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Re: [RC] RC - Bruce WearyWell Bill,Bein's how you asked so nice and all, okay. I will give an update on my feeding experiments lately, a la Tom Ivers. I recommend everyone get a copy of his e-book Optimized Nutrition. There are several key concepts in it that help to understand the horse's physiology. I convinced myself that feeding grain before a ride can be a real problem for various reasons, including excitability and crashing blood sugar levels that can make the horse work intolerant. I feed free choice grass hay and some alfalfa either in the form of pellets or long stem. A local company makes a pellet called Dyna Foal, made for foals and lactating or pregnant mares. It is higher in zinc and copper, and is supplemented with iron as well. They are not in amounts high enough to worry about oversupplementation. It is also completely balanced for calcium and phosphorus, which is very rare for an alfalfa pellet. Lastly, it contains Yea-Sacc, a high quality form of yeast/probiotic. The protein content is fairly high, but I only use it supplementally. With the free choice hay and as many pellets as they want, I can keep their weight on without daily grain. I have found they are much more tractable in their workouts, and I give them a few handfuls of grain throughout the ride to keep their blood sugar up. According to Tom, they don't really run on this little bit of grain, but by keeping the glucose levels up, the body senses that everything is okay, and doesn't need to shift the metabolic machinery to less efficient modes or go into crisis mode and starting to shut systems down, like the gut, in order to preserve glucose for the most important system--the nervous system. Again, according to Tom, keeping the glucose levels up in normal ranges for a working horse helps the body to continue to use fat efficiently, and keeps the heart muscle from fatiguing, which helps with recoveries. When the heart muscle gets tired, it speeds up and pumps more weakly, unlike skeletal muscle which becomes sluggish with fatigue. So, I find now that the horses are more hungry on their workouts, and I think I'm on a better track when they actually eat what I offer throughout their workout, as opposed to going out on a full stomach and refusing to eat during the workout. If they want to eat, that will keep the gut stimulated, the glucose levels up and the thirst mechanism intact. All good things during an endurance ride. Back to the laboratory.............................Dr. Quackenbush =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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