Good evening, everybody, and welcome to this Wednesday night's webinar. My name is Bruce Stevenson, and I have the honour and privilege of chairing tonight's webinar. Little bit of housekeeping.

First and most importantly, I would like to thank our sponsors, Bailey Horse Feeds. It is thanks to their generous sponsorship that we are able to bring you this chat this evening. For those of you that are new to webinars, if you want to ask us a question, just move your mouse over the screen.

The control bar pops up normally at the bottom, and there's a little Q&A box there. Just click on that, pop in all your questions to there and we will keep those over to the end. And we will answer as many of those as what we possibly can.

So tonight's webinar is being presented by Emma Short. Emma's role is very varied and covers the provision of feed advice for general horse owners, working on specialist feeding programmes for larger yards and professionals, and providing technical support for the Bailey sales and marketing team. She enjoys applied and clinical nutrition, having seen plenty of changes and progression over the years within the industry.

She helps supply any new research to the benefits of both the welfare and the performance of horses through Bailey's product development programme, as well as providing educational talks to horse owners, equestrian associations, veterinary practises, and retailers. Emma, welcome back to the webinar, vet and it's over to you. Thanks very much.

So good evening everybody, and thank you so much for attending. Why is a balanced diet and nutrition so important for our horses? Well, a well-balanced diet should provide all the nutrients a horse needs to maintain appropriate body condition and support healthy hoof growth, muscle tone and gut health, along with a myriad of other requirements.

Along. With helping to support the immune system and also the healing processes. If any of these areas are lacking, many owners turn to supplements when actually a closer look at their horse's diet and also management may actually highlight where simple and cost effective changes are all that are needed.

A balanced diet should provide all the nutrients the horse needs according to their specific requirements for work, whether they are in light, moderate or hard levels of work, also their life stage. So are we dealing with fo and young young stock? Are we looking at mature horses that may be idle or again in work or possibly the elderly, as well as also their rep status.

So considering the brood mare, for example, that may be pregnant or she may be lactating. And this ensures that the horse maintains appropriate body condition and weight and supports healthy hoof growth, muscle tone and gut health for any expected work, or their breeding status, or simply just their overall health and wellbeing. So how do we establish what those requirements are?

So in the UK, the National Research Council's nutrient requirements of horses is the reference text to use to determine a horse's nutrient requirements. The text originates from North America and was last published in 2007, and it's important to bear in mind. The NRC provides the minimum amount of nutrients that the horse needs.

And when we as nutritionists, are formulating a horse feed or a supplement, we will also review more recent published research, that may indicate a higher or possibly lower level of a particular nutrient for a certain situation. So what do our concentrate compound feeds provide? They're all designed to supplement or complement forage and forage after all is the most important part of the diet.

Your traditional mixes and cubes supply varying levels of energy or calories along with protein, vitamins and minerals and your balances. Supply protein, vitamins and minerals, but with negligible levels of calories or energy, as they're fed in very small quantities. Typically a balancer would be fed at around 100 grammes per 100 kg of body weight.

So they're ideal for those horses that are naturally good doers and hold their weight well. When formulating a feed, we have reference values for the level of nutrients found in common ingredients. So some ingredients are more consistent in their nutrient levels than others, but the key really is to be consistent in the ingredients that we're using.

We analyse feed materials regularly as well as the finished feed, which allows us to monitor and adjust formulation so we. Stay within the legal requirements. There is a legal requirement for feed to be within a certain range of what is declared on the packaging, which is known as limits of variation.

And this allows for variation and flexibility within raw materials. They're not always going to provide the same level of nutrients or energy, at any one time. Our biggest complication, however, is that of the forage contribution to the diet, and forage quality and what nutrients it supplies varies greatly and can impact what feed is most suitable, but also how much supplementary feed is actually required.

And your feed and your supplements are only fed in minimal amounts in comparison to the forage that we provide, and it's the total contribution of the horse's diet that determines whether it's balanced or not. Let's look at forage initially. So this includes mainly things like your grass pastures, your haze and your haileages, but it will also include things like chaff or alfalfa, sugar beets, grass nuts, etc.

So they all contribute to the forage portion of the diet. And your concentrate or are designed to be fed alongside forage with an average nutritional. So if forage has a poor nutritional value, the quantity of concentrate feed required to supply a balanced diet will be much greater, but also vice versa.

Quality of the forage will therefore affect your feeding recommendations, so which product is suitable, but also how much of that product you need to supply the horses to achieve that balance. Nutritional value will also vary according to grass species, time of year, so it may be the time of harvest when you're looking at things like haze and hailages. Has it been harvested maybe earlier on in the season, which indicates that it will generally be softer, more digestible with a higher nutrient intake, or is it, has it been harvested much later?

In the season, therefore is less digestible with fewer nutrients. But also, if you're looking at grazing, your grass pastures, obviously there's going to be seasonal fluctuations as well, as well as things like your environmental conditions, so things like your temperature, sunlight, etc. Will all have an impact on the quality of forest that our horses have access to.

It's not all about numbers, and lots of people sort of play the the number game when they're looking at products and supplements. Now, we tend to formulate to provide optimum levels of nutrients in a daily feed when it's fed at a recommended rate. And this helps to allow for variation in the forages that are available, but also Quality of the forests available to the clients, looking at environments and also management conditions, as well as the forms of nutrients and how bioavailable they are, but also the difference in efficiency of how nutrient uptake is is taken between horses.

Every horse is an individual and it's different. Also considering things like the immune response, the health and possibly the disease status will all influence how that horse utilises its feed, its diet, and whether it is fully balanced or not. And also feeding practises, so those owners or clients who may under or possibly over feed from the guidelines given.

