Good evening, everybody, and welcome to tonight's webinar. My name is Bruce Stevenson, and I have the pleasure of chairing tonight's webinar. Tonight's webinar on exercise associated muscle disorders is proudly sponsored by Bailey's Horse Feeds.

And, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Bailey's for their generous sponsorship so that we are able to bring you this information free. A little bit of housekeeping for those of you that haven't been with us before. If you want to ask a question, simply move your mouse over your screen.

Little control bar, normally a black one down the bottom, pops up. Click on the Q&A box, type in your question, they'll come through to me, and we will hold all of those to the end. And Emma has very kindly agreed to get through as many of those as we can.

So Emma has been a nutritionist with Bailey's horse feed for 17 years and is responsible for advising horse owners, both from the office and in person, as well as devising feeding programmes based on the results of forage analysis for larger yards. She also does talks for riding clubs, veterinary practises, and retailers. So she certainly knows her stuff.

And Emma, it's welcome to you and over to you. Brilliant, thank you very much. Good evening.

I'm gonna talk to you about exercise associated muscle disorders, from a nutritional perspective and. Breaking it down into two categories. So we're going to be talking about exercise, rhabdomyosis syndrome, I'm sorry, exertional rhabdomyolysis syndrome, more commonly known as tying up as a tera setfa Monday morning disease, and also polysacchari storage myopathy or PSSM, which is much easier to say.

So we're gonna start off With ERS, which affects primarily the muscles of horses of any age, breed, or gender, resulting in the partial or complete inability to move, varying from a horse that simply cannot lengthen a stride, to one that cannot move at all. Most horses have an underlying susceptibility to the condition, which may then be caused by one or more triggering factors such as not reducing feed prior to a day off, feeding higher starch-based diets. They may be dehydrated or fatigued.

Looking also at fitness, so have they got the appropriate fitness level for the work that they're doing or they're being asked to do, to do, not warming up or cooling down properly. There may be a hormonal imbalance or possibly a viral infection that may be causing the issue. On their own, the horse often can cope with one or another of these factors, but many may just tip the balance and create a problem.

So it may never happen again, and it may just be a one-off or a sporadic incident, or it could also be something that they continuous continually suffer with, and it's more of an issue. Can be caused by dietary mismanagement, the most relevant being exercising after a period of overfeeding and under exercising, and electrolyte imbalance, the provision of too little fibre and too much starch or sugar, which we group together and call non-structural carbohydrates, so we'll abbreviate that later on in the presentation as NSC. It could also be due to inadequate selenium or vitamin E levels being provided.

The current thought is that ERS is due to an abnormality in the way that muscle cells contract, potentially caused by disruption of normal muscle calcium regulation. However, it's thought that it's not related to the level of calcium within the diet. So therefore, changing the calcium levels within your feeding ration may not actually necessarily help.

Some of the recent thoughts that are proposed are that it's caused possibly by gene alteration. From a dietary point of view, there is no procedure, either with feed or management that can guarantee against a further episode. Clinical improvements and signs of ERS can occur within maybe a week of dietary change once they're on a regular exercise regime, and with some individuals, however, some horses can take up to several weeks or possibly even months for us to possibly resolve the problem.

So an appropriate management and nutrition for each individual, however, can certainly help reduce the likelihood or the frequency of future episodes. An initial dietary evaluation and determining the approximate levels of things like energy coming from either the starch or sugar or the non-structural carbohydrates within the diet, looking at the oil, looking at the forage, as well as considering the vitamin and mineral, as well as the electrolyte balance in the diet, can initially suggest a dietary imbalance, which could possibly be creating or contributing to the cause of the muscle issues that we're seeing. If this is the case, then a full ration evaluation may be necessary.

So this would include forage analysis, so looking at your dried conserved forages with respect to hay haulage, also looking at your grasses, which will fluctuate obviously throughout the growing season, alongside any concentrate hard feed and any supplements that you may be giving your animals. Forage should provide ideally around 1.5% at a minimum of body weight per day.

Therefore, a 500 kg horse should be receiving around 7.5 kgs of forage on a daily basis. So it's really important that we take into consideration the fibre within the ration because it's nutrient contribution is actually very significant to the overall diet.

