Feeding the anti inflammatory diet?

[rzwestern01]

Hello!! I’ve recently had an epiphany… as many of you know by now, my gelding does have hock arthritis. I was initially looking to see if there was anything I could supplement his diet with to help him. I actually asked my mom (who has pretty severe arthritis that she has alleviated with eating gluten free) what she did for herself as a person. She obviously told me eating less gluten had made the biggest difference for her, even above prescription grade things she had tried.
This got me to thinking, what exactly are we feeding our horses??
Arthritis completely aside, I got to looking. I found this interesting article http://thenaturallyhealthyhorse.com/feeding-anti-inflammatory-diet/
It stated that things like excess carbs (in hay or forage sources), too many Omega 6 fatty acids in relation to Omega 3s, corn, wheat, almost any vegetable or seed oil, and soybeans were ALL contributors to inflammation in horses.
This prompted me to read the ingredients labels on what I am currently feeding and on many of the name brand “top of the line” equine feeds out there. I actually found out that my horses current JOINT supplement contained corn as a filler and grape seed oil, which seems very contradictory to the “anti inflammatory” affect it is supposed to be having on his arthritis. This was also true for many of the top end joint supplements, including Devils Claw.
After this I started searching feeds, I could not find one single conventional feed which did not contain some of these unnatural “fillers” or inflammatory ingredients besides one. And that would be Thrive Feed. http://thrivefeed.com/ingredients-quality-is-key/
I actually discovered in my searching that Seaweed is a very strong source of the anti-inflammatory Omega 3s that are so good.

Anyway, I guess this just leaves me wondering, what can I do for my horse… and this is why I turn to this forum… Would it be at all reasonable to feed 24/7 high quality hay with the only “hard feed” being alfalfa pellets (as a “filler”), some type of seaweed (in a form horses would actually eat obviously), and some kind of joint supplement that did NOT contain inflammatories to the hard keeping senior horse that is still in work… but this seems like a big leap. Thoughts? Would this be enough calorically to maintain his weight (his teeth are good)?

[Scribbler]

What you’ve described is the current best practices for feeding horses as taught in the Equine nutrition online Coursera I took a few years ago. A diet of godd quality forage, a supplement or ration balancer, and concentrates only as needed for weight or energy. In other words, horses don’t need grain and have a limited ability to digest starch (carbs).

There are lots of kelp supplements out there. I eliminated these from our menu since I thought that was too much iodine on top of our supplement.

If you need more concentrated calories you can feed alfalfa pellets or cubes soaked, beet pulp soaked, flax for omega 3, or even a vegetable oil.

I feed whole oats as well since maresy gets dopey without them.

Thing to remember though is that horses get osteoarthritis. The really inflammatory arthritis that people try to manage with diet changes is rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disorder related genetically to psoriasis and iritis and lupus. You can’t extrapolate from human rheumatoid arthritis to human osteoarthritis, let alone Equine osteoarthritis. I don’t know from your description what form your mother has.

Also remember that doses of anything are much higher for a horse.

You might want to get Julie Getty’s Feed Your Horse Like a Horse which will walk you through this and give you formulas.

You will also need to test your hay.

[JB]

Couldn’t agree more. What you describe IS how horses should be fed for many reasons.

@rzwestern01

Anyway, I guess this just leaves me wondering, what can I do for my horse… and this is why I turn to this forum… Would it be at all reasonable to feed 24/7 high quality hay with the only “hard feed” being alfalfa pellets (as a “filler”), some type of seaweed (in a form horses would actually eat obviously), and some kind of joint supplement that did NOT contain inflammatories to the hard keeping senior horse that is still in work… but this seems like a big leap. Thoughts? Would this be enough calorically to maintain his weight (his teeth are good)?

It’s not a leap - people do it all the time If not that exactly, then that very generally - forage, with non-commercial feed concentrates for calories.

Can you feed enough calories that way for your horse? Only you can know that. If he’s eating, say, 9,000 calories above his forage (1500 cal/lb feed, at 6lb, and you try to replace those calories with alflafa pellets, you’re looking at 9lb of alf pellets. As well, you’d be losing a lot of nutrition, and nutrition is as important for weight as calories are. So, you’d likely be looking at adding some hefty v/m supplement, and even then, depending on your forage, you might need to add some additional single-ingredient nutrients.

Seaweed may be high in Omega 3, but it can also be high in Omega 6. I have found reference that spirulina has 58mg O3 and 88mg O6 per tbsp. I’ve also seen references to Wakame having a ratio of about 86:1 O3:O6, so you’d have to do a lot more research to find out more.

I also don’t know that you could safely feed enough of any seaweed to gain the benefits of any of the EFAs, without going overboard on the iodine.

The article is actually pretty good, not all “omg where did you come up with this stuff” LOL It should be that we feed as close to how they were designed to eat as possible.

But that doesn’t mean you have to eliminate commercial feeds. There are some very good quality feeds that are low in NSC and contain very little to no cereal grains. Triple Crown Sr is one (and suitable for a wide variety of horses not just the old toothless guys ) at 11.7% NSC. There are quite a few others.