Those who do feed should still meet minimum requirements, so NRC if they're feeding products or supplements, designed to be provided the optimum level of nutrients. So if we only formulated to NRC or minimum requirements, then the diet would be deficient if they're underfeeding it. Equally, if your forage quality declines, the diet would also fall into a shortfall.

So supplying those optimum levels of nutrients is really key to. Try and avoid that, that deficiency. The same really applies for those that potentially overfeed.

However, before reaching sort of toxic levels of, of nutrients, they will tend to antagonise or interfere with each other, which reduces the availability, which actually has a negative effect on the overall health and performance. So probably not what the owner or client is actually trying to achieve. And we also need to consider things like partial differences, soil types and grass management.

This slide illustrates the nutrient effects on both health and performance, and it's important to consider that there are ranges within which a nutrient level can be consumed without causing a problem such as a deficiency or toxicity. And the graph here shows there is an optimal level and then a range around optimal before a toxicity or deficiency situation is reached. And as long as levels of each nutrient are in that range, then the horse's diet can be.

Considered balanced, as it is impossible really to achieve optimal levels for every nutrient all at the same time, particularly given how the nutritional value of your forage varies so greatly. You can see here when you look at the chart that you have your NRC on the left hand side there. And if we were formulating products or supplements just strictly to NRC, so minimum recommendations of nutrients.

If, for example, forage quality. Declines or fluctuates, if the horse is suffering with an illness, or simply isn't able to utilise the nutrients effectively, or maybe the owner isn't feeding, at the recommended amounts, and you can see that actually it's very easy for the horse to fall in deficient levels of certain nutrients, which is not ideal. So when we're formulating to an optimum level, we have a little bit more of a safety margin.

Optimum range varies for each nutrient, so if we look at selenium, for example, this mineral has the narrowest above optimal range before causing a toxicity issue. So acute toxicity issues in horses are rare, but the potential for chronic issues do exist, and it's not unheard of of more than one feed or supplement containing selenium or other nutrients that are fed at the same time. And when I go onto a yard, for example, Go into a feed room, we're discussing feeding rates, etc.

And what they're feeding. Sometimes they have myriads of supplements in their feeding room, and they call it, they like to sort of make their sort of cake mixtures up, if you like. So this can be quite serious if there are certain nutrients such as selenium incorporated within it, because it could certainly cause a chronic toxicity.

And this would potentially be characterised by hair loss of the mane and tail, cracking of hooves, and often signs of lameness. Over supplementing the diet, are additional added extras actually necessary? And if the diet is balanced and correct for individuals age, reproductive status, workload, body weight, and also forage quality, then probably not.

However, I would recommend, supplementing further with electrolytes or salt, for those animals, particularly that are working, hard enough to sweat, and also, looking at digestive enhancers, which we will move on to, a little later. So how do we know on the face of it, whether the diet is actually balanced and actually asking the right questions to determine if we need to make adjustments to the base diet or whether further investigation, such as forage analysis is required or further supplementation is needed, is really key to see where we need to go. So the first thing that I would look at.

Is, is the feed suitable for the level of work the horse is doing for its age and also reproductive status? So for example, if we're looking at a foal or a youngster, are they on a correct stud, you know, stud ration, for example, rather than a mature diet, equally for workload, are they being fed the right products suitable for that level of work? Because that can have a really big impact.

On actually whether the diet is balanced or not. Secondly, is that product, or are they feeding their diet correctly? So is it being fed at the recommended level?

There's a reason why we put a recommended level on products and supplements, because at that level we know that it's going to achieve a balance alongside that average quality forage. How much forage is being fed? Now forage makes up the biggest portion of the diet, so it's really key that we know how much is being fed and are they feeding the right amount.

What is the nutritional quality of the forage? And this is hard to determine just by looking at it. So just by looking at a forage you might perceive it to be good quality, but actually when we analyse it, sometimes it's not the case.

So sometimes analysis may be required. Does the horse have access to grass and also how long for? You know, the owner may say, well, the horse has access to 10 hours of grass, so you think, OK, well, it's spring, for example.

The horse is out for a long length of time, it must be getting, you know, a reasonable amount of nutrients from that grazing. However, it could be that maybe the horse is in a very small area, maybe it's over grazed, and actually the grass contribution in the diet is actually minimal, and that will obviously affect how many nutrients you've got. Coming from the forage portion of the diet.

And also looking at things like feeding management, so things like meal size and the number of feeds fed, if that owner is feeding one very large meal per day of concentrate that the horse probably can't digest, then actually how effective is that product going to be. As a guideline for you, you're looking at around 500 grammes. Of a feed, per 100 kg of body weight per meal, just to give you a guide, so it helps you to see whether the owner or client is actually feeding correctly.

So what other things do we need to consider? We also need to look at whether the horse is on a restricted forage diet. So is the horse overweight, for example, and therefore actually it's not getting maybe ad-lib forage, which is the ideal.

This also may indicate whether they're getting any hard feed or supplementary feed. Are they may be getting what we call a token feed, so maybe a handful of something like a high fibre nut, for example, that is not designed to be fed in such a small quantity and therefore, actually the nutrient contribution is very limited and therefore is not going to be providing a balanced diet, but actually providing maybe calories that that horse doesn't need. Also, we need to look at whether the forage may be being soaked if you've got an overweight animal, and how long they're soaking it for.

So if they're looking to soak the forage to reduce maybe sugar or calorie intake, then you also need to have in the back of your mind that there's potentially going to be reasonable mineral and protein loss there as well. And actually that forage isn't necessarily going to be providing what we might think. So you may need to adjust the base ration, the supplementary feed accordingly to make sure again that that diet is balanced.

Is the forage being fed. In some instances, some animals don't get enough, and actually, you're looking at a minimum of 1.5% body weight, minimum of forage on a dry matter basis per day.