Forage analysis provides more details of the nutrients available within the diet so that the concentrate ration can be adjusted accordingly. Analysis ideally should be looking at the protein and the mineral content of the forage, but also most importantly, the digestibility which we determined by looking at the type of fibre that that particular forage provides and how mature it is. So a forage with a very good nutrient value, for example, a good protein value.

That the horse cannot digest because the digestibility is very high, the fibrous content is too high, and therefore it's sitting in the gut for long lengths of time. It's not a good thing because if they can't digest and utilise it, then that higher protein value, for example, is, is almost negligible. So what we're looking for is a forage that is as digestible as possible.

That's the one thing that we cannot alter with the ration. We can add. A higher protein ingredient or sauce or vitamin and mineral supplement or balancer alongside the ration to ensure that we are counteracting in shortfalls with respect to nutrients, but the digestibility of the forage is one thing that we cannot change.

Compound feeds, so compound feeds being things like your cubes, your coarse mixes, your balances, or fortified chaffs are designed to be fed against average quality forage. So therefore, if the forage has a poor nutritional value. The quantity of the concentrate feed needed to be fed will be greater in order to counteract these shortfalls and also vice versa.

So if you have a very good quality forage with higher levels of protein, vitamins, minerals, etc. Then actually you may be able to afford to reduce the concentrate back from the recommended levels. So therefore, the quality of the forage will really greatly affect our feeding recommendations.

It is important to look at the practical side from forage analysis, and actually it's only practical to analyse the forage whereby you have several months' worth of the forage available to you. Analysis can take quite a long time, depending on what you're looking at, it can take up to possibly 3 weeks. So if you're looking at a Forage raise, you've only got a month's sort of left to feed in your barn, and actually analysing it's probably not the right thing to do, because by the time we get the results back, you won't be nearing finishing that particular forage and maybe moving on to another batch.

Also, if you're not sure where your forage is coming from and you're only buying several bales at one time, actually the source where you're buying it from could also be changing. So all these things are things that we need to look at and consider when we are doing analysis. The non-structural carbohydrate level can be really invaluable when we're looking at forages, particularly when we're formulating diets for specific clinical cases such as your ERS and your PSSM.

With levels ideally being less than 10 instead of 12%. However, when we do a lot of when we do these analysis, we are finding that actually this is quite rare. So if we get a level sort of below sort of 10 to 12, then we're certainly doing well.

So having a look at the feeding strategies for your ERS, the first objective is to try and reduce the overall sort of carbohydrates or cereal or sugar content of the diet. So we are looking at basing our diets on forage, and actually topping up with a suitable or appropriate vitamin and mineral source such as balancer and to ensure that the diet is, is balanced. Ideally the forage should be.

Having a low NSC, so structural carbohydrate level, generally forages that have been harvested later on in the season, so a little bit more stalker, a little bit more mature, tend to have lower levels of non-structural carbohydrates. However, that does tend to go hand in hand with the nutrient levels being a little lower. So you're trying to sort of offset the balance and ensure that the diet is obviously meeting requirements properly.

It's also important to consider things like your grazing, although grazing and getting them out and into the paddocks is great for keeping them moving. We do need to be careful of the structural carbohydrate levels within the grass, which will fluctuate throughout the seasons. So in a lot of cases, and particularly, with those individuals that are suffering on a frequent basis and we're struggling to control it, we'd actually treat them a little bit like a laminitic case whereby we are avoiding.

High peak time, so spring, for example, where we may need to be a little bit more cautious with how much grazing, or the time of grazing that they've got, throughout the day. As energy or calorie requirements increase and the diet, that is higher in digestible fibre and oil will be much more appropriate, to check the feed that you're also using is appropriate for the type of work that the horse is doing. So just as too much energy is not ideal, a product designed nutritionally for light, light levels of work, or intensities of work fed to one that is doing much harder levels of work will not supply sufficient vitamins and minerals.

And we know that vitamins and mineral requirements are increased as workload increases. So ensure that you are on the right type of product, or feed, to sort to to suit your, your animals, ability and workload. Rest days, again, something that we do need to be careful of and where you're feeding higher energy concentrated feeds, they should ideally be halved from the evening before your rest day until the evening afterwards.

This doesn't, however, apply if you're feeding a low carbohydrate, balancer or a low energy or calorie type ration. It's only for those that are in higher levels of energy or calories. And if your rest periods, if they're on box rest for an injury, for example, is prolonged, then you may actually need to reconsider your ration and your diet and actually choose and look at the different type of products that may actually be more suitable for the type of work, etc.

