I was reading in one of the new foaling books I got that 14% protein is way too much for a broodmare and puts unnecessary stress on the kidneys and has been found to cause potential neurological problems in the fetus. The book recommended 10=-11% total.
Is that true? Is there more reasoning behind this? What do you all feed?
It depends on how many pounds of 14%.
I give my mare Gro n’Win. It’s 32% protein. But look at the feeding chart for pregnant mares. My mare gets 2.5-3lbs / day. Not a whole lot.
http://www.buckeyenutrition.com/media/148830/growth%20and%20performance%20chart.pdf
The percentage alone is irrelevant. You need to figure out the actual amount of amino acids in a given ration to determine whether it is sufficient, excessive or insufficient.
Quality of protein is important as well, many feeds are deficient in certain amino acids.
As one vet once told me, a piece of leather shoe sole probably has a decent amount of protein, it doesn’t mean that you could eat it and benefit from it.
You need to know which amino acids, in which quantities, in which medium for digestability, etc. etc.
As I said, percentage alone is irrelevant. 
I also suppose the number you got was a total ration percentage… Another thing to verify before throwing out the “standard” 16% mare & foal feed. :winkgrin:
What Equus said
Protein requirements increase a lot as pregnancy goes on, and increase hugely by the time she’s nursing.
An 1100lb mare less than 5 months pregnant needs 630gm crude protein (CP) and 27gm lysine (lys).
5 months = 685 and 29.5
6 months = 704 and 30.3
7 months = 729 and 31.3
8 months = 759 and 32.7
9 months = 797 and 34.3
10 months = 841 and 36.2
11 months = 893 and 38.4
1st month lactation = 1535 and 84.8, and from there it decreases to, at 6 months lactation, 1265 and 66.9
How ya gonna get that much if you aren’t feeding high protein feeds with high quality protein (ie enough lysine for one)?
Let’s say she is eating a lot of food by that first month of lactation -30,000 calories (the average horse not working needs about 16,000 just for maintenance, for comparison). So, that 1500gm total protein makes up just 5% of the total calories. Given the common “a horse needs a 10% protein diet”, this example makes it looks like the horse is under-nourished 
20lb of 9% hay only gives 817 total grams of protein for comparison. So, if that’s the protein % of her hay, and that’s what she’s eating, that’s 700gm protein that needs to be recovered somewhere. 5lb of a 16% feed gives another 363gm protein for 1180gm total. Still short! You see where this is going
TSH, I think we’re reading the same book :). I just ignored that part and continue to feed my girl her 32% protein feed.
I feed 7 lbs buckeye cadence ultra and great qualit peanut hay @ 20# a day…i thought a good amount of protein was important, but that scared me. She also gets grass pasture. She has maintained her weight and looks great through this pregnancy.
JB always explains it so well, and so much better than I ever could. And she has the patience of a saint.
But this bears repeating:
11 months = 893 and 38.4
1st month lactation = 15335 and 84.8, and from there it decreases to, at 6 months lactation, 1265 and 66.9
Look at the difference between the last month of pregnancy, and when she begins to lactate. For everyone who has ever had a first foal, it is just SHOCKING how much they need to eat, and how much they need to drink. And once you get behind that curve, it’s a mighty hard climb back to a five body score while she has a foal at foot.
I have developed the ability to sit down with a calculator, feed sack values, and a hay analysis to get where I’m supposed to be - but I just HATE doing it. I’d rather clean tack for 6 hours. But knowing you are providing your mare and foal optimum nutrition is crucial - and one of the biggest responsibilities you have as a breeder.
Now I use www.feelxl.com - the full program not the lite version. It makes the whole ration balancing thing just effortless - and I consider it the best $75 I spend all year.
How do you calculate how many grams are in the feed/hay? (i.e. how did you get 817 from the 20# of hay @ 9% protein)
There are 454gm in a pound. 20lb gives you 9080gm. 9% of that is 817.2
awesome! Thanks! But can you OVER feed protein? I mean, will they just urinate it out or are there some negative affects? (I’m not talking grossly obese, but more feeding 1400 grams when they need 890 minimum or something like that)
and I’m interested in this… so if I am feeding peanut at roughly 16% protein, and a grain at 14% protein, roughly 1000 grams of protein I’ll get from 15 lbs of concentrate, but that would mean I would have to feed 200 lbs of hay a day to make up the rest? Maybe I am doing my math wrong, but
454* 200 = 90800, 16% of that is 14528
14528+1000 = 15528, roughly what you said they would need after foaling during lactation. Was that per MONTH or day by day? I don’t think my mare COULD eat 200 lbs of peanut hay without colicking!