Ideally, in ideal situations, that animal should be on ad lib, so ad lib forage to as much as it wants. But if you're dealing with an animal that is overweight and We're trying to reduce calories, then we will look at reducing forage intake. So that's really key.

Also looking at forage quality, do you need to analyse it? Do be aware that when you're looking at, sort of forage analysis, that actually, it's probably not worth your while if you have a customer or client, that is changing their forage on a frequent basis. When you're doing a full, analysis to look at protein.

Energy, fibre levels, mineral content of a forage, that can sometimes take up to 2 to 3 weeks to actually get the report back. So in some instances, if you find that your client has not got enough forage, and by the time you get, get your results back, sometimes they can be on a completely different forage altogether, which kind of negates the point of actually sending it off in the first place. So that is quite an important fact, .

To note down. And a feed or supplement will not do its job effectively if it's not fed correctly. So adjusting the diet initially may be actually enough to resolve the problem in the first place.

If a product is being under or overfed from recommendations, then it may actually be the wrong product. And if you're not sure what to recommend, and contacting the manufacturer or possibly talking to a nutritionist may actually help put you, on the right lines. If the diet appears to be correct, then the diet may need to be evaluated in more depth, so this may involve specific diets based on forage analysis, but also a question arises as does the horse have any underlying problems also that we may need to be addressed or or we need to maybe assess?

That may not be balanced, may come from observation. So you may find that the horse has, you know, weak muscle. Maybe it's lacking top line.

And your dietary influences for this would be potentially protein. How much protein is within the diet? Is it quality protein?

Has the horse got potentially poor quality hooves? This could be Potentially have an influence on the vitamins and minerals, but also the essential amino acids that it's receiving in its diet. It may also have a dull or dairy coat.

So, again, looking at vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, but possibly also essential fatty acids in this instance would be necessary. Does it have a temperament problem? So, is it poor feed or is it just poor management, as well as potentially a poor gut health?

And also poor immunity. So again, a range of nutrients and antioxidants would be involved here as well as poor gut health. Let's have a little look at those that do lack topline and that are weak in muscle.

And these types of animals are often associated with a potbelly appearance. And these pot-bellied horses tend to have much weaker top lines and are often mistaken for being fat. So typically because they're mistaken for being overweight, they're typically starved of nutrients and potentially calories and therefore not receiving essentially a balanced diet, which potentially just compounds the problem.

So like any athlete, the horse can only develop the necessary strong, well-muscled physique with correct work and training, but also the right nutritional building blocks are essential too. And while training is important, even an unbroken youngster can have a better physique on a correctly balanced diet. If muscle and body tissue is protein, and this is supplied, as we know in limited amounts by forage, but also the availability is affected by the forage's digestibility.

So a forage that's maybe been harvested later on in the season may be much more fibrous, more lignified, and the horse may struggle to digest the nutrients effectively, but also the variation, within seasons as well. So if you're talking about grass pasture. As the horse works harder, consequently, his requirements for nutrients increase.

So the base start will need adjusting. Whether this is moving up to a product or supplement more suitable for his level of work, or you're looking at topping up, his base ration with maybe something like a forage balancer, for example, to make sure that you are meeting the demand for protein to build and also repair muscle. It's really important to look at quality protein, and it's just as important as the amount of protein that the horse is receiving.

So quality is determined by individual amino acids, of which it is made up. And lysine is the first limiting amino acid, which means that when it's insufficient in the diet, protein synthesis is adversely affected. A lower lysine intake could negatively impact muscle development and growth, and this is why most commercial feed companies and supplement companies will add sources of lysine to ensure that any shortfalls within the forage part of the diet is counteracted.

And you will find ingredients such as soya, alfalfa, sunflower, linseed, for example, that are often used as good quality protein sources, with lysine levels being much higher in things like soya, for example, at 3%. Alfalfa, you have a lysine value of around 0.75%.

Sunflower's got a reasonable level at 1.2, and linseed is only 0.8.

So you will typically find these ingredients, . Within products designed to provide quality protein and help build and maintain muscle. Well, does not mean that we need to actually feed excessive amounts of protein.

And actually a good quality concentrate feed or balancer alongside average forage should be more than adequate to meet the essential amino acid requirements of the average horse. So performance, competition, condition. Feeds as well as balances, typically supply better quality protein than leisure feeds.

Again, look out for certain ingredients within these products, such as things like your soya and your alfalfa, in order to see whether they are actually supplying good levels of essential amino acids like your lysine. And your balances are ideal for your good doers. They can support up to the hardest workloads, depending on the balance they used, and for those who maintain condition on a forage or, or, or grazing alone, they are ideal.

You can also look at supplementing the diet with alfalfa, which can be a really useful addition to the diet, because this helps to supply not only more protein, but also lysine. Where sometimes increasing the base feed, such as a cube mix or balance that is inappropriate. So sometimes increasing cube.

Or mix, for example, to push more protein or lysin into the diet may provide too much energy for some horses or for the level of work or for their body weight. Also, possibly changing the base ration and increasing it above recommended levels could potentially also cause a mineral imbalance. So again, your alfalfa can be quite a useful tool, in this instance.

Need to ensure that the feed or balancer is suitable for age, reproductive status workload, and is fed at the correct amount for body weight. And this typically will be found on the back of a bag or packaging or on a website. If it's not there or you're unsure of what amounts you actually need to recommend or to feed, then you can generally speak to the manufacturer or speak to a nutritionist that hopefully will be able to give you more specific recommendations.

We also energy and fat cannot be turned directly into muscles. So, however, if the horse is receiving insufficient energy or calories from the diet, he will not be able to generate new protein or muscle. And the nutritional content of your forage is very variable, so your concentrated diet may need to be adjusted accordingly.

Modern compound feeds are all formulated to be fed at calculated levels according to work intensity alongside forage of average quality. So this helps to supply both calories and nutrients that are lacking in the forage and so provides that fully balanced diet. And your forage may provide adequate calories, for some horses, for those that are good doers.

