Sonny's Nutrition

DIET

Jenny Paterson B.Sc

Horsemanship NZ Ltd
P O Box 685, Rangiora 7440, North Canterbury NZ
Ph +64 3 312 0377
Fax +64 3 312 0371
Mob +64 27 241 7215
E-mail horsemanshipnz@xtra.co.nz
Horsemanship website: http://www.horsemanshipnz.com/
Nutrition Website: http://www.calmhealthyhorses.co.nz/

Jenny Paterson an Equine Nutritional scientist from New Zealand has been studying horse nutrition for many years. She has developed a range of specialized supplements called 'ProvideIt' for horses in different situations.

Jenny was sure the laminitic cycle & subsequent poor quality hoof growth that Sonny was in was partly due to imbalanced nutrition.

She advised me of a nutrition plan for Sonny that included increased salt, alkalized water, one of her supplements & grass hay.

Jenny says that the 5 main minerals get out of balance particularly when horses are grazing this green pasture that has been affected by too much rain. Salt is the easiest way to restore that blood balance of minerals. Please read her website to get the full story far better than I can write it here. Sonny should get 2tbsp daily divided between at least 2 feeds. 2tbsp seems to be his upper limit so it's just as well! All my horses will eat whatever trees they can get to along with many of the shrubs around the garden. Jenny says they are seeking salt to help fix their own blood mineral levels. I will watch Sonny to see if he stops eating bark, bushes etc.

My horses are on rain water which these days is not neutral anymore. It can be quite acid actually, being right down in the late 3's & 4's of pH. Mine here is certainly a bit acid which I first learned about when I had an aquarium. So all of Sonny's water has a bit of bi-carbonate of soda added. I give him a 2gal bucket full of water after his morning & afternoon feeds each containing 1 teaspoon of bi-carb. I started with just 1/4tsp in a bucket of water & he would only drink it after eating all that salt. When he is on a night paddock that is watered by dam water, that doesn't need bi-carb adding as it has clay & soil in suspension. But the rest of the paddocks are rain water fed so I make up water for him each night.

He still will only drink the alkalized water right after his dinner.

So at this time his diet is:-

breakfast :- bute sandwich of 1 sachet of bute in a slice of bread
then a feed containing
                  2cups no grain pellets
                  45grams ProvideIt Supreme supplement
                  3tsp salt
                  60ml alkalized water to bind all together.

That is followed by a 2gal/9lt bucket almost full of alkalized water using 1 slightly rounded tsp bi-carb.

While he is in his shelter on deep bedding with his boots off to dry & air his feet he gets grass hay along with a thin scattering of lucerne hay through it. It is possible he now has a stomach ulcer from the bute so the lucerne is good for relieving the symptoms & to aid healing. One biscuit of lucerne lasts him 5days so the amount he's eating daily is not much. He has 2 small feeds amounting to just under 1 biscuit of grass hay while in his shelter for up to 5hrs.

At about 4pm it's time for boots back on & evening feed which is a repeat of his morning feed except there is an extra teaspoon of salt. That is followed by another bucket of water. Then once the sun has gone off the houseyard grass he goes to 1 of 9 areas I have fenced off for him for overnight grazing.
 The houseyard is actually almost 1.5ac including orchards, long driveway with strips of land up each side, the natural horsemanship play paddock, the roundyard paddock the cabin area the roundabout beside the house etc. It is a big area & easy to divide into small parts.

I have divided most of the house yard into 9 parts using electric fencing. Some parts are bigger than others so each will allow only a certain number of nights grazing. So there is at present a rotation of up to 40days grazing around the 1.5ac houseyard & orchard. Then there is the top end of the back paddock which adjoins the back of the houseyard. I have kept it mown for extra play area & eating hay in winter & there are many tall trees casting plenty of shade. It is an area of about 1acre & Sonny should get 8-10days grazing there depending on the weather.