That your horse is doing. If less than the recommended quantities of compound feeds, the cubes, mixes, balances, etc. Being fed, it is most likely that diet will be deficient, particularly in your vitamins and minerals.

And sort of looking at things like your vitamin E and your selenium in, specifically, we know that both vitamin E and selenium or your antioxidants, are a potential trigger factor for ERS tying up. And therefore, it's important that we have these nutrients within the diet in order to aid recovery. We then need to consider looking at adding an electrolyte supplement or a salt to the ration.

ERS is most common in horses that are working at a hard or fast intensity. They're more likely to sweat, and electrolytes are involved in neuromuscular function and therefore it's not unexpected that it reduces the frequency of episodes. Electrolytes and minerals are basically lost in sweat, so looking at the key minerals with respect to your sodium, your potassium, and your chloride, and in smaller degree, you've got your calcium and your magnesium that are also involved.

They are essential fluid balance, muscle and nerve activity, and excessive losses result in fatigue, dehydration, and also poor performance. The dosage of your electrolytes will be very dependent upon the hours worked, and it's also advisable to allow for travelling time, certainly if it's significant to you're travelling long distances when you're supplementing your horses with electrolytes. In an ideal world, they should be added to water, so you're not only adding electrolytes, but you're also adding fluid to your horses, which is very important.

And you can use your electrolyte supplements either alongside an intense work period or every day at a maintenance level. If you have a horse that is susceptible to muscle problems, and actually we would recommend that you feed a low dose of a maintenance quantity of electrolytes on a daily basis to ensure that your horse is as hydrated as it possibly can be. Salt and salt can certainly be added to the diet, and you can use that in replacement to your electrolyte solutions, if you would like.

Usually between sort of 10 to 12 grammes per 100 kg of body weights. So again, going back to that 500 kg horse, you're looking at between 50 to 60 grammes, so two good tablespoons of salt, just ordinary table salt is fine on a daily basis. This does, however, only just concentrate on Sodium in the chloride.

So you may be missing out on things like the potassium, calcium and magnesium to some extent. Potassium tends to be reasonably high in most of our forages that we certainly have in the UK. However, when you're considering something like a performance horse, for example, who may possibly be on restricted forage, then we do need to sort of maybe question, do we need that additional of potassium within our electrolyte solutions?

And the answer is possibly yes. I would possibly suggest that when you're considering either salt or electrolytes, and salt is great on a daily basis, to add to your ration if you wish, and then on tough training days at home, if you're travelling or you're competing, then actually replacing your salt with a specific electrolyte supplement is probably a good idea. We like to suggest that you preload your electrolytes.

So offering an electrolyte solution, ideally 1 to 2 hours prior to travelling or a high work intensity is advisable. It helps to provide a reservoir of both water and also salts in the gut, which the horse can basically draw on or pull from during exercise. And this can help to reduce the onset of fatigue as well as dehydration.

However, electrolytes will be excreted or removed, within about 4 hours of administration. So you do need to re-administer if you haven't worked or travelled within this time. So for example, there's no point in preloading your electrolytes, for example, the day before an event, because the horse, if it hasn't utilised it, won't, will have got rid of it, will have excreted it by this point.

However, making sure that the horse is on sort of maintenance dose on a regular basis is a good idea. It ensures that the horse is as hydrated as possible at all times, and then obviously you can then preload your electrolytes, prior to an event or travelling to ensure that they've got enough there for the exercise or the work, etc. That they're going to do.

After exercise solutions should be offered as soon as practical after you finished riding, ideally, if you can, within sort of that 1 to 2 hour slot after exercise. Severely dehydrated horses generally have a decreased thirst response. And with respect to your electrolyte supplements, there's quite often, the presence of things like glucose or sucrose, so your simple sugars, which actually really helped you in for the horse to sort of absorb, your electrolytes.

So you will find quite often your electrolyte supplements will have a small degree of some sugar to actually help the absorption, and ensure that our horses are getting as hydrated as possible, as quickly as possible. Ideally, we want to be looking at rehydrating prior to feeding. So feeding dry foodstuffs before the horse is properly hydrated can actually lead to increased dehydration, which is not ideal.

