Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's webinar, how to manage equine obesity and associated conditions through nutrition. We're very lucky tonight to have this webinar as free access for the whole community, and that is thanks to Bailey's Horse Feeds, who we're working closely with this year. Baileys are family owned and run, with many members of the team being hands-on horse owners and competitors who understand the challenges faced by today's busy working horse owner.
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On to tonight's webinar then, and we are delighted to have Emma Short presenting for us. Emma joined Bailey as netine nutritionist after graduating from Rittle College 16 years ago. She's responsible for advising horse owners both from the office and in person, as well as overseeing the forage analysis and devising special specialist feeding programmes based on the results.
So without further ado, I shall hand over to Emma. Brilliant. Thank you very much.
And good evening. Tonight, I want to discuss how we can manage equine obesity and clinical conditions such as laminitis and equine metabolic syndrome through nutrition, and how best to adjust diets and advise clients in the most effective way. What is considered by many owners as normal today, significantly fatter than 20 years ago.
And I think it's something that we certainly need to, to address. Initially, I want to dis to discuss the The overweight, horse and how to evaluate its weight and condition. The overweight horse is often described as a good doer.
He gets fat on fresh air, he just has to look at a blade of grass, etc. Etc. And we now know there is an association between body fat and disease risks such as equine metabolic sys syndrome and laminitis, not to mention, obviously the increased risk of trauma on limbs, and the suspensory apparatus, as well as strain on both the heart and the lungs.
So initially we need to assess how overweight the horse actually is, and a good starting point is to look at its body weight. This is a useful tool for obviously calculating nutrient requirements, so that we can provide a balanced ration with respect to energy, protein, vitamins and minerals, and to ensure that the horse is maintained at a healthy weight, but also to allow. It to do the work that we demand of it.
Usually we would do this by ideally a way bridge, if you have access to it or you can use the we tape, although they're not as accurate, but it does give you a guideline to whether your horse is increasing or reducing in weight. There are other considerations and factors that we need to be looking at as well. So things like your body condition scoring or body condition of the animal, the musculature, so how much muscle it has or hasn't got, the workload.
The age of the animal, the reproductive status, so you may have a brood mare, for example, that's in full, and also the health, so obviously clinical conditions also. Although body weight is useful, it doesn't really assess the current physical state of the animal. So you can't sort of say, OK, the horse is 500 kg and that horse is over or underweight all the time.
So actually looking and monitoring a condition is often considered a more useful tool. It gives an immediate indication of the current physical state of an animal. And looking at a visual assessment of horse's body condition takes takes into account the amount of body fat which is present and also the level of muscle tone and development overall.
Assessment of condition can be very subjective, depending on who's doing it. And therefore, just using sort of the the eye to look at an animal is really not what we're we're looking to do. We need a much more objective scoring system.
And what we typically use, which I'm sure you've come across, in the equine sector is body condition scoring, which is a visual and hands-on method to evaluate the amount of body fat that a horse has. Body condition score, body condition works by evaluating the amount of fat covering areas of the neck. You can see here, with the picture that we have on the slide that we'd be looking at sort of specifically sort of the crest area.
We're looking at fat pads sort of over the withers, behind the shoulders, over the rib area and also over the tail head there. Body condition scores usually range. There are two systems that are available.
So one of the systems ranges from 1 to 5, the other is 1 to 9, with both of the lower numbers, so one with the horses emaciated with no fat stores and a 5 or a 9 and being extremely fat and therefore obese. A condition score of between 3 and 5 is moderate and therefore ideal for most horses. Ideally, we prefer as feed companies to use the 1 to 9 system purely because it is more detailed, and it's also been peer reviewed.
Horses that have a body condition score of more than 7 or 7.5, are going to be classified as obese rather than just fat, with about 20% of their body weight, likely to be fat in those particular animals. Ideally, body condition scoring needs to be hands on.
You need to be able to feel the horse in question so that you can feel whether there are fat pads or whether it's muscle, etc. Underneath. Generally, we are looking for the neck to run smoothly into the shoulder.
The ribs shouldn't be visible. We don't really want to see them, but we should easily be able to feel them when you're running your hand across the torso. The animal should have generally a rounded appearance.
Do be aware that an animal that's maybe got a distended abdomen or is perceived to sort of have a fat belly or a grass or hay belly, doesn't necessarily mean that horse is overweight. It could typically be that horse is maybe lacking in muscle and top line. It may not have fat pads or fat areas at all, but some quite often and a lot of owners will perceive their horses to be fat because of this particular area.
So we need to be looking at the overall assessment of the Animal, to whether the horse is is fat, rather than just sitting in that particular area. We also like to have a look at the neck, so looking at the crest and also looking at the fat pads. We have a system that's been put into place through research, which is known as Crestyneckco or CNS.