I plan to make a track system through one of my 5ac back paddocks that has a full body of tall 2 year old unfertilized native grass which will be excellent grazing for my other horses through winter. I will design the system, then get a tractor & slasher in to mow down the grass in the pattern where the electric fencing will run & leaving all the long grass inbetween for the horses to work through.

I get my 'ProvideIt' Supplement in Australia from    http://www.calmhealthyhorses.com/

or email Vicky Hansen, Gold Coast, directly at   provideit@bigpond.com


15May2012 update

Yesterday I was finally able to get hold of a round bale of Rhodes grass for Sonny. It is a lot courser than I would have preferred & Sonny wastes a lot of it but at least it is grass!



22May2012  update

Sonny is off bute from today.
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SAFEGRASS

A few days ago I spent the whole day once again reading the whole website of SafeGrass with all it's PDFs on pasture etc. By the time I was half way through I was so confused because often 1 paragraph will contradict the next & so on. Plus one PDF will contradict the next newer one. I dragged out my old SafeGrass book & realized it has little in common with the new SafeGrass website which is almost exclusively devoted to USA pastures. The book was written quite a few years ago for Australian pastures & although it did refer to NSC's etc there wasn't a whole lot devoted to them.

So all I can go on is what I remember from learning about Aussie grasses under stress from too much rain, or drought, or heat/cold etc. It was generally accepted that a horse can graze grass once the sun has gone off it so long as it is mature grass. Certain types of grass like paspalum are prone to storing much more sugars in their stems & should be allowed to get very leafy but not coming into seed head before grazing.

Other grasses I have here are mostly native & hence rather low in all nutritional content so it's fine to graze all the time. The couch grass is fine fully leafed or once finished seeding. Couch grass runners & roots are a good medicinal against inflammation & pain & Sonny does actively seek them out. I try to always have at least a small area set aside for him to graze where he can get a heap of runners in a short time.

As the winter comes on the days are still quite warm but the nights are already in the single figures now in mid May 2012. The grass can start to build NSC's now which are in their worst volumes in the afternoon & early evenings so very soon Sonny will have to wait until well after dark before he can go out to graze. I will give him some more grass hay to tide him over until about 9pm when he can go out.

Regarding grass hays. There is little to be had in this end of the state & not much anywhere just now. I have bought barley hay instead. It is a bit of an unknown with respect to laminitic horses so it is a real experiment at this stage. But otherwise there is no hay to feed Sonny while he is confined away from the grazing.


Whether or not this eating regime works will not be easily seen until his new hoof growth is more than halfway grown out. That is still 6wks away if his hooves keep growing as fast as they currently are. In most years his feet stop growing about now & don't start again until September. Hopefully the supplement & feed plan will keep growth happening. If it works, it will be seen by the new tighter growth sticking on it's proper line past the halfway point. That has been the bugbear previously. I could get new tight growth to grow down halfway then it would disappear due to the compromised laminae & internal structures.

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September 2013 update

I have tested a few mineral supplements & am again testing Dr Kohnke's Cell Provide. Sonny is getting 1.5x the dose for a sedentary horse for the first 4wks, then slowly breaking it back down to the usual dose for a pasture ornament. Unless his feet tell me he can be ridden or he starts doing a lot of running around. If that happens I will keep him on the higher dose.

Previously when I trialled this supplement I started it in the wet season & it ended in the dry season so the hoof that grew during that trial had grown out by the time the next wet season came round. So I never really got to know well enough whether it grew sufficient quality hoof to withstand the wet conditions of 24/7 wet grass & ground.

So this year I have started it so that the hoof it produces will have just reached the ground by the time the wet season arrives in January next year. The 10kg box should last him 4mths, therefore I should have 4mths of that quality hoof to work with during the wet season next year. This sup does make the hoof grow faster but I wasn't able to work out whether it was better hoof than the ProvideIt supplement.

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HOOF TRIMMING

To help this new hoof grow as best it can I have engaged the help of Cas Grant 'BareFoot trimmer' to mentor me online via this blog plus phone calls & visit when she is in this part of the state.

Cas has been to see the horses twice now & we have set out a plan for trimming.