starch | Horse Racing Free Tips

Tasty Treat: Are Sweet Potatoes Better Than Carrots?

Question: A friend suggested feeding my horses raw sweet potatoes as treats because they have less sugar than carrots. I hadn't given much thought to this. Is she onto something here?

Kentucky Equine Research responds: Both sweet potatoes and carrots can be offered to your horses as treats. Carrots contain about 88 percent water, while sweet potatoes have about 77 percent, making sweet potatoes slightly more nutrient-dense. Both are relatively poor sources of protein because of the high water content (carrot, 0.9 percent; sweet potato, 1.6 percent; as fed).

The primary nutrient difference lies in the carbohydrate content of the two root vegetables. Although the fiber content (carrot, 2.8 percent; sweet potato, 3 percent; as fed) and the simple sugar content (carrot, 4.7 percent; sweet potato, 4.2 percent; as fed) are similar, sweet potatoes are much higher than carrots in starch (12.9 percent and 2.1 percent; as fed, respectively). Looking more closely at the type of starch in the sweet potatoes, 80 percent is rapidly digestible (enzymatic digestion), while only 11 percent is resistant starch only fermentable by microbes). Sweet potatoes provide over twice the calories that carrots do (86 and 41 calories, respectively, per 100 g), mostly because of the difference in starch content. In this context, “as fed” refers to raw vegetables and “dry matter” to dehydrated vegetables.

While dehydrated sweet potatoes have less sugar than dehydrated carrots (18 percent and 40 percent, respectively), they have similar levels when fed raw (4.2 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively), as noted previously.

Both are rich sources of beta-carotene, which is the precursor to vitamin A.

[Story Continues Below]

Despite their names, sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes are not closely related from a botanical standpoint. Sweet potatoes and yams are vines in the morning glory family, whereas Irish potatoes are in the nightshade family. Sweet potatoes do not contain the nutritional anti-factors that make raw Irish potatoes unsafe for horses to consume.

Sweet potatoes can be a tasty treat for horses either raw or cooked. Due to their relatively high starch and sugar content, they should be fed in only small amounts. Feeding large amounts carries some risk, especially when given to starch-sensitive horses. In addition to beta-carotene, sweet potatoes are a good source of vitamin C and potassium.

Minimize Gastric Ulcers In Rapidly Growing Weanlings

The prevalence of gastric ulcers among Thoroughbreds in training and racing is well known, but gastric ulcers also occur frequently in Thoroughbred foals and yearlings. Reports suggest one-quarter to one-half of foals have gastric ulcers.

“Ulcers compromise the health of the horse, affecting appetite and feed conversion efficiency. In young foals, growth rates can be negatively affected. As many horse owners know, diagnosis with a gastroscope and treatment with omeprazole are expensive, so preventing ulcers is vital,” explained Clarissa Brown-Douglas, Ph.D., a Kentucky Equine Research nutritionist.

[Story Continues Below]

In addition to the general stress associated with weaning, the type of feed a foal is offered, such as high-starch concentrate, can also contribute to the development of equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS).

Tradition dictates feeding weanlings high levels of grain-based concentrates (such as oat-, corn-, and barley-based feeds) to achieve the accelerated growth required by Thoroughbred yearlings for sales. However, these high-starch feeds are linked to rapid growth rates and implicated in the manifestation of developmental orthopedic disease, including osteochondritis, angular limb deformities, and physitis.

Considering the potential negative effects of high-starch diets in young, growing horses, there is evidence that the same level of growth can be achieved by feeding a diet in which the energy is provided by fiber as opposed to cereals.

A recent report showed similar growth rates in foals born in the United Kingdom and fed either an all-fiber or a traditional cereal-based creep feed.^* In this study, average daily gain, height at the withers and hip, heart girth, and body length were all similar between the groups of weanlings fed either the all-fiber or high-cereal creep feed for 18 weeks. Specifically, the average daily gain was in line with other reported growth rates of Thoroughbreds at the same age.

