The America Association of Equine Practitioners is calling for assistance to help unravel the long list of 'unknowns' in laminitis. With a total of $1 million in funding, the projects first study is going to utilize the wealth of information that can be gathered from across the USA in real cases of laminitis to try and piece together information that will help us better understand this devastating disease. More information about the project can be found here: http://www.aaep.org/laminitis_project.htm

If you are a horse owner with a horse at risk or affected by laminitis, ask your veterinarian to join the project by first registering to participate. (Please note that horses with a history of laminitis are excluded from the study.)

This is a wonderful initiative that we encourage you to support.

I have been asked quite a few times in the last month about alfalfa (lucerne) and its non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) content. It seems that alfalfa has gained itself a reputation of being a high NSC (with NSC = water soluble carbohydrates + starch) forage when in fact it contains one of the most consistent AND lowest NSC contents of all forages.

Dairy One (Ithaca NY, USA) give us an average water soluble carbohydrate (WSC) content of 7.5 % (based on 334 samples) and an average starch content of 1.5% (based on 411 samples) giving it a total NSC content of 9% on an as fed basis. So total NSC content is below 10% which is perfect for those of you who may be looking for a suitable low NSC forage.

The NSC content of alfalfa is also consistent with the WSC minimum and maximum for those 334 samples being 5.8% and 9.2% respectively while the minimum and maximum for starch is given as 0.3% and 2.7% respectively. So, compared to something like oaten hay or chaff that can vary (according to the data from Dairy One again) from 8.1% to a huge 21.9% WSC and from 1.5% to 7.5% starch there is very little variation in the amount of sugar and starch alfalfa contains which means you can more confidently change from batch to batch of alfalfa hay without worrying too much about variation in NSC content (which is not something you can do with most grassy or cereal hays).

It is because of alfalfa's low and consistent NSC content (and its high quality protein) that I am regularly recommending it for horses that need low NSC diets including horses with laminitis or Cushing's disease. That recommendation does come with a caution or two however. As with all new feeds for these horses, introduce it slowly as it can have high levels of nitrates and potassium that may exacerbate the condition (alfalfa isn't alone in this respect, all forages can have high levels of these nutrients if grown under the right conditions). Good quality alfalfa is also high in digestible energy and protein, so it does need to be fed in moderation to ponies and horses that have problems with being overweight.

For more on alfalfa, read our newsletter Alfalfa Hay: Friend or Foe or listen to the podcast about alfalfa on the Horse Radio Networks Horse Tip Daily Show.

For the next 24 hours we are offering $20 off everything!

This is for new accounts and account renewals. Such a good deal that you can even pick up a 1-month low volume plan free.

This is the laast deal and will end at midday, Thursday the 26^th of October, Eastern Australian time, which is the evening of Wednesday the 25^th for those of you in North America.

This offer isn't likely to be repeated any time soon, so get in while you have the chance.

More information about times can be found on our website.

For the next 24 hours we are offering 50% off all 1-year memberships and 33% off all 1-year memberships!

This is for new accounts and account renewals. We believe that FeedXL is best used all year round so this is a great chance to make FeedXL available at your fingertips whenever your horse or your conditions change!

Our next special deal will appear at midday, Tuesday the 25^th of October, Eastern Australian time, which is the evening of Monday the 24^th for those of you in North America.

More information about times can be found on our website.

If you'd like to receive email notifications when each deal goes live then subscribe to our blog by clicking on the "Subscribe by email" link on the right of the main blog page.

For the next 48 hours, we've enabled 1-day, 1-horse Lite plans, free of charge for all new accounts!

This is a fantastic opportunity to try out FeedXL if you haven't done so before, you'll have up to 2 days to fiddle and find out how useful FeedXL is!

Our next special deal will appear at midday, Monday the 24^th of October, Eastern Australian time, which is the evening of Sunday the 23rd for those of you in North America.

More information about times can be found on our website.

If you'd like to receive email notifications when each deal goes live then subscribe to our blog by clicking on the "Subscribe by email" link on the right of the main blog page.

FeedXL is turning 3 and we think this is cause for celebration!

This Saturday, the 22^nd of October, will be three years since we first released FeedXL for Australian horse owners and since then FeedXL has run 600,000 diet analyses for close to 20,000 horses in 13 countries on 4 continents around the world and won the award for Best Software Product in the recent Australian Business Awards.

To celebrate, we have 5 days of special deals from the 22^nd to the 27^th of October.

The first 2 days will be something especially for people who have never tried FeedXL before, so make sure to tell your friends to watch our website! Then, for the remaining 3 days we'll have a new deal every day, each lasting for only 24 hours from when we announce it. This is your chance to grab a bargain but you'll have to keep an eye on our web site.

Our first special deal will appear at midday, Saturday, the 22^nd of October, Eastern Australian time, which is the evening of Friday the 21st for those of you in North America.

More information about times can be found on our website.

If you'd like to receive email notifications when each deal goes live then subscribe to our blog by clicking on the "Subscribe by email" link on the right of the page.