Basically, this system has been developed to look at an objective assessment of the neck and fat deposits in that particular area. And we now know through some studies that excess fat across the neck is associated with increased circulating insulin and insulin resistance in the horse. And therefore there is an increase in the risk of these animals having EMS and also laminitis.
It's important to distinguish between a well-developed topline or muscly neck to one that's carrying fat. So you really need to be hands on this in hands on in this instance. How sort of muscle and fat feel is, is very different.
You need to be palpating, looking at the thickness, and also looking and assessing at your fatty deposits in this area. Muscle typically is much harder to the touch, whereas fat will typically be quite soft. You can see here from this slide, it gives you an indication of the five sort of areas that we would be looking at with your Cresty neck score.
Cresty neck scores generally correlate with the body condition score of 4 to 5 and above, where 0, so the first picture on the left hand side at the top is representing the neck of a horse with a body condition score of 5, which would be a moderate score on the 1 to 9 system. So this is where there are no visible or palatable, or palatable crest or sort of, fat deposits. A Cresty nick score of 3 out of 5 or higher has been found to be associated with the increased risk of laminitis.
So it's important that we look at monitoring, regularly monitoring the Cresty nick score along with your body condition score, particularly in breeds that would be at a sort of a greater risk. So those such as your native breeds, for example. So once we've evaluated both body condition score and Cresty Nick scores, it's important to look at other factors before you can decide and move forward and advise on the most appropriate diet.
So looking at those sort of skin, coat, teeth and who whose condition, and we'll give you an indication of whether that animal is, is being, fed correctly, and receiving a reasonable amount of nutrition. Looking at its workload, is it in light levels of work, or is it an animal that's competing and therefore it's requirements are going to be higher. Temperament levels.
So is the horse laid back or is it very excitable? Do we need to sort of look at the diet and how we can affect that? Age, growth and reproductive status will also have a big impact.
And also looking at the clinical illnesses and or conditions, that potentially are associated with obesity. Through research now, we are aware that obesity in the horse or pony can decrease the ability to utilise glucose. Therefore, this can increase the risk of your EMS, insulin dysregulation, and also laminitis.
So briefly touching on equine metabolic syndrome, I'm sure most of you are very much aware of the symptoms. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the physiology, just gonna touch on, symptoms that we would typically look at where the horse has abnormal fat deposits over the neck, cresty neck, particular, behind the shoulder, above the tail head. You may find fat deposits in the mammary glands in the mare, and the sheath of a male horse.
Typically, these horses will have a higher body condition score of over 6 when you're using the 1 to 9 system. They will be insulin resistant and also have a predisposition to laminitis. Again, laminitis, as I'm sure you're aware, is triggered by many factors.
From a nutritional perspective, we typically are looking at an overload from water soluble carbohydrates, which includes starch from your cereal grains, sugar or fructon, which is a storage sugar within grasses, typically being the main issues, from a nutritional point of view. Obviously things like your hormones, insulin resistance, trauma, illness, or retention of the placenta when you're talking about the, the brood mare, or also, other considerations. Due to the increased risk of laminitis, in the EMS horse or pony, we really need to feed them in very much the same way.
Both mean that the dietary soluble carbohydrates, your starches and your sugars, need to be controlled. And this generally goes hand in hand with calorie control for weight loss. So for example, a low calorie feed, typically are much lower on both the starch and the sugars.
So they gen generally goes sort of hand in hand with each other. So what are these types of animals usually fed? A large majority of them are not fed very much at all.
They're typically fed either grass or dried forages, hay or haulage. It's also often limited or of poorer quality, and a lot of the time there is no further supplementation that goes alongside it. If there is, you might find that they are feeding a handful, so a small quantity of something like a mix or a cubed ration.
Quite often, a product that has maybe a higher cereal, therefore, starch or sugar content and actually what that animal really should be having. They may also be receiving a handful of fortified chaff. A fortified chaff is essentially a chaff based product, usually lightly or low molass or unmolassed, with the addition of vitamins and minerals, quite often, included in a pelleted form, designed to be fed in much larger quantities, usually than, than even a mix or a cube.
These animals may also be fed various chaffs or higher fibre sort of based products. Ideally, overweight equines need to be consuming about 10% less calories than actually needed for maintenance and work to encourage the body to burn calories. And ideally we'd be looking at a target, weight loss of between sort of 0.5 to 1% of body weight per week.
What do they require? They require much lower levels of water soluble carbohydrates, so your starches and your sugars. We need to be looking at a reduced or controlled calorie intake.
We need to also be looking at healthy levels of fibre so that we can enable them to maintain a healthy gut, but also we need to be supporting the psychological need to chew. We need to be considering a fully balanced diet, so a, a bucket feed or a diet that's going to be providing them with essential protein, vitamins and minerals, so that we're actually supporting their requirements as a whole and meeting their requirements for, for work and body weight. Looking at feeding small regular meals.