However, others may require a conditioning type product or feed that provides both energy and calories, as well as your essential amino acids for muscle building. Let's have a little look, and consider the options based on the horse's requirements. So I've taken some levels from the NRC, which is what we look at, as our minimum level.

So for a 500 kg horse in night work, they would require 699 grammes of crude protein and 30.1 grammes of lysine per day. That's increased to 768 grammes of crude protein of 33 grammes of lysine per day in moderate levels of work and in hard work you're looking at eggs, 62 grammes of crude protein and 37.1 grammes of lysine.

So you can see if we take something like a muscle supplement for example. Which has a crude protein of 21.6 and a lysine value of 1.15.

You can see that this 50 grammes is going to supply you with 10.8 grammes of crude protein and lysine at 0.57, which is not a a great number.

Looking at something like a balancer, typically fed at 500 grammes, so 100 grammes per 100 kg of body weight for those horses that are in light levels of work, you would be looking at 130 grammes of crude protein and 11 grammes of lysine. Alfalfa, which a lot of people do use as a supplementary feed alongside their base rations, so half a kg, which is typically, one of the round, stub scoops that most clients and owners would use. We'll supply 75 grammes of crude protein and lysine at 3.75 grammes.

Most people will feed more than one scoop or half a kg of alfalfa, so typically feeding, say 1 to 2. Scoops of alpha per day. So obviously your levels will increase.

But actually, for certain, in certain instances, we would recommend feeding anywhere from 1 to 2 kg, sometimes higher for those in harder levels of work. So your alfalfa is starting to provide, you know, better levels of nutrients, obviously, the, the more you feed off it. And then also looking at things like your grass hay.

So, feeding 1.5% of body weight is 7.5 kgs of hay per day, with an average of 7% crude protein.

Crude protein is gonna be providing 52 5 grammes and obviously a lysine is 28.5. So in a majority of cases, your crude protein is often met by forage alone, particularly in light levels of work.

Usually, and particularly in summer when there is grass available and you're not just for Dying on grass hays or hailages. However, your lysines, your essential amino acids, will will generally be insufficient and therefore supplementing the diet is really essential to make sure that we are meeting our amino acid profiles and that we can support muscle development and function and also repair and rebuild. So this is even more cru crucial when you're feeding in winter months when obviously grass quality and availability is also declining.

So let's have a look at feeding for feet. So poor hoof quality can be especially difficult to resolve due to the many nutrients required to ensure healthy horn growth. Possible causes could be an unbalanced diet, the horse not absorbing nutrients efficiently or imbalance.

Is affecting nutrient utilisation whereby an excess of one nutrient can inhibit the availability of another. But don't forget that hoof health is not just down to nutrition, trimming, shoeing, weather or the environment as well as genetics obviously all play a role. Emphasis on foot nutrition and the integrity of the hoofful growth centres on the B vitamin biotin, and biotin alone is not enough to correct pawn horn quality.

It is just one of the many essential nutrients required by the horse for hoof, hair and skin integrity. There has, however, been more data in the literature on the effect of biting on hoof or structure compared to all the other nutrients combined, which is why so many people look towards feeding the Barton supplement, then considering the total nutrient requirement of the horse. And don't forget that barton is also manufactured by the horse in the hind gut.

So you may also need to consider gut health again, which we'll come on to in a few slides' time. There's been no definitive requirement for biotin and it's been determined. However, it is thought that the average horse requires around 2 to 3 milligrammes per day.

This should be met by diet alone, and several feeds and balances now contain elevated levels of biotin and when fed at the recommended ration or recommended amount, may reduce or even remove the need further for further biotin supplementation. And horses with poor feet don't necessarily have a biotin deficiency. However, there have been studies where 15 to 20 milligrammes of biotin per day were given, and this has shown a positive effect on who for growth.

And particularly those horses that are under stress, that maybe their gut health is compromised, maybe they're in intense levels of work, they're travelling or competing regularly, they may be stabled for long periods of time, or they may have insufficient dietary biotin. They may benefit from such supplementation. So let's look at the energy and protein.

These are the first limiting nutrients in hoof nutrition. And if they are not present in sufficient amounts, hoof quality will be poor regardless of what other nutrients are present. So ensure the horse is receiving sufficient dietary energy or calories so that the horn growth and integrity can be achieved before you even consider or look at the vitamin and mineral components of the diet.

The horse, like humans require energy for all basic body functions, including the digestion. And utilisation of nutrients in its feeds to help sustain the growth and development of tissues including the the hoof wall. And if the horse doesn't get sufficient energy to fully utilise its diet, the feed or supplement that you're using, it will not be able to reap the full benefits.

Again, with protein, it's all about quality. So methionine, one of the essential amino acids, is one of the. Important parts of making up keratin.

So a shortfall in the dark may lead to poor hoof growth. Feeding the correct concentrated feed again, saying the same thing, keep reiterating it for age, reproductive status, body weight, workload, should ensure that these essential amino acids are supplied in the right amount to meet requirements. You may want to consider a balancer for those that can gain sufficient energy or calories from just forage alone.

Again, you may also want to consider sort of additional alfalfa, in this instance as well. This has a particular benefit, in the winter months, again, when grass quality, is diminished, as your alfalfa, as we've said previously, and the previous slide supplies, good levels of protein as well as lysine, but also decent levels of minerals such as calcium. The calcium is key in bone development and structure, which is also important for cell attachment in the hoof wall.

You've also got zinc, which plays a role in carbohydrate and protein metabolism as well as being a component of an enzyme responsible for collagen synthesis, as well as forming the lipoproteins that cement the cell, the cells of the hoof together. Manganese is important in the skeletal makeup as well as being a major component of cartilage, and copper is significant in bone and connective tissue formation necessary for the formation of the disulfide bonds in keratins. So ultimately these bonds impact the rigidity of the outer hoof wall.