[QUOTE=TSHEventing;5395619]
awesome! Thanks! But can you OVER feed protein? I mean, will they just urinate it out or are there some negative affects? (I’m not talking grossly obese, but more feeding 1400 grams when they need 890 minimum or something like that)[/QUOTE]
They will release excess protein through urine, however, excessive amounts can raise their BUN count.
You’re off by a fact of 10 there :lol: :lol:
15HUNDRED grams, not 15THOUSAND :winkgrin:
Lots of folks over-feed protein every day to normal horses when they are using 14-16% alfalfa at 20+lb a day. 14% at 20lb gives you 1272gm protein, and 16% at 20lb gives you 1816gm LOL
Was this a typo from you then? Was it 1535 instead? That makes me feel a WHOLE lot better if so!
LMAO!! Yes, that WAS a typo, SO sorry! And even ahf missed it too 
1535, NOT 15335! :eek: I’m going to go fix my original, though I think the typo will remain in your quoted post. Sorry!
Good thing I checked!! I was like, better give the mare away now, no way I can feed her four bales of hay a day and still pay my mortgage!
Someone asked about the “dangers” of too much protein.
Personally, I think that it is far more dangerous to skimp on protein for the pregnant/lactating mare than it is to worry about too much protein.
The only exception to this would be the aged broodmare, whose kidneys might not be as good as they use to be.
But even so – protein is vital. That’s what is building the bone, tissue etc. for the foal and producing the milk that foal drinks. And without the lysine, the protein is not nearly as effective.
So do NOT skimp on protein unless your mare has been diagnosed with faultly kidneys (in which case she shouldn’t be bred in the first place).
Honestly, in my area I know lots & lots of horses who have been fed nothing but alfalfa hay their entire lives and are now in their 20’s & even 30’s.
yeah, not MY program, but it’s not like these horses are dropping dead left & right.
[QUOTE=TSHEventing;5395732]
Good thing I checked!! I was like, better give the mare away now, no way I can feed her four bales of hay a day and still pay my mortgage![/QUOTE]
Poor mare wouldn’t be able eat that much anyway! Can you imagine trying to stuff 200 pounds of hay into a horse?!
Yep, for the broodie it would be really, REALLY hard to come close to “too much” protein. It’s harder to get enough!
As Kyzteke said, protein is vital to all sorts of development. It’s not just about muscle, which is usually a visual identifier in the adult horse - “my horse doesn’t have the topline he should have, what’s wrong?” Amino acids are vital in making up all sorts of proteins for all sorts of body functions.
This has been a great thread. There are still folks out there (veterinarians also, I’m afraid, but those tend to be “old school”) who completely misunderstand the role and need of protein in reproduction, and in general. As the info here points out, you’d be hard-pressed to give too much protein, especially in a lactating mare. The best way to begin an evaluation of any feeding program is to start with a hay analysis. We live in California where a lot of alfalfa is grown, and it is not at all uncommon to see ranch horses around here who have been fed nothing but alfalfa and pasture. That is the situation next door, where one mare lived to 33, another gelding is now 25, and the third is in his teens. It is true that excess protein is urinated out. In a healthy horse, that’s just a waste of money, and not a problem for the kidneys in general. In human medicine, MDs used to recommend severe protein restricted diets to persons with renal disease who were pre-dialysis. They no longer do that, because they found that: a. severely restricting protein did not delay the need for dialysis, and b. the overall health of the pre-dialysis patients declined so rapidly, with muscle wasting, etc, that by the time the patient did need dialysis, they did poorly.
Indy, what’s even WORSE are the vets who don’t understand basic math, the ones who freak out at the thought of feeding a 30% “feed” (ie ration balancer), who think that anything more than 10% protein is going to kill the horse, etc.
Nutrition is not the generic vet’s strong point, or even a moderately weak point LOL
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