This is important not only with respect to digestion, and purely because the horse is able to only sort of digest small small meals when you're looking at bucket feeds between sort of 1.5 to 2 kgs should be sort of the maximum amount that you're feeding in any one time. But also when you're looking at the insulin response, it helps to regulate it.
So particularly when you're dealing with the EMS case. And we also need to be looking at maximising to time. So that we're supporting again that psychological need to chew.
They're designed to eat forage a majority of the time, so it's important that we try and mimic that if we can, whilst also obviously looking at minimising calories. When assessing diets, you need to know what that horse is currently being fed, including hay or haulage and also grazing, so how much grass it's got access to. You need to be asking questions about what feed are they using?
Are they using a course mix, a cube, or are they feeding a balancer? You need to be looking at how much they're feeding, and here we need to be looking at weight rather than volume. A lot of owners or clients will be sort of telling you that they're feeding scoops or mugs or handfuls of products.
We need to be really sort of assessing this on a weight, so that we know exactly what that animal is getting on a daily basis. Is the horse getting the recommended amount for its body weight and workload? Even if they are already on a low calorie balancer, which may well be suitable for them, we need to be ensuring that they are feeding the correct level so that the diet is completely balanced and meeting the requirements for protein, vitamins and minerals.
Particularly if workload is increasing. It may be that they are on a low calorie balancer, but their workload has moved from sort of light work, maybe more moderate to harder levels of work, and therefore you actually may need to adjust the amounts of balance so that they're being fed, or potentially move on to a balance and more suited for harder levels of work simply because the requirements for your nutrients will increase as workload goes up. Once you've established, what, what they're feeding, and also what forage they're feeding.
It's very much important to look at the perceived quality of your hay, haulage and grass. A lot of people may perceive that their forage is either very good quality, and they may have great grass, they may have poorer quality grass, they may think that their hay is maybe of lower nutritional quality. And quite often you can look at, particularly hay, from a visual point of view.
And have a reasonable idea of of possibly what that forage is going to provide. If you hold hay, for example, in your hand and you scrunch it into a fist, quite often if it's a coarser or stalker based forage, it will be little dimples, etc. Within the palm of your hand, potentially indicating that it's a later cut hay and therefore less digestible.
However, the only true way really of knowing the quality of your forage, is to really get it analysed. So in some instances, particularly when you have a yard possibly of several animals and assuming that the forage, so with Respect to hail or haulage is going to be something that they are going to be feeding for a reasonable length of time, ideally 3 months plus. You can have these products, these forages, analysed, and then you can specifically know, what you're dealing with.
Generally, stalker later cut and forages tend to be less nutritious. They have a much lower leaf content, and because they are generally stalker, with a higher indigestible sort of fibre content, they also tend to be less palatable to the animals. So you quite often will get sort of a reduced consumption rate.
But most of the time, a higher fibre content will also indicate a lower carbohydrate value. So quite typically we will find that the water soluble carbohydrate level when we're analysing these types of forages are typically lower, making this type of forage much more appealing. To those that obviously we're needing to, to limit with respect to the laminitis and the EMS.
Even though the hay may be nutritionally lower, and we do still need to ensure that obviously that the forage is still clean in terms of mould and spores. Ideally, we would be looking at an absolute minimum, absolute cutoff point of providing 1% of body weight as fibre per day. So for example, 500 kg horse, and you'd be looking at 5 kg, absolute minimum of fibre per day in order to keep the digestive system healthy.
In an ideal world, we don't like going that low, that would be the absolute cutoff points. And we prefer to feed larger quantities, and we typically recommend around 1.5% to ensure sort of a healthy weight loss and make sure that the animal has sufficient fibre, within its diet to support not only its physiological, but also it's psychological needs to.
It's also very important, and quite topical over the last few years, that we're ensuring that our animals have adequate levels of fibre, purely to help reduce the risk of gastric ulcers. So starving on horses of fibre is not ideal, not only with ulcers, but obviously other clinical issues such as colic, etc. So we do need to be very careful that we're not cutting them back by too much in order to lose weight and compromising elsewhere.
Forage and pasture will probably be making up the main source of calories in any animal's diet. In an ideal world, any horse should be having a large proportion of its diet being made up of forage or fibre. So it, it kind of goes without saying that as as fibre is sort of the biggest portion of the diet.
It makes sense that a forage with a higher level of soluble carbohydrates will have an impact on its diet. So as previously discussed in the last slide, we would recommend a course a later cut hail or hailage if possible, because it's less nutritious and generally has a lower level of soluble carbs. It's also important to maybe look at the type and species of hay or grasses that are within the haze and hailages, because these can actually influence how much water soluble carbohydrates you're actually starting with.
Timothy tends to be a good option and purely because it has a lower starting point already, and it also has lower levels of storage, sugar fructon, which you find within your grasses. Soaking a more digestible or more digestible for something with maybe a higher leaf content that potentially is going to have a higher soluble carbohydrate level is a really great way of helping to reduce levels. You can soak your hay from between 8 to 12 hours.