You also need to be looking for bioavailable organic or chelated zinc, copper and manganese. And these minerals basically are attached to a protein or sugar molecule, and are more easily absorbed and utilised by the horse's body. The chelated minerals are generally found in things like your performance, your conditioning feeds, or your balances mainly because they tend to be a little bit more expensive and therefore are put into those, better spec, products.

Beware of over supplementation, and most people are aware that their horses require vitamins and minerals in some format, but often make the mistake of over supplementing, which could be as harmful as not feeding them at all. Supplementing with one key mineral rather than the balance of minerals, can lead to an imbalance and can cause deficiency deficiencies of other minerals, which may be tied up by one if it's fed in excess. More doesn't always equal better.

The diet must supply adequate levels of all minerals, not just those that are considered important for hoof growth. And the health of the hoof is an extension of the health of the horse, and when overall health is compromised, the health of the hoof is also likely to be negatively affected. Let's look at things like dietary fats and oils.

So the outermost layer of the the hooho, the peropal consists of both keratin and fatty acids. This helps to seal moisture into the deeper hoof structures and keeps water out, helping to maintain moisture balance in the hoof. And there is some evidence that dietary fat can help to strengthen and maintain pliability in the hoof structure as well as support, support moisture balance.

And therefore supplying a balance of both omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids in the diet, may help. Those horses with access to grass, should really receive sufficient omega 3. And although grass has a low fat content of around 2 to 4%, it does contain 39 to 50%, as omega 3.

However, for those that maybe are on limited grazing or particularly moving into winter, they are most likely of the animals that are going to require supplementation. Obviously when grass availability is is significantly reduced. For a fully balanced diet that delivers enough energy, quality protein, vitamins and minerals to support healthy hoof growth.

Forage supplies calories plus some other nutrients, but modern pasture and forages that have been shown to be lacking in a range of minerals, particularly things like copper and zinc. So some form of supplementary feeding is going to be necessary. You good doers who derive sufficient calories for their requirements from forage alone should.

Ideally receive a balancer to provide the nutrients without the calories so we can balance the diet back out and ensure that the correct levels of nutrients are provided. And maintaining a fully balanced diet all year round should ensure healthy hoof growth without really the need for additional supplementation. Hoof horn takes around 9 to 12 months to grow down from the coronet, so stop, so stopping feeding, particularly during the summer months, which is quite common, may, you may not see the effects on horn or hoof quality initially, potentially until the winter months, when actually it may be blamed on other factors, but other than nutrition.

And if just feeding a good quality balance data for at least 9 months, the hoof quality is still not good enough, then actually additional supplementation may well be necessary at that point. But don't forget the influence of the environment on hoof integrity. Even those that have the best nourished hooves, you know, can, can take a toll as well.

So let's have a little look at temperament and immunity. So temperament problems can be due to a vast array of reasons. Overfeeding or the wrong type of feed or energy source can affect temperance.

So looking at cereals, whereby they provide higher levels of starch, feeds maybe fibre and oil, which supplies more slow release, . Energy generally better for those that tend to be a little bit highly strung or excitable. Feed management can also increase the incidence of gastric ulcers, which can affect temperaments, as well as the health and performance of the horse.

Things like management and handling and obviously also have an impact, as well as poor gut health, which can cause discomfort, which can be expressed as crabby or maybe other unwanted behaviour. But poor gut health could also lead to other clinical complications such as colic laminitis, for example, or weight, weight loss or lacklustre. The gut bacteria also has a role in the immune response, so keeping the microbiota.

Healthy and balanced is really essential. So let's have a look at gut health and the microbiota. So there are over more than 100 trillion microorganisms in the horse's gut.

And in general, there are 5 types of microbes that you'll find there. You have your cellulitic bacteria which digest fibre, your proteolytic. Bacteria which breaks down your protein, lactic acid producing bacteria responsible for digesting starch.

Protozoa, which produces your volatile fatty acids, fungi in your yeast which break down fibre, and your other bacteria which help to produce things like your B vitamins such as biotin. Microbes are found throughout the entire digestive tract, but because most favour a pH neutral environments, nearly all inhabit the secu and colon. Due to specificity to different substrates, the population of individual microbes will vary according to the type of food that is present in the digestive tract.

The cellulitic bacteria make up the majority of the population in the scum in the colon, which is the site of fibre digestion, which makes sense. Your microbial populations can vary from one horse to the next, and that might explain why some horses can eat anything while others have digestive upset within the smallest change in their routine or diet. Again, we come back to that word balance.

And the goal of microbial balance involves keeping the number of cellulitic bacteria high and the lactic acid produces low. Your cellulitic bacteria produces volatile fatty acids, and your proliferation of your pathogenic bacteria such as your E. Coli and salmonella cannot occur when this process is taking place.

So a high fibre diet is obviously preferable. If the lactic acid producing bacteria population starts to grow, they produce enough lactic acid to influence the pH of the guts, making it less hospitable for cellulitic bacteria and more agreeable for the pathogenic bacteria. And this is when problems tend to arise.

So how tolerant an animal is to changes in the pH before problems begin can be highly individual. But let's have a look at your digestive enhancers, so these can positively influence the microbiota, so supplementing certainly may be beneficial, and they include your probiotics, your prebiotics, as well as your yeast culture. And they all have slightly different functions.

Your probiotics contain live bacteria and aim to flood the gut with beneficial species, which can then stop the harmful species from becoming established, processed term terms competitive exclusion. The length of time probiotics are used for depends on the reason for their use. So short term may be in response to a more acute disruption to the microbial population, such as after a course of oral antibiotics, for example.

