Integral Equine Nutrition

25/01/2025

Francesca's first pony 🤣

Needs a little renovation - what colour shall he or she be?

20/01/2025

Something that came up a few times at my weigh in day on the weekend.

A few horses had gained or lost around 10kg since my previous visit (over a year ago) which initially concerned their owners, 10kg does sound like a lot!

But remember, 10kg is only 2% of the average horse's bodyweight - equivalent to 1.4kg for a 70kg person. This could easily just be normal daily fluctuation, especially if the horse's body condition and health is otherwise steady.

Obviously a 10kg change is more significant the smaller the horse or pony, and less significant on a big draft!

If we see 5 or 10kg changes in the same direction multiple times, particularly over only a few months, then we can be sure that weight is going up or down 👍

20/01/2025

The vast majority of horse people I encounter are doing their best to provide a good life and diet for their horses, given their current knowledge and resources, so I'm rarely annoyed by poor feeding choices - whether a horse is being under, over or inappropriately fed - it's an opportunity to inform and improve :)

But there are a few things that really bug me!

- hay suppliers who aren't upfront about exactly when and what hay they say has been analysed (sorry, last year's test has nothing to do with this year's hay!)

- people who *knowingly* underfeed an already thin horse to "keep it quiet"

- "experts" who use half truths to create very convincing theories that sell their products

What horse feed related things drive you nuts?

17/01/2025

Wet wet wet but I've got a shed so the show will go on!

And what a way to get started this morning with the first 4 repeat clients who even remembered to bring their weight cards from last year, woot!!!

16/01/2025

Looking forward to the first weigh in of the year at Glenworth Valley this weekend :)

This is the third year in a row that we have run a weigh in day at - so lovely to see how the same horses are going with their condition and weights, and see new faces too.

10/01/2025

Find the Icelandic!

07/01/2025

Ad lib forage (grass or hay) is the gold standard for digestive and mental health for horses. They were designed to graze for up to 16 hours a day, so making sure there is always something to chew on is really important.

If your horse is not seriously overweight, and especially if it is underweight or a poor doer there is no such thing as *too much* forage.

"Ad lib" means free choice, or effectively never running out. This means you need to work out how much your horse is likely to eat over the time period and provide at least a little more than that.

With my horse Tiento, who is a good doer, I achieve this by providing a whole netted bale of low sugar, low energy hay, alongisde a net with a set amount of slightly more nutritious hay. The whole bale will take him around a week to consume, so I only need to replace the smaller hay net for each night, and don't need to worry about him "running out".

*My horses are barefoot, shod hooves do present a safety risk with hay nets on or low to the ground*

What do you do?

07/01/2025

I'm sometimes asked what my background and qualifications are - and I'm very happy to answer!

I have Bachelor of Animal and Veterinary Bioscience (Honours), and a Master of Animal Science with a research paper on the use of turmeric as a preventative for gastric ulcers. Aside from my research, I undertook courses in equine nutrition (of course!), equine health, equine behaviour & welfare, equine exercise physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology.

In 2022 I also completed a post graduate Certificate in Regenerative Agriculture to help me help you to manage horse pastures in a way that is good the horses AND the environment!

Before starting Integral Equine Nutrition almost 9 years ago, I worked in medical research, looking at neurological control of blood pressure and heart rate - fascinating stuff but I much prefer the horses, people and outdoors I get to interact with now 😄

06/01/2025

New Year's news!

Accurate weights from my mobile scales are now INCLUDED in all nutrition consultations (previously an add on service).

Accurate weight is important for diet formulation, but also worming and other medications and towing!

28/12/2024

Recent (large, almost 2000 horses) study looking at the accuracy of weight tapes - which lines up with what I see in practice when I'm out weighing horses - from the study:

"This study aimed to explore possible factors influencing weigh tape readings in a large group of horses, using a single, commercially available weigh tape. The results supported the hypothesis that there would be a difference between weigh tape readings and true body weight. Deviations from true bodyweight ranged from a difference of 1–2 kg, through to differences of over 100 kg. Whilst the smaller deviations are less relevant in practice, with these slight under- or overestimations being less likely to affect the horse’s well-being, the larger deviations may be more problematic in practice."

https://www.mdpi.com/2244472 - full text available here if you'd like to read it.

Weight tapes are still useful to measure if your horse is gaining or losing weight, but are not accurate for all horses!

Lucky for those of you in Sydney, you CAN get accurate weights without needing to take your horse out of the comfort of its home - my mobile scales come to you, at a fraction of the cost of having your own scales (believe me, they are $$$$).

23/12/2024

20/12/2024

We make a big deal about the species of grasses we feed our horses, be it in pastures or hay - it needs to be "horse safe" or "low sugar"... "rhodes is lower than teff"... "ryegrass is too high in sugar"...

Are we losing sight of the bigger picture?

This is a photo of some seed heads I pulled from "rhodes grass hay"... on the left is rhodes grass, middle is millet and I'm not sure about the last one, the stem seems too thin to be oats or another cereal, perhaps sweet vernal or a wheat? Whatever it is, the hay is not 100% rhodes!

For my horses, I want hay that is low in sugars and starches, relatively low in calories, moderate in protein and preferably just fibrous enough to keep consumption a little slower but not be totally unpalatable. We can make assumptions based on averages about different species, but at the end of the day, I don't really care what species we have, as long as the hay fits those nutritional factors! And the only way to know that is testing.