You can look to looking at sort of feeding soaked haze or possibly hailage, offering grass, all of which will help to sort of increase the fluid intake and therefore help rehydration. And making up sort of concentrate feeds that are damp, so by adding water, you might want to sort of look at a diluted form of unmolassed sugar beets and also succulents in in sort of small proportions, things like carrots, apples, because again, they will have a reasonably high moisture content, but we need to be looking at moderation there and not feeding them large, large quantities. If your horse doesn't drink water at an event when you're out, or an electrolyte solution at any time.

Then you can add them to the feed. So do just make sure that you're making sure that the feeds are as wet as possible to ensure that you're getting fluid in alongside your electrolytes, and particularly if you've got a horse that has automatic drinkers within the stables, check that they are drinking or pop sort of buckets of water on the floor so that you can actually monitor their drinking intake as well. What you don't want to be doing is putting electrolytes into a dry feed and your horse is not drinking sufficient fluid at the same time.

If your horse won't drink specifically from a bucket and you're going to an event, sometimes taking water from the fields, from the paddock, can often be a good option. Horses do tend to prefer it and even horses that don't drink in their stable will often go to the trough in the field. If you can take some water from home, particularly when you've got a very fussy, sort of fussy horse and foreign waters, I'm sure we know when we're going away ourselves can have a different taste.

So if you can take water with you that the horse is used to drinking, sometimes that can also help to encourage them. You can add flavourings such as fruit juice, peppermint cordial. Quite often we recommend Ribena, which is quite popular.

But if you're going to add these types of flavourings to your water, or your electrolyte solutions, then do just ensure that your horses are used to it before you get to an event. Because offering them, say, a Ribean or apple juice when you get somewhere is, you know, maybe quite alien to them. Again, obviously you can look at things like sugar beets, very diluted forms.

You can add chaff, within sort of buckets, little bits of carrots and apples again, so you're sort of having sort of apple bobbing. All of these things will help to sort of increase of water consumption and help them to take up the electrolyte solution. This slide sort of brings us to a close really with ERS, but we will come on to some of the subject with the PSSM, which was sort of marry over.

So just going into a little bit more detail about things like antioxidants, etc. So moving on to PSSM, polysaccharide storage myopathy. PSSM tends to require a much more specific dietary management than your ERS cases, specifically linked to bigger muscle type animals, so your quarter horses, your draught types, and your warm bloods.

It basically prevents. The normal metabolism of glycogen, glycogen being the storage form of your carbohydrates, which is stored not only in the liver but also in the muscles. And this excess glycogen in the muscles of horses with PSSM causes the muscles to basically cramp and the horse becomes very stiff.

Dietary changes with PSSM in some respects it's very similar to your ERS cases. So as the problem is related to glycogen storage, its source basically needs to be removed. We want to be trying to look at eliminating.

As much as we feasibly can, cereal grains and higher sugar ingredients, but do remember that any plant material will have sugar incorporated within it. So we can't eliminate sugar completely from the diet. It's not possible with our horses and their requirements.

We would be looking at things like fat and fibre as an alternative energy source to cereal grains, and we do also need to look at the provision of a balance of both vitamins, minerals, but also quality protein in the diet. So again, looking at some sort of feeding strategies, so. Again, very much focusing upon the fibre, so feeding plenty of good quality forage.

Ideally this should be a major proportion, if not all of the daily intake, that our horses are receiving. Again, looking at that minimum amount of 1.5% of total body weight, but minimum being the key there, we want to be aiming for fibre to be the real key, with our PSSM horses.

Looking at obviously things like your fresh grasses, your dried forages, haze and haages, but being mindful that we want the structural carbohydrate levels to be ideally less than 10 to 12%. So again, treating them like a laminitic. Be mindful that soft, very digestible forage, that is likely to have a much better nutrient content will also likely be higher in our structural carbohydrates.

So we may possibly, if we're struggling to keep the structural carbohydrates to a minimum. We may need to consider soaking our forage, for example, in order to reduce that. The only way that you're going to know, what level of structural carbohydrate your forage is going to supply, is whether you have it analysed.