This basically helps to leach or wash out, your soluble carbohydrates or your calories when we're looking at reducing, weight and weight gain. It's interesting to know that the research or certainly recent research has shown that there's not a huge amount of difference between the soluble carbohydrate loss from when you're soaking your hay between 6 to 8 hours, and between sort of 10 to 12 hours. There's not a big significant significant difference.
So If you can get away with sort of soaking your hay for maybe lower lengths of time, but still getting a reasonable soluble carbohydrate loss, then actually you'll be able to keep more nutrients in and therefore that can only be a better thing. Obviously trying to reduce your soluble carbohydrate level is important when you're dealing with a laminitic or EMS case. Do be wary if you have clients that are soaking their forage for long lengths of time, when it's particularly hot, or whether they're soaking it in full sunshine.
This can significantly increase the bacterial, population. And also pollutants can also build up instead of the soaking liquor, and that can be potentially harmful. So you may need to advise your clients to move, their, their soaking area out of direct direct sunlight into a cooler area, or possibly looking at soaking for shorter periods of time when the weather is particularly hot.
Soaking not only leeches out the carbohydrate level, but it also leeches out a proportion of protein and minerals, therefore reducing the feed value of the hay. So this just simply highlights the importance of a properly balanced diet and the fact that additional supplementation is likely to be required in order for the horse to receive a balanced diet. I wanted to touch on fructon and the storage, the storage sugar, sorry, within grass and also looking at grazing times, because this is obviously an important factor when you're dealing with your clinical cases.
Cool temperatures between sort of 5 to 10 degrees produce much higher fructon levels within pasture than warmer conditions between 11 to 25. Temperatures below 5 degrees generally prevent growth. However, if there's light available, it's a nice sunny day.
The plants can still photosynthesize and therefore they're still producing sugars. Therefore, cold, bright conditions, can result in increased levels of fructon, which is why you can still have problems, when we're moving into winter. Levels tend to rise during the day, peaking in the afternoon to early evening, decline in the early hours of the morning.
So therefore turning out late at night or very early in the morning and bringing them in ideally by mid-morning is the safest time. Strip grazing or limiting grazing, either with something like a muzzle, for example, or just bringing them in and stabling them for longer lengths of time is preferable times when the fructon levels are highest. So typically things like a spring, autumn flurries.
Ideally avoid turning out into pastures during cold, bright conditions such as frosty mornings in the winter, because again, the risk is going to be higher during those times. When limiting grazing, ideally we need to be looking at offering an alternative forage source just simply just to ensure that the animal has adequate levels of fibre, again, just to make sure that the gut is working, and being maintained. Let's look at some practicalities.
Ideally, we want to be looking at dividing the overall forage portion of the diet into as many small feeds as you possibly can. This is particularly important if the forage that's being fed is being restricted. If you're just putting maybe two hay nets in, for example, at either end of the day, the horse potentially is going to be standing there for long lengths of time without anything going through the digestive tract, which, as we mentioned earlier, could increase the risk of issues such as your colic or your ulcers.
It enables us to mimic that trickle feeding effect so that they've constantly got some fibre passing through the gut at all times. Ideally, look at using products with small small hold hay nets, things like hay grazers or other other methods to help slow consumption rates. Limiting turnout, particularly at high risk times, is beneficial.
You may need to look at sort of a starvation sort of type paddock. However, do make sure that if this is the method being used, that other fibre sources soaked hay, for example, or low calorie chars for, for instance, are being provided in addition, just simply to make sure there's adequate levels of fibre again, passing through the guts. Obviously, you can look at strip gaze, strip grazing with electric fencing.
Grazing muzzles, although there is some debate of, of whether that is a good thing or not, but in some instances they work very well and if used correctly, they, they can achieve the job well. You can also look at sort of providing things like treatables, so. Incorporating sort of a high fibre nugget, ideally, obviously with a low starch sugar content, and just simply just to encourage some movement around the paddock or stable, and to help satisfy foraging nature if forage is being limited and more of a management thing rather nutritional, but ensure that obviously the animals are not being over rugged, to encourage horses to thermoregulate and burn calories from within.
Through our extensive database, we have analysed a huge amounts of haze hailages and pastures over the years, and looking at the analysis results, modern pastures are typically deficient in certain nutrients, especially minerals and quite often protein. Soaking your hay, as we already know, we wash out some nutrients along with calories and therefore, if animals are on restricted grazing to encourage weight loss, or to reduce soluble carbohydrate levels, if we have an EMS or laminitis case, They may be on poor grazing, and this summer we have had some real issues with the amount of grass that our animals have had access to. This in combination with soaked forage is all going to add up to a nutrient deficit and the diet is not going to be balanced.
