutrients such as trace minerals
What is Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy(NIRS)?
Rapid reliable method to analyse feeds that uses infrared light and computer calibrations with mathematical modeling rather than chemicals to identify and predict the amounts of nutrients
What are the advantages of NIRS?
very accurate
- fast, clean and environmentally friendly
Why can hay be so variable?
- Genetics
- Growing Conditions - fertilizer, water
- Harvest conditions - time of day, weather
- maturity
- health/vigor of the stand
- sampling procedure
What is Non-structural carbohydrate (NSC)?
a calculated measurement of all the carbohydrate sources that MAY be digested rapidly to glucose in the stomach or rapidly fermented in the cecum
- parameter we need to watch when choosing hay for the metabolically challenged horse
What can simple carbohydrates and/or excessive fructans cause?
rapid pH drop in pH in the hind gut
What can too much rapidly fermented sugar in the cecum of your horse lead to?
- laminitis, diarrhea and/or gas colic
How do you make the best of the wrong hay?
- dilute with other hay
- dilute with other fiber sources (cubes, soyhulls)
- modifications such as soaking
- small meals fed often is the safest
- include a supplement in your balanced diet
Where are water soluble vitamins manufactured?
in the hind gut but stress can disrupt this
What type of feed is good for supplementing your horses mineral intake?
manufactured feeds
What can dehydration lead to?
impaction colic and death