Ration balancers are almost always grain-free as well, and most are in the 10% NSC or below, if your horse doesn’t need many additional calories. If he does, and you have no good low NSC regular feed options available, you can do a RB and then however many pounds of alfalfa pellets he needs for calories.

[Pehsness]

I’ve been around this bend more than once I’m not an expert by any stretch, and only have my one horse as my test case, but the old girl is going strong and THRIVING on a diet of timothy/alfalfa second cut hay (combination of flakes strewn on the ground and netted so it is essentially free choice without waste), soaked beet pulp and soaked tim/alf cubes. She has always been very hard to keep weight on. But this diet keeps her ribs covered and her haunches nicely filled out. She looks more relaxed (she always, always looked just a bit uncomfortable or achey).

Just this morning I bought a vitamin/min supplement to try and up the ante and round everything off for her. I’m definitely done with bagged feeds for her.

I know beet pulp has its naysayers, and if she were younger and in work I might think about that bit a little more, but she’s old, she’s just living life, and it really keeps the weight on her, so I’m going to keep feeding it (plain).

[Scribbler]

Beet pulp turns out to be a really good feed. It is higher calorie thsn hay, but as a fibre it is still digested in the colon like hay. The sugar has been removed so it is low NSC for a concentrate. It gets lots of water into a horse, and makes a great carrier for supplements. They like it. It has some protein and calcium.

As a food byproduct it might seem unnatural but it’s a really good feed with no drawbacks that I can see.

[rzwestern01]

@Pehsness

I’ve been around this bend more than once I’m not an expert by any stretch, and only have my one horse as my test case, but the old girl is going strong and THRIVING on a diet of timothy/alfalfa second cut hay (combination of flakes strewn on the ground and netted so it is essentially free choice without waste), soaked beet pulp and soaked tim/alf cubes. She has always been very hard to keep weight on. But this diet keeps her ribs covered and her haunches nicely filled out. She looks more relaxed (she always, always looked just a bit uncomfortable or achey).

Just this morning I bought a vitamin/min supplement to try and up the ante and round everything off for her. I’m definitely done with bagged feeds for her.

I know beet pulp has its naysayers, and if she were younger and in work I might think about that bit a little more, but she’s old, she’s just living life, and it really keeps the weight on her, so I’m going to keep feeding it (plain).

That actually sounds like a wonderful plan!! My tentative idea is 24/7 good quality hay, alfalfa pellets (or cubes) as filler, and turmeric as a joint supplement… however I had the thought of adding beet pulp too and you just made me wonder, what vitamin supplement did you buy?

[fanfayre]

Just be careful with turmeric- it can cause problems to the ulcery horse, which is why I don’t feed it to my mare for her arthritis.

[Pehsness]

@Pehsness

I’ve been around this bend more than once I’m not an expert by any stretch, and only have my one horse as my test case, but the old girl is going strong and THRIVING on a diet of timothy/alfalfa second cut hay (combination of flakes strewn on the ground and netted so it is essentially free choice without waste), soaked beet pulp and soaked tim/alf cubes. She has always been very hard to keep weight on. But this diet keeps her ribs covered and her haunches nicely filled out. She looks more relaxed (she always, always looked just a bit uncomfortable or achey).

Just this morning I bought a vitamin/min supplement to try and up the ante and round everything off for her. I’m definitely done with bagged feeds for her.

I know beet pulp has its naysayers, and if she were younger and in work I might think about that bit a little more, but she’s old, she’s just living life, and it really keeps the weight on her, so I’m going to keep feeding it (plain).

Honestly, it’s been great. She’s 26 or 27 but is moving better than she has in years. In the past I’ve fiddled around trying to find just the right feed because I was so worried that a nutritional imbalance would make things worse etc. I would go on senior feeds, then go off, then just do the soaked hay cubes, then just do soaked beet with a senior feed… I don’t know what finally made me cut it all out and just go this route, but it’s been the right one. And I’m not scientific about it. 1/2 scoop dry beet pulp (standard “grain” scoop), 1/2 - 3/4 scoop tim/alf cubes, soaked with boiling water in the winter, soaked over night/all day in the spring/summer/fall. If she’s starting to look like she’s dropped a bit of weight, I up it. If the grass comes on and she’s looking “full”, I decrease it (though honestly, this never happens. She’ll never be fat). I’m excited to see what changes the vit/min supp will bring

[Pehsness]

oops… somehow I quoted my own post. Sorry!! I bought Omega-Alpha MinerEq. I like the company and it seems to get good reviews, so we shall see. I wanted to stay away from anything grain based, because of how well she is doing.

[rzwestern01]

@Pehsness

oops… somehow I quoted my own post. Sorry!! I bought Omega-Alpha MinerEq. I like the company and it seems to get good reviews, so we shall see. I wanted to stay away from anything grain based, because of how well she is doing.

Thank you!!