Ideally, we want our bucket feeds to be nutrient dense, and so nutrient rich. We want to be able to counteract any nutrient shortfalls that you may have within the forage portion of the diet. Equally, we want it to be much lower on the soluble carbohydrate side, with also a lower calorie intake, so that we're reducing weight gain.
Recommended amount of a mix or cube, would provide a balanced diet, but generally too many calories and often too many carbohydrates. As a guideline, a high fibre cube, for example, will have a starch value of anywhere between sort of 10 to 15% in most cases. If we're dealing with an EMS case, for example, those levels are likely to be too high, particularly when a mix or a cube is being fed at the correct level.
Balances are generally much better option for a horse that holds its weight very well. They're a concentrated source of nutrients and providing protein, vitamins and minerals in a much smaller volume. So fed in very small amounts, without the calories, they generally have a much lower starch and sugar content, so generally fit the bill much better than your typical mix or cube type ration.
Balances are fed generally by the mug full and usually most manufacturers will provide you with a measuring mug, if asked, and your typical feeding rates will be between sort of 100 grammes per 100 kg of body weight. So your average 500 kg horse would typically be fed around 500 grammes of a balancer. It is important just to be aware, although those feeding rates are generally typical, for any animal that is in more moderate to harder work work intensities, it is likely that the amount of balance isn't going to need to be elevated in order to support increasing nutrient requirements.
Alternatively, you could look at a more specific performance type balancer, which tends to be higher in nutrients and therefore more suited for those in harder levels of work. Your balances, as we said previously, are fed in small volume, therefore, the amount of calories or energy that a balance provides is very low. Generally, they will have a starch value of less than 10%, and the sugar level is also generally negligible.
This combination means that the glycaemic response is low and therefore your blood glucose levels are also more stable, making them much more suitable for those such as your EMS and your laminitics. You can look to add a low sugar or calorie fibre sauce, to give the horse something extra to chew on. If you're just feeding a balancer and you're just feeding, say, a couple of mugs per day, it's not a large amount, to be eating.
So bulkking out the ration. With something that's unmolassed or very lightly molassed, such as a beat pulp or a chaff is an ideal way of increasing chew time and keeping them eating for much longer periods of time, particularly useful if you're in a yard, or you have other animals to feed that are on much larger bucket feeds. Ideally, I would recommend avoiding dried grass products, purely because dried grass typically has a higher, naturally a higher sugar content and therefore isn't ideal.
Alfalfa can be fed, to supply additional nutrients such as your protein and your minerals, which is ideal if your forage is slightly poorer, and obviously forages that have been harvested later on in the season will typically have fewer nutrients. It's also very useful if you're supporting a horse in harder levels of work and therefore you're helping to provide that increasing nutrient requirements that they have. So do we need to supplement?
I'm all for keeping things very simple, and not complicating things, but in some instances, yes, supplementation can be beneficial. Things like digestive enhanced, for example, particularly when you have a had a horse that's suffered from laminitis, you're changing its diet, you're reducing, the amount of fibre or forage it has access to can be a useful way of ensuring that the guts, and therefore the microbial population is kept as healthy as possible. Also, in clinical issues such as your laminitis, your digestive enhancers, can also help to correct, an unfavourable pH.
There should be no need to supplement further with vitamins and minerals if the main bucket feeds is being fed correctly, for the, for body weight and also for work loads. So there shouldn't be any need to further supplement with the vitamin and mineral supplements, if something like a balancer, for example, is being used. You could look at oil or oil-based supplements, for those animals that are in harder levels of work that require additional energy.
My only issue here is that oil is obviously higher in calories and therefore you do need to be very wary with how much you're feeding in this instance, because it may well be that the amounts that you're adding to ensure that the energy levels are there are also going to be laying down this fat. So possibly best avoided if you can. So in summary, when you're recommending your clients, a feeding ration, you need to be looking at a lower water soluble carbohydrate forage, something that's typically been later cut so harvested later on in the season, and obviously this can be soaked, if necessary to reduce the carbohydrate levels further.
You may need to look at getting this analysed, particularly if you're not sure. You can just simply look for the carbohydrate level rather than the overall nutritional level. So it just gives you an indication of whether the forage is going to be providing you with more or less, and whether that forage does need to be soaked and potentially for how long for.
Look at reduced and controlled access to grass, particularly at high risk, high risk times. A low calorie balancer fed at the manu manufacturer's recommended levels is essential to counteract any shortfalls that you may well have, within your ration. Look towards a low calorie, unmolassed, lightly molassed, light chaff or unmolassed beat pulp.
This can help to counteract, boredom if forage is being restricted and helps to also satisfy the need to chew, if, if forage is being limited. Do, however, be aware that obviously the more chaff or beat pulp that you're feeding, is going to increase calorie intake. So as long as the quantities are kept relatively small, there is no issue, with you feeding that alongside your balance of rations.