Long term use of the microbial population is likely to be compromised indefinitely, so for example, for those horses that are older. Are a non-digestible food ingredient that beneficially affects the host by stimulating the growth and or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon. And those most often used in horse feeds are your religiosaccharides.

So your first, your short chain fructoiosaccharides or your hos, is derived and found from various different sources, including things like artichoke, chicory, onions, and sugar beets. And they provide a food source for the beneficial bacteria, and they need this food source in order to reproduce. Research has shown that harmful bacteria such as E.

Coli and Clostridium cannot utilise forces, which means that beneficial species are able to competitively, competitively, can't say that word tonight, exclude them. Os seems to be particularly useful when horses are suffering with diarrhoea, presumably because the numbers of Clostridium are reduced. You also have your Mananeligiosaccharides or moss, which essentially mop or bind up the pathogenic bacteria so that they can't become established.

And you also have gum Arabic, which is a prebiotic fibre, which supports the relief of inflammation. And integrity of the stomach lining. So moving on to yeast culture, arguably a probiotic stimulates fibre digesting bacteria.

And your studies suggest that the addition of yeast to the diet results in increased numbers of beneficial bacteria and more efficient fibre digestion, and it suggested that yeast may provide the fibre digesting bacteria with important nutrients or cofactors that actually stimulate that activity and may even bring the bacteria and the food particle together to make actually the digestion process. More efficient. Your yeast, however, does require oxygen to grow, and the equine hindgut is obviously anaerobic, so without oxygen.

So you do need to supply yeast on a daily basis for it to be most effective. Let's look at whether it's in feed or whether we're looking at supplementation. So manufacturers include them in a wide range of feeds or supplements to help reduce the incidence of digestive upsets.

So we're looking at it as a preventative measure. And notably you'll see them added to things like your performance feeds, your specialist feeds. Typically with your performance feeds in mind, performance animals tend to be fed a reduced fibre intake a lot of the time and tend to be fed larger quantities of things like concentrate feed, potentially more starch or cereal grains, and therefore the risk of digestive disturbances is potentially higher.

They're also subjected to obviously more stress, with respect to competition and travelling. And obviously specialist fees if you're targeting a specific clinical issues such as laminitis, for example, then we would use your digestive enhancers in that instance. They're generally included in at a maintenance dose, so you may find that actually a more concentrated dose is required in some circumstances.

So for example, those animals on restrictive diets, that may lack sufficient fibre would benefit from a digestive enhancer as a preventative measure to digestive, upset. And in fact, you could probably argue that every horse would benefit from digestive support. So when would you recommend a digestive enhancer?

So you could look at recommending it to horses that are stressed or excitable, those that are travelling or competing regularly, those that are underweight or lacklustre, not thriving, potentially, even despite that they may be on the right, you know, right diet, the appropriate diet for workload, etc. Or they also may be vulnerable, so youngsters, for example, or veterans. There are times also when it's obvious that the gut is not healthy, and this is when digestive enhancers have the greatest potential to be of benefit for those that are sick.

So digestive upset, diarrhoea, colic, or foul smelling droppings, other illness or injury which results in a change of diet or routine. Or obviously when medication, is being administered, such as antibiotics. But also, you can feed your digestive enhancers when you actually have a healthy horse as a preventative measure.

And actually, there's been many studies, within humans who have prebiotics on a regular basis and actually it can show, a reduction of the incidence of colonic cancer. So that can only be a good thing, it's a preventative measure. And prevention is obviously always better than cure.

So feeding consistently is key. Plenty of quality forage, you can feed it ad-lib, brilliant. Supplement forage with a concentrate or compound feed that suits the individual requirements again, age, reproductive status, body weight, and workload.

And also consider feeding management. So make any changes to the diet slowly, gradually, preferably over a minimum of 7, 10, sorry, to 14 days, possibly longer. Consider the volume and size of meals, you know, can that horse digest and utilise it efficiently, or is it being fairly much greater, So the volumes and therefore is going to create a disturbance.

And remember that your horses are fibre eaters, you know, they're designed to eat fibre first, so ad-lib forage is really key. And consider balance. That's a really, really important, word, certainly in this, in this presentation.

So let's. Supporting immunity and healing. So a healthy gut lining is important as a first line of defence, and the gut is the largest barrier between your horse's body and the external environment.

The gut membrane comes into contact with everything that your horse eats and drinks. So the intent. Sinal wall is extremely thin, despite obviously this important task.

And if the horse comes into contact with harmful substances, this can potentially be very harmful to them. And this is where the immune system comes in, the army that fights off contaminants and keeps the body from harm. Look at things like pro prebiotics and yeast, which exert a positive effect on immunity.

They help to stimulate immune cells to produce antibodies. They help to block or bind to pathogens within the gut. They help to establish beneficial bacterium, maintain a neutral pH and actually studies that have looked at introducing yeast into the diet, for brood mares that are just about to fall.

Actually have or produce a better quality colostrum, out of foling, and the passive transfer of antibodies into foals is much better. We've also seen that foals have, things like the IGA, in faecal samples. Which suggests a protective factor when they're fed yeast within their diet.

And also the older or elderly horse has an improved immune response. And a healthy gut microbiome is essential for maintaining good health and optimum performance. Look at things like antioxidants.

These help to mop up harmful free radicals, reducing the effects of oxidative stress in the working or stressed or sick horses. Antioxidants such as things like your vitamin E are associated with many sort of inflammatory diseases, and these types of antioxidants are supplemented sort of widely. Often.

However, for those that requirements are being met, research does actually suggest that feeding extra vitamin E, for example, doesn't necessarily provide the additional, immune boosting benefits and that that is also potentially, the same with other antioxidants. So making sure that the diet has got a good base in meeting requirements is obviously key in the first place. Tissue also requires nutritional building blocks to heal, so ensuring the diet is balanced, even when your horse is on box rest, is really important to facilitate healing.