This study also examined the effect of the two different feeds on stomach pH of the weanlings. Horses fed the all-fiber feed maintained a more consistent and less acidic gastric pH compared with those fed the cereal-based feed. The researchers deduced that the high-fiber ration had the potential to help reduce the incidence of acid-precipitated gastric ulceration.

“This work supports several other studies that have reported a high incidence of gastric ulcers in weanlings, suggesting high-fiber diets protect against gastric ulcers in horses of all ages. Many feed companies are now producing feeds for young, growing horses containing high levels of digestible fiber, including beet pulp and soy hulls, with less reliance on cereal grains,” Brown-Douglas relayed.

In sum, this study adds to the increasing pool of data supporting the use of high-fiber diets to achieve growth rates comparable to traditional cereal-based diets in young horses.

Reducing the risk of the incidence of gastric ulcers in weanlings during their rapid growth can be achieved in one of two ways: by offering a high-fiber feed rather than a traditional cereal-based feed and by supplementing their diets with Triacton, a research-proven supplement developed by Kentucky Equine Research.

Triacton contains a specific source of calcium proven to buffer the gastric and hindgut environments, restoring gastrointestinal normalcy. Triacton features the added benefit of boosting bone mineral density, which is advantageous for growing foals.

*Moore-Colyer, M., P. Tuthill, I. Bannister, and S. Daniels. 2020. Growth rates of Thoroughbred foals and in vitro gut health parameters when fed a cereal or an all-fiber creep feed. Journal of Equine Veterinary Science 93:103191.

Get The Scoop On Horse Feed From An Equine Nutritionist

Let's go back in time to 1821—for sake of entertainment, you can be a horse.

You're a drafty fellow, and there are fields to plow, wagons and carriages to pull and the five-day workweek has yet to be heard of, especially for a horse out on the farm. Like the steady workhorse that you are, you're hoofing 10 to 15 hours per day, expending a lot of energy and calories. Your source of food includes grazing low-quality forage (hungry yet?).

Dr. Jyme Nichols, director of nutrition at Stride Animal Health, says this is about the time cereal grains were introduced into horses' diets. The grains most popular and accessible to feed horses included corn, barley and oats. Knowing horses required higher levels of fiber, as it's safest for them and their diet, oats had the highest level of fiber and was a natural choice to feed for extra calories that provided horses with extra energy.

“Fast forward to present day – we have horses kept in stalls or in small turnouts, and they may have very limited hours of riding. That horse that used to work 10, 12 or 14 hours a day now maybe only works an hour a day when we have time to ride them. The rest of the time, they spend eating. But they are still receiving the same concentrated grain meal that we were giving them many years ago when they were working so hard. If you take a high-starch feed like that and overfeed them, you can make a horse very excitable or crazy,” said Dr. Nichols during an interview with Valley Vet Supply.

Equine nutrition is complex – there is no sugar-coating that; however, Dr. Nichols warns there is plenty of “sugar-coating” when it comes to our horse's grain choices, and that along with high starch are just a few aspects to consider relating to our horse's nutritional program.

With insight from Dr. Nichols, let's review top equine nutrition FAQs.

Does my horse need supplements?

The answer to that is never black or white. It depends on what you are doing with your horse; how old your horse is; whether you're feeding your horse a forage-only diet or whether your horse is on feed. It also depends on if your horse is dealing with certain problems, like if they have arthritis, gut issues or specific needs that are outside of what we would consider 'normal,' more basic nutritional needs.

Does protein make horses hot?

No, it doesn't. It is the starch and sugars in what you are feeding that make horses hot. There is some confusion about protein—it's commonly thought that horses need more feed, more protein and more nutrients, so we're going to feed this higher-protein feed. But what owners may not realize, is that when they were feeding that higher-protein feed, they were also feeding more of it. It wasn't necessarily the high protein that was making the horses become excitable. It was the fact they were feeding a really large volume of a high-starch, high-sugar feed.

Nutritionally, how can I manage or prevent a “hot” horse?