So if you haven't got access to that or you're not able to, or you're having to deal with something straight away, then actually looking at soaking your forage initially, if you don't know what your carbohydrate level is within your forage is a good strategy to, to begin with because you're reducing your structural carbohydrates straight away. In an ideal world, we'd be looking at sort of soaking for a minimum sort of 8 to 9 hours, but that can be increased up to 12 if necessary, purely to sort of make a significant reduction, with the sugar contents within the forage. Forage helps to provide an alternative energy source, as well as nutrients to help meet our horse's requirements.

We can also look at adding sort of different types of fibre sources to help support nutrients requirements, so things like alfalfa or lucerne chaff or pellets, for example, are a very useful source of good quality fibre, to help increase both nutrients and energy in the diet if necessary. Some of the current recommendations, although research is still required in this field, is suggesting that really no more than about 30% of the total rations should be fed, as alfalfa, on a daily basis, just purely because alfalfa, Has the starch as its storage sort of granules, so we can increase the starch levels if we're going too high. So as a guideline, again, going back to our 500 kg horse, if he's getting a 10 kg, he's receiving 10 kg of feed, as dry matter per day, that includes both forage and concentrate, then we would be looking at feeding no more than 3.

Kilos of alfalfa per day, which should give us our 30%. And in practical terms, if you can imagine sort of one of the typical sort of stub scoops, sort of half a football sort of size, that would equate to roughly about 6 of those scoops in a, in a, in a day. So not many of us will be feeding up to that level, and we certainly generally wouldn't be exceeding that quantity typically.

If the horse's energy needs cannot be met by forage, and this is quite often the case, certainly with the performance source or horses are doing more fast work, for example, then we can look at alternative energy sources. So we can look at adding fat or oil. Oil can be added to the diet to really increase energy density of the ration, without the associated carbohydrate content, which is ideal.

But it may not be necessary, so. Oil, yes, absolutely is a great energy source and can help to cut back on the cereal contents of the Russian, but you do very much need to be considering each individual. So if you have a horse that is a very good doer holding its weight incredibly well.

Or has a body condition score, that is high, and therefore you would cost your horses overweight and actually adding large quantities of oil to the diet is actually not necessary and could actually pose more issues with that horse becoming obese and fat if we're adding oil unnecessarily to the diet. High fat feeds or supplements or straight or such as your corn or soy oils are preferential. And as a guideline, we're typically looking at feeding about 100 mLs of oil per 100 kg of body weight per day.

This can be elevated if the horse will take it and if it's required. And you may not need to feed up to this kind of quantity if you don't, as I say, need quite so many calories or energy in the rations. So this is a guide.

Adding oil, however, has the potential to unbalance the ration. So straight oils, etc. May not be as preferable to things like a supplement that may have additional nutrients, vitamins and minerals or antioxidants added to them.

Ideally, when you're introducing higher oil diets, we need to be looking at introducing them to sort of 8 weeks prior to when you require the energy. So if you're increasing the energy because you have a particular event or competition. That you're aiming for, then ideally we're looking at introducing it up to 8 weeks prior to ensure that the horse has time to adjust to the higher oil diet.

And this is simply due to the fact that they don't have any gallbladder. So actually it takes them a little while for their bodies to adapt to the higher oil, and so that they can actually utilise and break it down efficiently. Increased oil can also make horses loose, so do introduce it gradually, particularly if you're feeding large quantities.

And as a general rule of thumb, and soya or corn oil generally are more palatable if you're feeding larger quantities. If you're looking at straight oils, the sera corn oil, are generally a good option. Increasing the oil in the diet increases the requirement for both selenium and vitamin E.

Oxygen, oxygen drives this metabolic process with some oxygen molecules forming sort of damaging free radicals while producing energy. These free radicals are unstable and they bounce around the cell trying to find an unpaired electron and to become stable. And in this process, they can damage things like DNA that can damage protein and fats within the cell membrane, which is not ideal.

So the cell's natural defence mechanism against these harmful free radicals are antioxidants. So for example, things like selenium, which contains the enzyme glucine peroxidase, as well as vitamin E, and these basically help to mop up or stabilise these harmful free radicals. The greater the physical demands on the horse from either performance and also the associated stress that go with it and will Increase and produce more of these free radicals, which increases the risk of muscle damage with these types of animals.

So looking at sort of competition feeds or products that are designed specifically for clinical conditions such as PSSM or ERS typically will have raised a higher levels of things like your vitamin E and your selenium to these antioxidants in order to help that horse, or support the increased performance and and these increased levels of free radicals. As a guideline, current recommendations stand with an additional 100 international units of vitamin E per 100 millilitres of oil fed per day. So for example, if you're feeding 500 mLs of oil, you need to be looking at increasing or adding an additional 500 international units of vitamin E alongside your hard feed.