Let's have a little look at our take home message today. So, feeds are designed to be fed at recommended rates, and if the owner needs to feed more, significantly more, or less, because maybe the horse is overweight and maintaining too much weight or potentially has too much energy, then actually it's probably the wrong feed for them. So again, we need to look at an alternative, whether we can make suggestions ourselves or whether we need to be see to manufacturers or nutritionists to give specific advice.

We also need to consider that minerals interact with each other and actually supplementing with just one mineral in isolation potentially will impact on the absorption and the effectiveness of others. Forage makes up at least half of most horses' rations, so has a significant impact on whether the diet is balanced. Analysis is useful, but be mindful that they need, you know, a decent level of forage sitting in their barns before maybe we look at that, but very useful, particularly if a horse has a disease or underlying condition.

There are many variables impacting the nutrient levels within forage, and the rest of the diets may need to be adjusted to reflect the changes seen within the forage, certainly throughout the year. And make sure you're asking the right questions regarding current diet, the regime before picking up a supplement and advising it. Supplements are not always a quick fix.

Thanks for listening. And any questions? Emma, thank you very much for your time tonight and for sharing your knowledge with us.

I, I did very much like your, your chuckle at the, the balance. I think that applies to the whole of life, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Nutrition and you get life advice as well. No, seriously, Emma, thank you so much for your time tonight and a huge, huge thank you to Bailey's Horse Feeds for sponsoring tonight's webinar. It does make it possible for us to bring you these webinars when we have sponsors, like Bailey's around.

So thank you to you, Emma, as well as to Bailey's. Thank you. We do have some questions coming in.

Ann asks, do you legally have to declare absolutely everything that's in a particular feed? For example, are there trace minerals and vitamins that do not need to be declared if they are below a certain level? No, because I, yeah, I'm, I think we do have to declare everything.

What we find is, yes, you'll obviously have . Based nutrients coming through from your raw materials as well as what we're also adding with your vitamin, vitamin and sort of mineral premixes as well. So we are analysing and looking at our feed on a on a constant basis to make sure that we are within the limits of variation.

So yes, I think anything that we add, to our feed, we do have to declare, I believe. And I, I think too, if you think about it, you know, if you're going to the trouble of adding something into the feed, why wouldn't you brag about it? Well, absolutely, especially with the price of feed at the moment that's what I was thinking.

I love this next question. It comes from somebody anonymous and whoever anonymous is, I love your sense of humour. It says, please could you recommend a balancer and a ration for a horse with foot problems that can get fat on thin air.

And your balances are ideal actually, in that sense, because your balances are low calorie. They're, they're fed in very small quantities. So actually, they're not obviously calorie free, because what is, but they are very minimal.

So they do provide a balanced diet with respect to your quality protein. So you're essentially amino acids, your vitamins and minerals. And usually when you feed them at the correct.

They should be counteract any shortfalls within your forage. And the main thing to remember here is that your calories will be coming from your forage because that is making up the biggest portion of your diet. So actually, look at your forage first.

Do you need to maybe source a forage that's maybe harvested maybe later on in the season, so it's a little bit less digestible, less calories, less nutrients. Possibly you may need to look at soaking your forage as well to reduce calorie intake that way, but it's really key that you back up with your balance at the recommended amounts, because there is a reason why we recommend it at that amount. And more so if you're looking at, you know, soaking your, your forages because you will find that you will have, you know, your nutrient contribution from your forage will certainly be, be lower.

I hope that answers it. If it doesn't, then let me know. I'm about to supplement that answer with another question.

Maria says, thank you very much, Emma. I have a lot of patients that are overweight and laminitic. I always recommend soak hay and a balancer.

Is this the right recommendation and how long would you soak the hay for? Yeah, it's absolutely the right recommendation, and your, your balance is absolutely key, as we've just said, with obviously soaking forage. It's a difficult one with the soaking, because it really depends on, I suppose, what you're starting with, with respect to your forage.

You're soaking it to reduce your water soluble carbohydrates. Ideally, if you don't know what that forage is supplying, initially, it could be high in water soluble carbs, or it could be low. I would always soak it for as long as you're able to, so potentially up to sort of 12 hours if, if your client can do that, and then make sure that you're supplementing with enough of the balancer to compensate for nutrient loss.

That way, you know, if you are starting with a forest that has got a high water soluble carb, and you won't know unless you have it analysed, that way we can reduce it as much as we possibly can, which from a laminitic point of view is obviously key. Yeah, absolutely. Helen asks, do you have a different winter and summer balancer to account for the differences in grass versus hay?

No, we don't, that is a good question actually, and I'm chuckling a bit. No, usually, because we formulate to optimum levels, it does give us that, sort of slight flexibility, so when we were talking about sort of nutrient contribution earlier on with the graph, so that does usually allow for the diet still to be in that optimum range before we go into deficient levels. However, it is important to say that if your forage is maybe of poorer quality, and obviously grass is either non-existent or diminished and you haven't got very much at all, you may possibly need to up your balance or possibly by, you know, another 100, 200 grammes potentially per day.

And that also goes actually for workload as well. So just bear in mind that even though you're feeding a balancer, if your workload suddenly goes up and you're feeding recommendations of a balance for light levels of work, then you will need to adjust your balance of quantities as well. So it doesn't just go hand in hand with your cubes and mixes.

It does also apply for your balances as well. Excellent. We have another question, that's come from an anonymous source that says, if a horse is on a complete feed with an element of foss, is a pre or postbiotic best if ulcers are also present?

Yeah, this is This is not probably my area really of expertise, but yes, I'd potentially say yes. I think we are obviously putting only, maintenance levels within products. So absolutely.

