Re: feeding for yearlings info needed - Susan G?

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

?


> I'm worried that a well-intentioned fellow boarder is misguided in her
> notions of proper feeding. She just bought about 30 bales of the sweetest,
> greenest, leafiest alfalfa I have ever seen and intends to feed it as the
> only source of forage for her QH yearling. I haven't seen the yearling,
but
> her 6YO is quite the butterball.

I agree, she's making a very common mistake of Killin' 'Em with Kindness.
That's nice of you to want to help her go in the right direction rather than
just shrugging your shoulders about it.  Good for you. :-)))

For starters, you can tell her that there was a study in which one group of
QH foals was fed free choice alfalfa, and another group fed limited alfalfa
(about 1.5 lbs per 100 lbs of body weight per day).  Two-thirds of the free
choice alfalfa group showed up with significant DOD (developmental
orthopedic disease) lesions, and the other third had stilted, choppy gaits
and some abnormal joint angles.  The group that had their alfalfa limited
only had about a 10% incidence of DOD and none of them were deemed
'significant'.  Pretty strong argument against straight alfalfa right there
if you ask me.  Keep reading....


> I'm one of two or three close candidates to advise this owner since I
> purchased my horse as a yearling.  But at that time, I left the feeding up
> to the barn manager who told me it's best to keep horses that young on the
> lean side (not skinny, but lean).

Your barn manager is absolutely right.

 My understanding is that you don't want
> fat young horses because it's just that much more strain on developing
> joints. Is that true?

Well, it's not really a joint strain thing.  What it is is that a fat
young'un by definition has more dietary energy than he needs for normal
growth.  So not only is the body laying on body fat, it's also growing at a
very rapid rate.  What usually occurs is that the body mass is growing
faster than the bones can keep up, and the result is DOD lesions around the
epiphyseal growths plates at the ends of the long bones.

>What about other nutritional concerns? We're located
> in Ohio where we don't have the probs with alfalfa that owners who feed
> alfalfa grown in the southwest do.

Well, the problem isn't limited to alfalfa.  You can very easily create the
same problems with any ration that's too high in energy (translation, fat
baby) and even more so in one where the mineral profile isn't just right.
The minerals of concern are calcium, phosphorus, copper and zinc.  Most
people just feed a ton of alfalfa because they think that all that calcium
will produce nice strong bones.  To *some* extent that's true, but you have
to take into account the other minerals as well, as well as absorption and
bioavailability.  Too much of one tends to suppress absorption of another,
and the end result is back to DOD lesions again.

The interesting thing is that you can get a form of DOD showing up in the
developing vertebrae as well, and so can get a resulting malalignment of the
neck and spine that shows up as a neurological problem---which can look like
EPM, or wobbler's syndrome or all kinds of other scary things.  Not always,
but it *can* be just a nutritional mismatch problem---the body is growing
faster than the bones can keep up and so things aren't fitting together
quite right.

So what you need to do is provide a ration that (as your barn manager has
already pointed out) produces a lean, strong baby without getting too fat.
It just so happens I spent most of my summer teaching clinical nutrition
seminars to equine vets, so rather than reinventing the wheel, I'm pasting
in below part of the handout where alfalfa recommendations were covered (and
all of this is based on real science, it's not just my opinion):

- Birth to 4 months, free choice alfalfa okay
- Rich diet (temporarily) okay for mare in early lactation, foal's intake
limited anyway
- Restrict alfalfa for both mare and foal at three months of age
- NEVER provide alfalfa free choice past the age of four months!
- Restrict alfalfa to no more than 2 lbs per 100 lbs body weight AT MOST
- Limiting alfalfa to .5 - 1 lb per 100 lbs body weight very adequate if
accompanying grass hay is good quality
- Is alfalfa necessary at all? (the answer is no)

Also, about grain.  It's okay to feed grain to young'uns, but it should
absolutely be one specifically formulated for growing horses, because those
will have the right amounts of copper and zinc---adult formulations usually
don't have enough.  If you look on the feed tag, it should specify 55-65 ppm
copper and 200-220 ppm zinc.  No, feeding an adult mix and then adding in
supplements of your own is not as good, because I guarentee the ratios won't
be right and the risk of DOD goes up.  Honest, I can't tell you the numbers
of people I've talked to who thought their home-mixed ration was just right
and it wasn't.  I tend to become something of a Nutrition Nazi <g> on this
one subject because I truly hate seeing nice babies not growing up to their
full potential due to an easily fixed problem.

OK, so back to grain mixes.  Once you find a good grain mix formulated for
babies, don't provide it free choice, either.  Free choice = fat baby = DOD.
At ages less than 4 months, feed about a half pound per 100 lbs of present
body weight.  From 4-12 months, feed about 1.5 - 2 lbs/100 lb BW.  After a
year, cut it back to about a pound per 100 lbs of BW.  Regardless of body
weight, never feed more than about 10-12 lbs of grain per day, and never
more than about 4 lbs per meal.  Personally, I never feed babies more than
eight pounds a day TOPS.  AND, because horses don't read textbooks, use your
own eyes.  If the baby is getting pig fat on three pounds of grain a day,
then chuck the numbers and calculations and by golly, cut him back so he's
not getting fat.

Other than feeding a good quality broodmare/foal pellet, no other
supplements except for plain white salt.  Nada, I don't care what the pretty
label promises.  Lots of good quality grass hay, lots of fresh water, lots
of handling and lovin' and lots of room to run.

> There's plenty of good grass mix hays available. I feed a very nice,
> consistently sweet smelling and green, consistently baled grass hay with a
> little alfalfa that's easy to obtain. Wouldn't that be better to feed the
> yearling?

Yes, it would.  That's basically what I feed my own youngsters on the few
occasions I've bred and raised a baby---free choice grass hay and a token
handful of alfalfa plus a few pounds of a mare/foal pellet.  And anybody
that's seen Dakota and Cheyenne would be hard pressed to call them anything
other than "strapping".  Both over 16.1 or headed there, and not a breath of
DOD in either of them.

Tell your fellow boarder that the good news is she has enough alfalfa to
last her until the yearling is under saddle. :-))))  You can also pass along
my email if she has any questions or has any concerns.  I'm sure she wants
what's best for her baby, good luck discussing it with her.

Susan G