Question
I own a 25-year-old stock-type stallion with moderately severe arthritis in his hind limbs. Poor teeth prevent him from gaining adequate nutritional value from available pasture and hay. To assist with his arthritic condition, we feel omega-3 fatty acids should be incorporated into his diet along with vitamin E. How would you recommend we do this? A joint supplement was introduced to his diet, but due to its unpalatable nature, we quit feeding it. What should I feed this horse for optimal health?
Answer
Your horse’s current diet does not appear to contain much roughage. The equine digestive tract is designed for a diet that is mainly roughage, so it would be best to get more roughage into him in the form of forage (hay pellets), high-fiber pellets, or beet pulp. Because your stallion has issues with his ability to chew coarse forage (pasture, hay, cubes), whether it is from tooth loss, arthritis in his jaw, or both, the best alternative forage you can offer him would be hay pellets (alfalfa (lucerne), grass, or mixed) that are softened into a mash. If available, you could add some soaked beet pulp to this mash.
You do not mention what kind of pellet you are currently feeding. A high-fiber pellet is best as long as it is fortified with vitamins and minerals. The pellet should be fed according to the manufacturer’s instructions, taking special care to feed at least the minimum recommended amount.
The pellet may be the only source of mineral fortification, so it is important to figure out whether it is fortified sufficiently to meet the requirements of your horse when fed appropriately.
Boiled barley is rich in starch and is therefore a worthy dietary addition for calories, but it should not be the basis of the diet and should be kept at less than 50% of his ration. Too much starch in the diet and not enough roughage will upset the delicate balance of the microbes in the digestive tract, and the horse would have difficulty gaining or maintaining weight.
Because he has lost his ability to graze effectively, you should consider splitting his daily ration into three or four meals. This would allow you to decrease the size of the meals and not overwhelm his digestive tract. Smaller and more frequent meals will permit the horse to get more out of each serving, which will help with weight maintenance.
The best source of omega-3 fatty acids is fish oil or marine-derived DHA and EPA such as EO∙3. Other sources of omega-3s are flax and chia seeds.
Natural sources of vitamin E are more effectively utilized by the horse, and the liquid form may be easier to add to the feed. Nano∙E is a natural vitamin E that uses encapsulation technology to make it water-soluble, which improves absorption.
There are numerous joint supplements on the market, so if palatability was poor for the one you tried it may be worth looking at other possibilities. Joint supplements tend to include lots of additional ingredients that may be affecting palatability, so look for a supplement that offers glucosamine and without lots of additives, like KER∙Flex or KER Glucos-A-Flex, or maybe a hyaluronic acid supplement like Synovate HA. These types of products mixed into a hay pellet/beet pulp mash should be virtually undetectable to the palate of the horse.