In fact, more diversity of species is generally a good thing, and on top of that I'd rather have a slightly mixed hay than have the producer need to spray or heavily cultivate the field to produce a 100% pure hay 🤔

On the other hand, producers and retailers should be honest about what's in their hay...

18/12/2024

Myth Busting!

**Edited for clarity - sugars most definitely can be reduced through soaking - I'm just busting the myth that the colour of the water is linked to the sugar**

The colour of the water after soaking your horse's hay has NO bearing on the amount of sugar that was in the hay, or has come out - the colour is due to dirt, pigments and tannins (like in tea) in the hay, NOT sugars!

Don't believe me?

Molasses is dark brown because it is boiled to remove all the water from the sugar cane juice (which is a light greenish colour to start with, despite containing plenty of sugar!), caramelising the sugars. Think about what grass sap looks like (which would contain the same sorts of sugars as your hay...) - it's colourless!

17/12/2024

Cold watermelon rinds make a healthy and tasty summer treat for the horses!

Bonus, no food waste!

16/12/2024

Do you feed a joint supplement? Magnesium or calming supplement?

Want to save $660 a year?

I thought it was time to do a quick comparison of my custom supplement prices with the retail prices of a popular brand - let's see what I found!

I'm not going to name the brand, but I chose commonly used supplements, all from the one well established brand with a good reputation among horse owners.

Basic vits and mins cost per day - 80c
Magnesium/calming supplement - $1.98
Joint supplement - $3.66

So that comes to a not insignificant daily total of $6.44 per day. Thats $2350 per year (sorry for anyone who was trying to avoid knowing how much horse feed adds up to!)

Now I can make a *custom* batch of minerals for a client that contains joint support (glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM at viable levels) and a good whack of magnesium (much more than most retail supplements contain), AND would also include much higher levels of trace minerals to balance other feeds used AND some digestive support to boot!

Plus this would be all balanced to what *your* horse is eating.

(I feel like I should be offering a free set of steak knives here while I'm at it :P)

It would come to $4.60 per day. $1685 per year.

That's a yearly saving of $660 per year!

More than twice the cost of my consultation (which of course gives you a bunch of other very useful information and a healthy diet which in turn should save you more $$ and stress over the long run).

And it all comes in one convenient, more palatable, pelleted format - less hassle at feed time.

13/12/2024

Did you know that the average pelleted feed contains around 12 MJ/kg (that's energy/calories), while good quality lucerne hay packs just under 9MJ/kg?

That means on a purely calorie for calorie basis, 1 whole kilogram of pellets (this is usually a little more than a standard "scoop") can be replaced by only 1.3kg of lucerne hay (less than a standard biscuit, which is usually closer to 2kg).

With the current price of bagged feed going through the roof, plus the many benefits of feeding forage over pellets, this swap will more than likely save $$$ and improve the health and wellbeing of your horse.

Of course there are other nutritional factors to take into account here to create a well balanced diet, but this is an example of a simple, healthy diet change I might make for a client's horse - why not find out how I can help yours!

11/12/2024

If you've been following me for a while, you'll know that I am a big fan of LONG grass for horses. It's typically higher in fibre, lower in sugars, promotes lots of chewing and natural grazing behaviour (including varied neck positions) AND it's the best thing for your land.

Lots to love in in my opionion!

When it comes to sugar and metabolism and overweight horses (and to a lesser extend, sensitive tummies and "grass affected" horses), promoting long grass can be controversial, with some experts preferring to keep at risk horses on short grass, because less kilograms of grass can be consumed, and thus any negative effects of that grass is minimised.

A valid argument, even if I disagree - short/overgrazed grass is low in fibre, higher in sugars (stressed), does not encourage those natural foraging behaviour and degrades soil. But it is true that it is much more difficult for horses to consume as much very short grass.

A key point that is often missing in this debate is what everyone actually MEANS when they say "short" and "long"!

In my experience, many people don't understand how long I mean when I say "long" :P So I've popped up some photos to illustrate.

Many people would consider the medium length here as "long" - which I think may be where all the debate stems from - this length of grass may not be particularly mature (this is a bit species dependent) and may not yet be at the stage where we can have a good assumption that it's high fibre/low sugar - BUT it can certainly be eaten in large quantities, leading to weight gain and potentially metabolic issues (as it's still pretty nutritious at this point).

This length of grass (and essentially anything longer than about 3-5cm - if you look at photo number 4 - this would considered "short grass" by most, but I think you can imagine a horse getting plenty per bite!) can be consumed in just as much quantity as the really long stuff (much of which is stemmy and gets trampled and rejected).

I could go on, but the post is getting long - feel free to discuss further in the comments!

09/12/2024

Salt - possibly THE most important thing to supplement!

This is probably one of my most repeated posts, but it's a basic bit of horsekeeping that's often forgetten!

With the heat and HUMIDITY are you sure your horse is getting enough salt?

Horses can sweat several litres per hour in hot weather even at rest - over 10L/hour during intense exercise - this results in both fluid and electrolyte losses. Sodium (found in plain salt) is the electrolyte most affected.

In hot weather remember to make sure your horses have free access to fresh water and keep up the plain salt in their feeds to ensure they keep drinking and stay hydrated (remember, the drive to drink in horses is regulated by SODIUM, not water).

Salt licks are fine to have as extra, however many horses will not consume enough to meet their needs (and some just eat the whole thing, which isn't ideal either 😂).

A better option to offer additional free choice salt is to offer loose coarse salt in a tub - easier for most horses to consume. But make sure this is ON TOP of a regular daily amount in feed.