So even if, even if your concentrate feed is providing you with vitamin E, the more oil you add to that ration, you do need to be topping up and adding more to it to ensure that the diet is balanced and so that you can compensate for any free radicals that may be produced. These antioxidants are not only important obviously for the additional oil supplementation, but it's also really key for essential everyday life and metabolism. And many people and a lot of the research coming through is advocating additional vitamin E and selenium and diets of those horses that suffer from ERS PSSM.

However, it is unlikely that a vitamin E or selenium deficiency is the primary cause, causes of these muscle issues, and supplementing with additional vitamin E and selenium has probably been of greatest benefits to animals whereby the diet's actually deficient in the first place. Current levels stand with recommended levels of things like vitamin E, being between sort of 3 to 5 international units per kilo of body weight. Your selenium looking at 0.003 to 0.006 milligrammes per kilo of body weight per day with any additional support if you're adding oil on top of the ration.

So as a guideline, again, going back to our trusty 500 kg horse, these animals would require between sort of 1.5 to 2.5 1000 international units of vitamin A on a daily basis, and your selenium looking at 1.5 to 3 milligrammes per day.

This slide here is just to illustrate what a typical diet would supply our 500 kg horse. So our 500 kg horse, requiring 10 kg of feed on a daily basis. So looking at a sort of a low starch, low sugar.

Balancer, typically being fed 100 grammes per 100 kg of body weight. So our 500 kg horse would require 500 grammes of our balance on a daily basis with the balance of, say, providing 25,000 international units per kilogramme of vitamin E. Our horse potentially will have 8 hours access to grass, which he may consume in the region of say 2.6 kg of grass, within that time.

Grass will have a vitamin E value ranging, which we sort of maybe 30 to 100 international units per kilogramme of dry matter. So basing these rations on an average of 65 currently. With grass hay being available at 6.9 kg with a vitamin E value of around 12 international units per kilo.

That diet in itself will actually provide just over 15,000 international units a vitamin E on a daily basis, which is within the remit and the recommendations. So it poses. Is the question to whether do we really need any additional vitamin A in addition to that.

However, we do need to consider the fact that vitamin A within our grasses and our forages and will fluctuate. So we know that our grass will contain between sort of 30 to 100 international units per kilogramme of dry matter. But obviously that will vary throughout the season.

And certainly coming into winter, it's debatable of how much vitamin actually you're going to be getting from your grass at that time. Equally your dried forages, your vitamin E levels will sort of degrade or deteriorate, the older that forages. So all of these factors do need to be taken into consideration.

And again, our forage can play quite a, has quite a big impact on actually what we need to supplement and, and what we need to feed our horses to ensure that they're getting the right levels. And then moving through, so hopefully we're looking at a selecting an appropriate vitamin and mineral source, as forage very rarely meets requirements on its own, certainly with respect to your vitamins and minerals. So looking at things like a balance so that's suitable for a particular level of work.

There are lots of balances available. You have sort of Lowest spec balances that are more suitable for sort of the lighter periods of lighter intensity work or those that are at rest and you have things like your performance balances, which generally will have higher levels of things like quality protein, vitamins and minerals in order to support a horse that's working at a much harder level. These will provide obviously the nutrients to support not only health but also condition and also work.

Balances typically will have a starch value of usually less than 10%. Generally they are depending on the balance there, but generally they will be sort of around the sort of maybe the 6 to 8% mark, and therefore our ideal for our PSSM type horses. And then summary, so in summary, although dietary changes alone may not resolve the condition itself, and successful management requires obviously a combination of not only dietary change, but we need to be looking at the provision of daily turnout so our horses are sort of out exercising and moving, also alongside regular exercise.

So all of these things we need to take into consideration alongside our dietary changes. So it's not just one thing that we need to be looking at. Just some references for you, and that brings us to a close.

Thank you very much for listening. Emma, thank you so much. That was really, really insightful.

And, a huge thank you to Bailey's Horse Feeds for sponsoring tonight's talk. I'm sure you've all got a, a lot of information and some very, very worthwhile tips because it's, as you say, it's a very complex disease and it's about more than just changing one thing. Mhm.

