Re: keeping weight on

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

> Susan, what kinds of oil are good for horses?  And is it best given in
> bran or where?
> 
> My horse turned up his normally munchy nose at the canola oil I tried..
> 
> Thanks, Katherine
> --
> MZ

Hiya,

Nutritionally, there's very little difference between fat sources for
horses.  There are some relatively minor differences in the content of
the fat-soluble vitamins, but to all intents and purposes, don't count
on fats for anything other than their energy content...which is pretty
much the same between all oils from plant sources.

Corn oil seems to be somewhat more palatable to horses than other
sources like soybean or canola oil.  If your horse is turning up his
nose, very often the reason is because the oil has become oxidized and
smells bad to the horse, so he doesn't eat it.  The other reason you
don't want to try to feed oxidized oil is because rancid oil contains
peroxides and free radicals, which in turn (among other things) tie up
other fat soluble vitamins like vitamin E.  There was some recent
research that increased vitamin C minimizes the effects of oxidized oil,
but this research was in guinea pigs and hasn't been explored yet in
horses (normally horses don't need vitamin C supplementation).

Anyway, the point is that you should make an effort to only offer FRESH
oil to your horse.  Obviously, for a fat to become oxidized, it has to
be exposed to oxygen, and light and heat speed up the oxidizing
process.  So to keep the oil as fresh as possible, try to keep it in a
cool, dark place in small enough containers that you don't have alot of
airspace and aren't introducing more oxygen all the time.  When I feed
fat, I buy it in 2.5 gallon containers, but pour a ten-day supply into
smaller bottles, so that the main supply only gets opened up every ten
days or so.  That jug gets kept in a cool corner of the garage.  The
smaller bottle live in a dark, cool shelf out in the barn and if I had
my druthers, all of it would live in a refrigerator.

I don't feed bran and don't particularly care for it as a dietary
mainstay because of the high phosphorus content---since I don't feed
alfalfa, I don't want to feed too much phosphorus or I'll invert the
calcium-phosphorus ratio.  I do feed alot of beet pulp, and oil mixes up
very nicely into that.  In the past, I've also mixed oil into chopped
alfalfa&molasses, chopped oathay&molasses and if the horse likes it,
right into the grain or onto the hay ration.  My preference is for beet
pulp, though---I can get alot of oil into a bucket of beet pulp.

Hope this answers your questions.

Susan Garlinghouse