Horses and soy

[Pocket_Pony]

Tell me about your experiences with your horses and feeds with soy.

Princess Fancy Pants was on a ration balancer that contains soy. She was growing increasingly . . . not her sweet self. She was very fidgety, sensitive to touch, and always in heat. I decided to take her off the RB to see if it would make any difference and it has. She’s back to her mellow sweet self, standing quietly for grooming, not stopping to squirt and wink, not sensitive and making mean faces when touched, not leaping around, etc.

What sorts of experiences have you had with this type of situation? Did you notice more of a difference with mares vs. geldings? I took all my horses off of the RB, but the difference with her is more remarkable than with the boys.

[fourmares]

It made my TB mare a lunatic.

[atr]

I have one gelding who colics at the merest sniff of it. The rest of the boys are fine on it, though no one gets it anymore as the risk of having it on the premises is too great.

[TheJenners]

Had a mare sensitive to it. Totally reactive under saddle.

[heronponie]

I think soy is a problem for more horses than we realize. I’ve seen some pretty convincing results over the years when pulling horses off of soy based grains.

Clover is another one that tends to trigger hormone problems in mares.

[Flash44]

We are also getting into summer, and maybe she is just not as reactive due to the time of year. Mares can also cycle different with age. Anecdotal evidence can be tricky because you see a correlation but the cause is not identified. Not sure how big the horse is, but a ballpark figure is 20 pounds of food a day for an average horse. Assuming she was getting 1-2 pounds of ration balancer within the total of 20 pounds, how much of that 1-2 pounds was soy?

[Pocket_Pony]

[QUOTE=Flash44;8202346]
We are also getting into summer, and maybe she is just not as reactive due to the time of year. Mares can also cycle different with age. Anecdotal evidence can be tricky because you see a correlation but the cause is not identified. Not sure how big the horse is, but a ballpark figure is 20 pounds of food a day for an average horse. Assuming she was getting 1-2 pounds of ration balancer within the total of 20 pounds, how much of that 1-2 pounds was soy?[/QUOTE]

I suppose it is possible that she’s not reactive, but the timing of her behavior change matches with the time of taking her off of the RB. And it isn’t like she went from being not in heat to just having raging cycles . . . she was ALWAYS in heat. I mean, she was still a nice pony and didn’t go on a bitchy rampage or anything, but she went from sweet and easy to just not-so-pleasant to be around.

And with regard to my geldings, Mac (the one I ride, the other is retired) exhibited some unusual under saddle behaviors that were not typical of him. Could have been totally unrelated, but since they have subsided with the removal of the product, maybe not.

By your argument of what percentage of their diets was soy, then anyone who has a nut allergy should at least be able to have a couple nuts and not have an allergic reaction. From my own dietary experience, I can say that just a few nuts will make a difference for me. Same with a cat allergy (that I’ve since outgrown). I could meet someone on the street in a neutral place and I would know if they had cats because I would have an allergic reaction.

So while logically perhaps a small amount of soy doesn’t seem like it could/should be a problem, based on my own experiences with allergies I can say that isn’t necessarily true.

[Lady_Eboshi]

Soy gives a lot more PEOPLE, never mind horses, more problems than most would ever guess. The major reason why is it is LOADED with phytoestrogens, which if you’re estrogen-dominant anyway (woman or mare) can push you over the edge.
It also contains “anti-nutrients,” substances that actually BLOCK the absorption of a whole list of other vitamins and minerals that you’d like to get into the horse.

If you have even a HINT that this is your problem, change your feeding to mostly good-quality hay, and if you MUST grain at all, use something like steam-crimped oats or barley, straight and avoid the processed stuff. When this was all that there was years ago, there were FAR fewer feeding and metabolic problems of all types in our horses.

[Flash44]

[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;8202564]
Soy gives a lot more PEOPLE, never mind horses, more problems than most would ever guess. The major reason why is it is LOADED with phytoestrogens, which if you’re estrogen-dominant anyway (woman or mare) can push you over the edge.
It also contains “anti-nutrients,” substances that actually BLOCK the absorption of a whole list of other vitamins and minerals that you’d like to get into the horse.

