As I mentioned before, we know the ratio of 3:6 in grass, and while we don’t know exactly if a horse needs THAT much O3, or that “exact” ratio, we know they evolved eating that amount, so it’s reasonable to think they need something at least close to that.
So if you’re only feeding hay (and also as above, it will degrade over time, more or less quickly depending on the environment), that amount and ratio starts decreasing. So especially for horses eating only hay, eating enough hay that’s 6+ months old, etc, it is reasonable to assume they would benefit from more.
I would think that a commercial feed may also have supplemental fat (3 and 6).
Also as per above, commercial feeds almost always have an inverted 3:6 ratio, sometimes just a little (which is still quite a bit off from the 3-4:1 grass ratio), sometimes a lot if it contains cereal grains. So no, most commercial feeds are not going to do what we’re looking for here.
I will need more convincing that fish oil is especially beneficial.
Fish oil has higher amounts of beneficial DHA and EPA than seed oils. and those are easily absorbed by the horse. Does that automatically make it “especially beneficial”? Maybe. That also doesn’t mean you MUST feed fish oil. You can feed Omega 3 from marine algae for higher amounts too.
There’s some research that shows a higher fat diet makes IR issues worse, but also some research which shows a diet higher in DHA/EPA from fish oil improves insulin sensitivity.