If you are feeding an old horse with few effective teeth left it is REALLY important not to forget about fibre. Quite often I come across people with old horses that can't hold their weight despite being fed what seems a lot of hard feed. They also frequently have diarrhea.

More than 80% of these horses, if they are otherwise in healthy condition, start to put on weight and their problems with diarrhea cease as soon as a lot more forage is worked into their diet.

If they can no longer chew hay or graze pasture you must find other ways to put fibre in their diet. Using chopped hay (chaff) or chopped haylage is ideal. If your old horse can't eat any hay or pasture at all you should feed a minimum of 1 kg/100 kg of bodyweight per day in chaff. Ideally you should feed 1.5 kg of chaff per 100 kg of bodyweight. If using haylage you will need to feed up to twice this amount to allow for the water content of the haylage.

High energy fibres like sugarbeet pulp can also be used, but be aware that because beet is so easy to digest it provides very little fibre that will remain in the gut, so it will help with energy intake and weight gain but often won't help where gut fill and diarrhea are an issue. So if you wish to feed a fibre like beet, stick to the rule of a minimum of 1 kg of chaff per 100 kg of bodyweight per day and then add the extra fibre on top.

It is also very important to weigh your forage. Chaff is a bulky feed and it is deceiving if you feed on a volume basis. As a rough guide, 8 litres of chaff will weigh 1 kg.

In most cases you will still need to feed some sort of hard feed. An extruded feed is an excellent choice for horses with very few teeth as these feeds can still be easily digested, even if they are not chewed. They can also be soaked to a mash.

There is currently much debate over whether the use of organic minerals (minerals that are chemically attached to an organic compound like a small sugar or protein) are more bio-available than inorganic minerals. There are some largely unproven claims made about how much more bio-available the organic minerals are, and perhaps worse still, claims are being made that inorganic minerals are not able to be absorbed at all.

A study published in the 2011 proceedings of the Eqine Science Society Symposium (Dundon et al.) found that there was no difference on daily calcium balance or apparent calcium digestibility between calcium carbonate (limestone, an inorganic source of calcium) and calcium proteinate in exercised two and three year old geldings. This study is in agreement with Highfill et al (2005) but disagrees with results shown by Baker et al (2007).

The study by Dundon et al. did have a flaw in its design whereby horses on the calcium carbonate diet received more calcium than horses on the diet that substituted 40% of the calcium carbonate for calcium proteinate. This design flaw is acknowledged by the authors as making it difficult to interpret the data between diets.

There are certainly some studies that do show an improved bio-availability from some organic minerals, but there are many claims being made without good scientific evidence to support them. If you are considering paying a premium for a mineral supplement because it is organic, ask the manufacturer for the research that supports the product and their claims for superior bioavailability.

Whey protein is the highest quality protein you can get, with an amino acid profile that almost perfectly matches the profile of amino acids that muscles need to build and grow. Whey protein is also high in branched chain amino acids which provide muscles with a valuable source of energy. Not surprisingly, whey protein is sought after by horse owners and trainers to add to diets where horses need to 'muscle up' and particularly in cases where additional topline is needed.

However, there is a bit of a catch that many people fall into when purchasing this ingredient. You can buy 'whey powder' which is relatively cheap and sounds like what you should be buying to provide your horse with whey protein. The catch is, whey powder is 'whole whey' which only contains around 13% whey protein and is over 50% lactose. Using 'whey powder' provides horses with very little whey protein (there is only 13 grams of protein in every 100 grams of whey powder) and puts a lot of lactose into their gut. Adult horses don't have the lactase enzyme necessary to digest lactose (essentially they are lactose intolerant) so feeding 'whey powder' can lead to diarrhea and colic if too much is fed.

If you want to add whey protein to your horse's diet, look for whey protein concentrate or whey protein isolate. These products have had most of the lactose removed (they will contain less than 10% lactose) and will be 75% to 90% whey protein. The whey protein isolate is generally produced for use in human food products and is often quite a bit more expensive than whey protein concentrate, so if you want to use whey protein, the best choice for your horse's ration is a whey protein concentrate.

There has been a bit of discussion in the last couple of years about whether vitamin K should be added to horse feeds and if so, which form is the most effective in supporting bone development.

Vitamin K plays a complex role in the body. It is best known for its role in blood clotting, but it is also involved in many other functions including bone development.

There are many different forms of vitamin K including K1 (phylloquinone), K2 (menaquinone) and K3 (menadione). K1 comes predominantly from green plants, K2 is produced by bacteria and K3 is the synthetic form of vitamin K. These 3 primary forms of vitamin K are then converted in the body to several vitamin K homologs, with each homolog having a different role in the body. The homolog 'menaquinone-4' is the one that is recognised as being most important in bone formation.

It has been suggested that the synthetic form of Vitamin K (K3 or menadione) is unable to play an effective role in bone formation. However, a recent study published by Terachi et al (2011) in the Journal of Animal Science showed that horses supplemented with K3/menadione had the highest plasma menaquinone-4 concentrations compared to horses supplemented with phylloquinone or menadione-4.

The authors concluded that 'menadione is likely the best source of vitamin K for bone health in horses'.