If you have even a HINT that this is your problem, change your feeding to mostly good-quality hay, and if you MUST grain at all, use something like steam-crimped oats or barley, straight and avoid the processed stuff. When this was all that there was years ago, there were FAR fewer feeding and metabolic problems of all types in our horses.[/QUOTE]

Phytoestrogens are also present in hops, flax and red clover.

But I’m glad OP has an improvement in behavior with her mare.

[goodhors]

We feed soybean meal in our grain mix, given to everyone on a daily basis. We have been feeding a variation of this grain mix over 30 years, and I truly have never noticed any issues with the equines eating it.

Grain is cracked or rolled corn, plain oats mixed, with 10% of that total being soybean meal added on. So for example, 200# oats plus 200# cracked corn and 40# of soybean meal is the total mixed result.

Horses get varying amounts of grain mixed at the local Elevator, with about 2# grain mix being the most fed, once a day, to any of the animals. That horse would be in hard work to get that much daily. Most of the time it is much less quantity, from 1/4 to 1/2 pound grain mix once a day. The grain is mixed with some wet beet pulp (not a lot), top-dressed with vitamins and Selenium with Vit E to insure horses get enough in our Selenium poor location. We don’t feed manufactured grain products made by the Feed Companies unless there is a special need, and then only for a short time to get horse thru the situation.

Horses are shiny coated, good hooves can go bare or wear shoes that don’t come off for work. They have plenty of energy for any job we want to use them for. Horses are obedient, mares cycle regularly, stronger heats in Spring, than they have in later summer. No odd behavior beyond now and again not having a good day. That happens with any horse, so I would not blame it on eating soybean meal.

Grain mix has been fed here to a variety of Western horses, Some TBs we had for a while, now we have large Sporthorse types getting it. When folks ask what we feed, we give them the recipe for grain, they can get it made up themselves. Some lower the corn a lot, maybe only 1/4 in the mix, use oats for the rest, plus the soybean meal to make up a mix for their animals. All have come back to say how well it works for them. Horses stay sleek, at nice weights, and MUCH cheaper than buying bagged feed at the store. Recipe is very adaptable to suit horses YOU are feeding.

My feeding information told me that horse can’t use more than a 10% soybean (protein) addition to his feed after his yearling age. Buying more protein is wasting my money, horse body doesn’t use the extra. So I don’t do the extra in our feeds.

My baby horses don’t need their feed skewed to heavy protein, unbalanced diet, so they don’t get extra grain or more soybean meal either. Better they grow slower over a longer time, not heavy (fat) on soft bones, to end up a good boned horse in their mature age. I want a horse who can work for me for years, not feeding to see how big and fast I can get size on them.

Soybean meal has been good for my horses, and I would recommend it to others who would ask me about using it.

[Melyni]

There’s a lot of difference between the various soy based protein products out there on the human market and not a lot of difference in the ones fed to animals.

Probably 90% of the soy fed to animals is soy bean meal which is what is left over after the oil has been extracted.
Soy bean meal has been used as a supplemental protein source for animal feeds for over 40 years now. If it really had problems we should be seeing them more frequently. SO overall you really can’t say that soy has a bad track record. So many millions of animals have eaten it successfully that it cannot be, in general, bad.

Which is not to say that some individuals are not sensitive to soy and react to it negatively.

I have run a couple of feeding trials where I eliminated soy from the diet and did some simple blood tests.

My results were not statistically significant (due to small test subject population no doubt). But if some individual cases the soy free diet did seem to reduce certain reactions.
SO I would suggest that for most horses, soy bean meal, is a fine protein source (as long as it is part of a balanced diet), whilst for some individuals there appears to be a problem and they show a negative reaction.

If you have one of those individuals then give them a soy free diet and see if the problems go away.
Soy free diets are not hard to design, if any one wants one, PM me and I am happy to send you one.
It won’t use standard commercial feeds because most commercial feeds have soy, but there are a few soy free ones, appearing on the market, so if you live in the right area I can suggest a soy free commercial feed. If you don’t I can give you a recipe for one you can make up yourself.
It will require you to buy some kind of vitamin/mineral supplement.

But if you really think your horse is sensitive to soy it’s worth trying.

YMMV
MW