I would suggest that actually supplementing further, with these types of supplements is certainly beneficial for them. It gives you a much more concentrated dose, actually. And actually, yes, I'd say that, that's, yeah, I would say that's a good, a good thing to do.

OK. Saria asks, if you are introducing yeast, are you not in increasing the risk of, horses becoming gassy and therefore higher risk of colic? No, I'd say no, in fact, probably the opposite actually, because you are encouraging, the, the fibre digesting bacteria, in the gut.

It enables the horse to break down the fibre more efficiently, and actually, therefore, the bacterial environment is much. More healthy. It also helps with the pH of the gut, so it reduces and keeps the guts more neutral.

So actually no, I'd say, I'd say the opposite actually. It's, it's actually enhancing and maintaining the health of the microbiota and actually helping to reduce that. Excellent.

A lot of questions coming through about specific parts of the webinar. Just to tell you folks, we are recording the webinar, we record all of our webinars, and the recording will be up on the webinar vet website, normally within 24 hours, but let's say 48 hours so that the IT guys don't fight with me. So if you want to see something or if you want to go and look back at a specific table or something, please go to the webinar vet's website, and have a look.

You can find the webinar, and when you're looking at it, you can actually pause it and you can then make notes of, of all those tables and everything else. So just, we're not going to be able to go back to certain slides, but just know that you can go and watch the recording, which you can pause and fast forward and rewind as you want to. Maria asks, what is the toxic level of selenium, please?

Aha. I knew I may get this question. Just bear with me.

There's lots of figures. Where did I write it down? I believe it's 5 milligrammes, but I just wanted to check.

Yeah, so the maximum, this is, this is based from NRC. So the maximum, maximum tolerable level of selenium is estimated at around 5 milligrammes per kilogramme of dry matter fed. However, when you look at NRC recommendations, it's actually estimated, that you should be feeding about 0.1 milligrammes per kilogramme per ration.

So, for example, if you have a 400 kg horse, that's fed, say, 8 kg on a dry matter basis of, of feed, so, forage and concentrate per day, you'd be looking at about 0.8 milligrammes per kilo. But just remember, obviously, the NRC recommendations are the minimum amounts.

So you could probably go anywhere between that and obviously 5 milligrammes per kilo, which is pretty high. Yeah, that is high. Yeah.

Just as a guide for you, I mean, selenium levels typically range from about 0.01 to 0.3 milligrammes per kilo in most feedstuffs, which can obviously be influenced by soil variation as well.

Excellent. Another anonymous question, fantastic question. I think, what would you recommend for horses recovering from colic surgery?

Yeah, it, it very much depends on the surgery, where, whether they've had obviously something removed, so a resection, and obviously the type of colic that they've been suffering from. The main thing initially, is to be aware of fibre, the fibre is obviously key, . And obviously to maintain sort of hindgut health or digestive health, full stop, but actually looking at very sort of digestible forms of fibre initially.

So you may need to be a little bit careful with your long fibres such as your hay and haages or choose something that is, relatively digestible. You may possibly be better to not look at maybe a haage, which does tend to ferment more and produce more gas within the, within the hindgut, which may not be ideal in certain instances. But looking at sort of hard feeds, look at something that's very digestible, something that you can maybe feed in a small quantity.

So your balance is a quite a good option initially. However, you may need something with a higher calorie content. So you can feed things like conditioning type rations, but this is where your management really comes into play.

So you do need to feed very small quantities, over the course of the day. So you may need to feed 456 meals over the course. The day in order to get the recommended amounts of feed into the animal, so that you're not causing, obviously, digestive disturbance.

And obviously, it almost goes without saying, but your digestive enhancers are key in this instance. So you're pro and possibly your prebiotics as well, so that you can re-establish, bacterial populations. But it is generally based on an individual case and depending on, on what's been done to where we would go and what we recommend.

Excellent. . Alabiel wants to know in terms of aquis with inflammatory conditions, what are some of the nutrients to exclude or include in the diet until the aquid returns to normal health?

Any range of products on the market. I can answer that one. Bailey's horse feed products.

How's that? Thank you. I would say probably things like omega 3 are quite a good option.

Omega 3 for the fatty acids, which you will get from things like linseed oil, for example, quite a good option. They have an inflammatory, they have inflammatory properties. Again, obviously looking at things like your digestive enhancers are really key because if the bacterial population is not healthy, it can have a really huge impact on so many different things, including sort of, you know, inflammation.

But I, I suppose your essential fatty acids is certainly, the key. Anything that you should avoid. Not that I can think of really off the top of my head, that really that you should avoid.

I mean, obviously over supplementing with anything. Depends on where the inflammation is, I suppose. If it's obviously in the digestive tract, you may need to be careful with how much cereal or starch potentially, you're feeding.

It's kind of a bit of an open question. It, it, it, it, it depends on where it is and potentially what's, obviously, what's causing it. But I'd say probably, you know, anything that is digestible, to go for things that are digestible with respect to forage, potentially try and minimise sort of your cereal and your grape.

Intake as much as possible, if you're looking at it from a digestive point of view, and possibly look at introducing things like your omega 3 fatty acids from things like linseed, or possibly even things like fish oil, if you're happy to feed that kind of thing to your animals, because they, they have very high levels of omega 3, which can actually help to reduce inflammation. And I think a very wise presenter said, not that long ago, balance. Go for balance.

Yeah, absolutely. It will solve all your issues. There you go.

There you go. On that high note, folks, we've run out of time. We could, we could spend a long time talking to her and listening to Emma.

She's incredibly knowledgeable, and I really have enjoyed our time together tonight, Emma, but unfortunately, we have run out of time. Never mind. Well, thank you so much.

And thank you and once again, huge thank you to Bailey's Horse Feeds for sponsoring tonight. To everybody that attended, thank you for your time tonight. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and, we look forward to seeing you again on another webinar, in the not too distant future.

Good night, everybody.