Absolutely. So we do have a couple of questions. Some of them are going to be, a little bit more difficult than others to answer.

But, Zia wants to know how much straw can be included in the forage fed daily without having a nutritional impact. Again, I'd say about that, looking at that 30%, . So that we're not sort of upsetting again the vitamin and mineral balance.

So straw is a tricky one, it's obviously not as digestible as our haze and hailages typically. Which means that obviously the structural carbohydrate level will typically be lower in a straw, which is ideal in this instance. But we do need to weigh that up in the fact that we need to ensure that the diet is balanced.

Also, straw is not as digestible, so in larger quantities, you can have other implications. It could be something that we need to consider with things like colic and impaction. So around 30% of the total, sort of diet is generally where, where we're at at the moment.

Excellent. That leads us very nicely into the next question, which is a little bit of a, a loaded question. Jose is asking, what would be the ideal balance of a diet for a standard working horse?

I did warn you. Yeah. I think it's very much down on to an individual.

It depends on, obviously, workload, it depends on the intensity of work you're doing, the type of work you're doing. So whether you're doing sort of More fast work, so more sort of, you know, fast can sort of girl at work or whether actually you're doing more low intensity levels of work. There are so many different things, obviously, calorie requirements.

Every individual is, is very different. I think the main thing, is to consider is, look at your forage, because that's very important. It makes up the largest proportion, or it should be making up the largest proportion, of your ration.

So what your forage is providing is, is key with respect to nutrients, making sure it's digestible as much as you can. And then looking at a suitable concentrate to support your horse's energy or your calorie requirements, but also looking at workloads. So most of us companies, if you're looking at, sort of a compound or balance sort of type products, are usually producing products or designing products space for a certain level of work.

So if your horse is in harder levels of work, needing higher levels of calories, for example, then you need to be looking at maybe a In this instance, obviously a lower starch, . Lowest cereal, low sugar sort of type product that's maybe got a higher energy, higher oil, higher fibre content, you can feed in larger quantities in order to meet calorie requirements. If you have an animal that is maybe a good doer and maintaining weight very well on just a forage-based diet, then actually a balancer is probably the best way forward for you.

Just making sure that it's suitable for a particular type of work, so that obviously you're meeting vitamin, mineral, protein requirements, etc. But keeping calorie intake and energy intake under control. Excellent.

Excellent. When you were talking about supplementing oils, a question came through. Are you worried about oil-induced pancreatitis in horses?

Oh, crikey. I have, I don't know. I'm not a vet.

I don't know. Not something I, I know of, I'm afraid, so, sorry. OK, no worries at all.

. Another interesting question is, what sort of exercise level and intensity would you consider to be enough to prevent these sorts of problems? So like on your down days, you say, you know, get the horses out into the field and that, but is there a quantification of what you need to try and aim for? As much as I know, not as much as I know.

I know that, a lot of the research suggests that we need to keep our horses active and actually having long periods of rest days or even having a rest day, certainly with our PSSM horses, it's probably not an ideal thing. So if we can do sort of some low level exercise, even if it's sort of maybe popping them on to say something like a Walker or walking them out or doing something, just a, a light hack, maybe a walk or trot work, rather than sort of intense work all the time, I believe is, is the way forward, so that our horses aren't just standing around. But not so much with our ARS, but certainly with the PSSM.

I believe that the recommendations are to keep it sort of very, you know, to keep it regular, and keep them moving. Yeah, so don't go from one day of high intensity and the next day, leave them in a stable. Absolutely right.

Yeah. So to try and be as consistent and also consider fitness levels as well, because if your horse is not fit for the level of work you're doing, so if it's been standing around or not been doing a great deal, and then you suddenly take it out for a gallop, for example, then you're more likely going to increase the risk of obviously an issue. Not much different to us humans, is it.

Emma, there's loads of comments coming through thanking you for a very informative presentation and, and really stimulating some good thoughts and providing knowledge. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

And once again, Bailey's Feeds, thank you for the kind sponsorship. If you can please relay that back to the company for us. I really appreciate that.

That's super. Thank you so much. Folks, that's all for tonight.

From my side, thanks to my controller in the background for making everything happen. Thank you for all attending. Emma, thank you and Bailey's feeds and from myself, Bruce Stevenson, it's good night.