Your beat pulp in particular is quite useful in that it swells to sort of 3 to 5 times its original size, so actually can provide quite a lot of bulk, . So bulking out your balance, they're giving your horses a little bit more to eat, without actually increasing the calories significantly because you're soaking down, say, a mug of dried beet pulp. That will soak up to sort of maybe a full scoop, you know, and, and therefore, when you're looking at the calorie contribution, there's not, there's not much in it.
I wanted to just have a look at a case study, before we sort of round everything up. Just to sort of, so that when you're going into clients, etc. You are sort of faced with this scenario, and typically how we would be sort of looking at it and how we would advise.
So this little chap here, is a 15 year old, 112, section A, Welsh section A. He has a body condition score of 7, so he's, he's fat, he's obese. He needs to lose weight.
They classify him as a good doer. He's pretty lazy, lacks stamina. Currently only at night levels of work, and he has a history of laminitis.
The weight tape has given him a weight of 319 kg. So we've got a rough idea of, of how heavy he is, but just bearing in mind that that we tape is unlikely to be fully accurate, but we've got a guideline. They're currently feeding him a hard feed of half a stub scoop of something like an everyday high fibre mix.
Which would equate to roughly 750 grammes, approximately one level stub scoop of a coarse mix will typically hold about 1.5 kgs. When you're looking at a cube, it's just under 2 kg, just to give you some indication of what we're looking at here.
And this would be about half the recommended amount, of a cube or a mix, for a pony of this size with his level of work. They're feeding, soaked hay. He's kept in a bare paddock, and he's on 4 kg of hay per day.
They want the pony to lose weight, but he struggles with energy levels, and he's always looking for food. He's always hungry. But most ponies are, from my experience.
Obviously, he has a history of laminitis, so the diet needs to be low. We need to keep the starch and sugar at a much lower level, and obviously designed to encourage weight loss. The current hard feed is providing unwanted calories without the nutrients that we need to support a completely balanced diet.
So this could actually Be one of the factors that is responsible for him being lazy and lacking in energy. If he's not receiving a balanced diet, he hasn't got the vitamins and minerals within his ration to utilise the energy that is being supplied from the main forage part of the diet. So actually, we may find it just by balancing his ration, and we rectify this problem.
The forage amount seems about right for his body weight. We should be meeting sort of minimum levels of fibre and therefore keeping his gut working. Correctly, and he should be chewing hopefully without too many unwanted calories.
In this instance, we would look at a balancer, a low calorie balancer to provide all the essential nutrients that he needs without the calories, so we were not encouraging weight gain. Typically for a chap of this size, sort of a half pint coffee mug, one measuring mug holding around 225 to 250 grammes is typically what he would require on a daily basis for his level of work alongside forage. And this will ensure that he's getting a balanced diet and therefore, as we said previously, should improve energy levels.
Need to make sure that the forage that is fed is provided in small hole nets to make it last for longer, so he's not standing for long lengths of time without anything to eat. And potentially consider an alternative lower calorie fibre sauce, such as a light chaff or an unmeas Speedy beats type product in order to maybe bulk count his rations so that he feels he's got something to eat. These types of products can also be offered throughout the day, when there is limited forage or if he's out on a bare paddock, just simply so that we're keeping continuous supply of fibre and meeting his psychological needs to chew.
Oh sorry, I forgot to flick through some of my slides then. I do apologise. Right, so, so just to simply just round up the presentation, just to sort of have a look at some of the further support that we can offer you, offer you and also your clients.
Bailey's have an equine weight loss programme workbook, which you can apply for on our website. We also have a Facebook page where we try to connect with clients to ensure that they're keeping up to date and they're going in the right direction. We have plenty of articles and advice in our online nutrition library.
We have our body condition scoring leaflets for download on our websites as well as our ask the experts page. This slide here is just showing you our equine weight loss programme, so it gives you a good indication. It tells the clients about body condition scoring, cressy neck scores, etc.
It gives them an option to fill in body weights and body condition score as they go along, so they can hopefully see an improvement with lots of sort of handy tips, etc. To help them on their way. Some more advice for you or your clients, we have our telephone nutrition helpline, which is man during office hours between 9 and 5, Monday to Friday.
We also can be contacted by email. All our area representatives are also trained feed advisors, so happy to work with you or your clients. We also have our Bailey's Feed finder online and feed for online feed recommendations, which can also be accessed on your mobile to make it easier, particularly when you're on a yard.
And we have free no obligation yard visits with Way bridges, also available if required. Our baby's feed finder can be pretty useful. Our advice is our our advanced online tools, so you can actually use it during a consultation.
It can determine the most suitable product, and we'll tell you not only the weight but also scoops and mugs or particular feeds that are going to be most suitable for the animal in question can be used on the mobile tablet or desktop. So that brings us to a close, and brings us to the end of the presentation. So yeah, hopefully we have some questions.
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Emma. That's been extremely informative.