If you have a horse that is naturally more excitable and anxious, one of the better things you can do is look for a diet that is high in fiber and pull your calories from fat sources. Those fat sources are called “cool energy calories,” meaning it gives horses the calories that they need, but it's not going to make their mind and their attitude hot and excitable. For energetic horses, avoid high starch feeds. Refer to the feed tag for the “NSC,” which is the combination of starch and sugar. “NSC” stands for non-structural carbohydrates. You get to that number by adding the starch number on the feed tag to the sugar level. As a general rule of thumb for feeds considered “low starch,” if you were to add the starch and the sugar together, that number shouldn't be over 22 percent.

Can sugars impact certain horse health conditions?

For PPID horses or Cushing's horses, starch and sugar are really important in the diet to help manage. If you have a horse with a medical sensitivity, such as a horse with Cushing's, laminitis or equine metabolic syndrome – the medical sensitivity to sugar means you need to make sure that your NSC is under 12 percent. After that, you want to make sure you're feeding at the recommended levels of the feed. If you're not – and let's say that particular feed calls for 6 pounds per day and you're only feeding those horses 3 pounds per day, you're shorting them in important trace minerals or vitamins.

How do you nutritionally manage a horse that ties up frequently?

There is not a generic answer. But keep horses off green grass [which has higher sugar content]; feed low-starch, low-sugar feed; and make sure you have a proper balance of trace minerals, macro nutrients and vitamins. Also, ensure they have daily exercise.

How do I know if my hay is meeting their basic needs?

First off, do a visual check and body condition assessment of your horse. Look at rib cover – you should be able to easily feel but not easily see, ribs. Next, you'll want to look at the topline. You want the horse's topline to be essentially flat. If they can hold water on their spine on a rainy day, that tells you they're in a bit of an excess body condition. But if rain were to pour on them and just run off, and their spine peaks up like a mountain, then that tells you their body condition is probably a bit under. But the most concrete thing you can do is get your hay tested. Getting that information is the most important thing you can do, because forage is the foundation of your horse's diet and it is so important to understand what you are feeding.

Study: Diet Change Imperative For Ulcer Resolution In Horses

When a horse begins ulcer treatment, the way he is managed is often scrutinized; alleviating stress will hopefully mitigate ulcer recurrence. A new study out of Denmark shows that management changes alone may not be enough—adjustment to the horse's diet should also be investigated.

A low-starch diet can be beneficial for a horse that has gastric ulcers, but diet as a whole is often overlooked when ulcers medication is prescribed. Dr. Nanna Luthersson created a study to highlight the necessity for diet adjustment.

Luthersson used 58 horses that were diagnosed with ulcers. The horses were divided into two groups based on the severity of their lesions: 24 horses had moderate lesions, graded as 1 or 2 out of 4, and 34 horses had severe ulcerations, determined to be a 3 or a 4. The horses were placed into pairs based on similarities in diet, feeding times, management and workload.

At the beginning of the study, the horses with severe ulcers were placed on omeprazole, but the other horses were not. Additionally, one horse out of each pair was put on a low-starch feed that was fed three times a day instead of twice a day.

After four weeks, the omeprazole treatment was stopped, but the assigned diets continued; researchers examined each horse with an endoscope and graded their lesions. Six weeks later (10 weeks after the study began), the horses again received endoscopic exams and had their lesions graded.

Horses with severe ulcers had a significant reduction in lesions between the start of the study and when the omeprazole ended. However, those horses that received the reduced-start diet sustained the lesion improvement for the entire 10 weeks. Horses that did not have their diets changed returned to their same lesions score by week 10 even though they had received the omeprazole treatment. This means that these horses received no long-term benefit from the omeprazole.

Luthersson concluded that adjusting a horse's diet is imperative for long-term management of a horse that is ulcer prone. Though some ulcers heal with diet change alone, she notes that treatment and diet change may necessary for horses with more-severe lesions.

Red more at EQUUS magazine.

The post Study: Diet Change Imperative For Ulcer Resolution In Horses appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post