Lots of great information there. And as you mentioned, lots of, opportunities if people do want more information, to, to go direct to you with the telephone number and the website. I have actually posted, the, a link to the website into the chat box.
So anyone that's online, if you click on the chat function, you'll be able to click straight through there to Bailey's, Horse Feeds page. Any questions, please do submit them into the Q and A box as mentioned. We'll just go through a few now.
Just from my side, Emma, do you typically get much pushback from owners when you're trying to advise them on nutrition or how, how do you keep them engaged with At the weight loss programme. It's, well, we try and we obviously have our Facebook page where we can try and sort of interact and we encourage them to log on to that so that we can, you know, we they can upload photos, etc. So that we can see their progress if they've got any issues, obviously we can address that, whilst we're online.
But they've always got access to us either via email, or phone call if they want somebody to go out and help them along the way. And we're very, you know, we're, we're very happy to do that just so that they're getting to their end goal and so that they're achieving what they need to do. Absolutely, and and I guess the, the, the, workbook also will help with actual owners.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So there's plenty of information.
It's a very, there's a lot of information within the workbook. So we would typically send it out with other information leaflets and obviously that with sort of our website should hopefully give them sort of quite a lot of information that can help them on their way. Perfect, thank you very much.
We've got a question here that's coming in from Matthew. He's asking, is straw a good alternative as a low calorie fibre sauce? Yes, it is.
However, I would be a little cautious with how much you would feed it. Typically you'd need to be looking at oat straw, rather than any other, sources. Usually we would suggest no more than 30% of the total forage portion and to be fed a straw per day, purely because your straw is quite, it's very indigestible and can sit in the guts for quite long lengths of time.
So you can have a higher incidence of things like impaction colics, for example, if large amounts of sort of indigestible fibre is provided, but absolutely you can certainly use that in combination with, with other fibre sources without any problems at all. Perfect, thank you, and Liz has just asked a follow on question from that. Why is it that oat straw is is preferable?
Purely it's a little bit more digestible than the other sources, so you're less likely to, to get a problem. Perfect, thank you very much. I've got a few coming in now, this is good.
Debbie's asking, what are your views on soaking versus steaming, hey? Oh, yes, there, I, from some of the research that's come through, steaming will, in some instances, I believe, reduce your soluble carbohydrate levels, but not potentially to the same extent as soaking. I think some of the research that's there suggests that you soak for sort of between sort of 8 to sort of maybe 9 hours, to get a reasonable amount of carbohydrates loss.
And then if you're able to, which is not always the case, actually steaming on top of that, so. That you're reducing the bacterial content that may develop through soaking. So if you're able to actually do both, that would be super.
But as I understand it, from the research that I'm aware of, soaking will, will be a better option, to reduce your carbohydrate level. Wonderful, thank you very much. I've got some great comments coming in.
Josse is an excellent presentation. Thank you for this great overview on on equine obesity and nutrition. And I know Jose is in on a lot of webinars and I recognise his name, so he knows what he's talking about.
We've got a question here about the recording as well, Caroline. The recording will be up on the website, hopefully within 48 hours. So anything that you've missed, you'll be able to go back through, and see there.
So a couple of more questions coming in, . Is EMS reversible, so if the horse loses sufficient weight, can it get better and be managed or fed more normally? That's a, yeah, that's a tough question.
. I think it can certainly be managed, whether it's reversible or not, I'm not 100% sure. I'd possibly say no, but it can certainly be managed and you can certainly. By reducing things like your carbohydrate levels and ensuring that the animal is not becoming fat and it's keeping at a good weight, you can certainly manage it absolutely not necessarily with medication.
Whether it's reversible or not, I'm not 100% sure on the answer to that, I'm afraid. So. No problem.
That's fine. Thank you very much. What we can do, we'll, any, any questions we don't get through as well, and anything that we want to send, through to people once the recording is available on the website, we'll send all the registrants an email just to let them know, and we'll put some, links there as well.
Brilliant. Question here, is it possible to feed haulage over the winter with EMS or laminitis, or would you always recommend hay? Georgina's just thinking about yard restrictions, to forage available.
OK, interestingly, hailage typically has a lower water soluble carbohydrate level than hay, most often, purely because of the insuling process it goes through. So the microbes in the insuling process will actually utilise the sugar. Within the forage itself and therefore the carbohydrate level is generally lower.
However, there are issues typically with haulage in that it's usually cut earlier on in the season. And therefore it's usually more digestible, and therefore has a higher energy or calorie content. So if you're trying to deal with weight loss and your haulage is particularly of good quality and cut early, then you may struggle to potentially feed enough haulage in order to meet fibre requirements.
There are also some issues with maybe wetter types of haage, that they can be more fermentable in the hind guts and therefore it could potentially, reduce the pH to make the environments more acidic. So with respect to laminitis, that could potentially be a problem. But you can, get hold of hailages, these days that are maybe Timmoy based.
Timothy-based grasses, and if you can get a haliage that's maybe later cut, or a much drier haliage, then those types of problems can be avoided. Excellent, thank you very much. And we've also got a question here from Marianne.
Is there any way to estimate the weight of grass eaten in any particular grazing period, so the weight of additional forage required can be calculated. Yeah, we, we do have a method that we use. It's very crude because obviously every horse is, is very different, you do also get certain types or breeds or your ponies in particular that.
Do tend to sort of hoover up, sort of, you know, grass far more quickly. We tend to look at basing it on how many hours they are out, at grass and we look at calculating it on a dry matter basis, so that we can get a figure from that. But it's Not 100% accurate.
So there are methods. If Marianne's able to go onto our website, in our nutrition library, I can't remember what it is called, but there is an article on there that will tell you how to calculate it. It's probably easier for you to look at a calculation rather than me talking it through.
Yeah, absolutely. If you, let us know where that's found, and we can add that to the email as I mentioned, just so people can find that quickly. Super.
OK, I believe it's on, if you go on to the Bailey's website, and I think you click on the drop down box feed advice. And you should find nutrition library there. Click onto that and you'll find lots of different articles that will point you in the right direction.
It should be fairly clear, should be sort of about forage feeding, fibre feeding, may even be in relation to EMS or laminitis. Perfect, thank you. Another question that's coming in from Jennifer, she says hello, what are your thoughts on grazing muzzles?
Do you advise using them? I'm not a big fan of them, if I'm completely honest. If I can use other methods, and avoid a grazing muzzle, then I always will.
However, there are instances where, that quite often is the only option, and I think you have to weigh up whether you need that animal to lose weight, particularly if there's a clinical issue. That you're dealing with, to whether, you know, a muzzle is something that you want to use. I think the most important thing is that you're using them correctly, and that you're going by the manufacturer's recommendations.
You need to make sure that if they're wearing a grazing muzzle, that they have got access to a reasonable amount of grass, so they're not standing out for long lengths of time without being able to eat anything. And obviously that can cause quite a lot of frustration if there's not a lot of grass out there. And I believe, a lot of manufacturers do not recommend, that you leave a grazing muzzle on for longer than 12 hours, which is quite a long time.
So yes, if, if you can avoid them and use other methods and brilliant, but I think in some instances they work well for some people. Excellent, yes, Jennifer said thank you for that answer and thanks for a very useful webinar as well. Thank you.
Jody's asking, about Cushing's. Would there be a, a, a certain feed that you'd recommend? To be honest, it'd be exactly the same as what we've discussed, all sort of low starch, low sugar, so looking at the, the carbohydrate levels, when we're dealing with Cushing's, we are dealing very much in the same way as an EMS or laminitic, type horse.
They, they're not necessarily linked, Cushing's And EMS aren't necessarily linked. There are similarities and sort of things like your insulin resistance between the two issues, but they are different diseases, but we would certainly feed them, in a, in a similar manner. So everything that we've discussed this evening, you can apply to a cushyloy horse.
Excellent. And if you want any of that information again, as I mentioned, the recording will be up on the website so you can access this webinar within the next couple of days. It's a question from Mel here more about, Baileys itself.
So do you sell products in Belgium or France? Definitely France. I'm not sure about Belgium actually.
I believe we do. Again, if you go on to the website, and believe the click down box is stockists, yeah, Stockists, that should Take you through, to our exports as well. So yeah, so you should be able to get hold of that quite easily and it should be able to point you in the right direction of who stocks it.
If you're still, you know, if you're struggling with you, or you're not sure whether there's anybody near you, please email or Facebook us, and we will point you, towards our exports, manager. Excellent, very useful. Thank you very much.
Just looks like we've got another question, that's come in and Estelle said thank you and also for a fantastic presentation. Thank you. Intriguing question here.
So, someone's talking about hay nets tend to cause, muscle development issues with long term use. So I was wondering if a slow feeder would actually be a better option. What's your experience there?
Yeah, potentially. I don't have a lot of experience, to be perfectly honest with a slow feeder. So, but absolutely.
I mean, if you're able to provide that trick. Feeding effects, which is what we're typically aiming for so that we can provide forage over a very, long period of time, but obviously limit and restrict how much they're getting, without necessarily adlibbing it or providing as much as they want. Then absolutely I'm, I'm all in favour for it, cos absolutely, yeah, you, there are certainly issues, .
With your, your muscle, with your hay nets. So yeah, if you can certainly monitor and provide, as I say, provide that trickle feeding effect, which is what we're ultimately aiming for, then yeah, fantastic. Wonderful.
I think that's all the questions now answered. That brings us nicely to 9 o'clock. Thank you so much again, Emma, for that wonderful presentation.
We really appreciate it. Thank you also to Babies Horse Feast for sponsoring tonight's webinar and making this free access to the community. And also thank you to everyone who's attended.
We'll see you on another webinar soon.
