Joint and hoof supplements are among the most commonly used supplements for horses and until now we (at FeedXL) haven't been able to offer any real assistance with keeping track of these supplements in your horses diet.

That has just recently changed. Late last week we unveiled the new 'Health' tab which allows you to keep track of the amounts of the following nutrients on your horse's diet:

Hyaluronic Acid - Hyaluronic Acid is an integral component of joint fluid and articular cartilage; it provides lubrication and shock absorption.

MSM - MSM is a source of sulfur for building and repairing cartilage; it helps to minimize discomfort and stiffness caused by training and competition.

Chondroitin Sulfate - Chondroitin Sulfate is a building block of hyaluronic acid (HA) and also inhibits the effects of various enzymes that degrade cartilage. Research has shown that it appears to work synergistically with glucosamine to stimulate new cartilage production and inhibit cartilage breakdown.

Glucosamine - Glucosamine is the building block of chondroitin sulfate and increases the production of new cartilage. Glucosamine has also been shown to inhibit the free radicals and enzymes that break down cartilage therefore playing a role in both the production and protection of cartilage.

Biotin - Biotin is a co-enzyme for enzymes that control fatty acid synthesis, amino acid metabolism, gluconeogenesis and metabolism of cholesterol and some fatty acids. Biotin is essential for cell proliferation. Biotin is produced by hindgut bacteria and is naturally present in most feedstuff so most horses don't require supplemental biotin. Biotin has however been shown to improve hoof quality in horses with poor quality hooves when fed at therapeutic doses.

While none of these nutrients have an actual recommended daily intake (RDI) set by the National Research Council (NRC), FeedXL provides suggested intakes for each of these nutrients that will give you the best effect based on what research there is available on these nutrients (and admittedly for some there isn't much).

Perhaps the most useful aspect of being able to see how much of each of these nutrients is in your horse's daily diet is you can easily compare supplements against one another to see which provide better levels of the nutrients you require (for example 2 hoof supplements fed at the same dose for approximately the same cost per day may provide 10 mg or 20 mg of biotin per day ... the one providing the higher amount per dose is going to represent much better value for money if biotin is the nutrient you are most concerned about).

The joint nutrients are now available on all FeedXL plans while biotin is available only in FeedXL Pro plans. Check them out when you have a chance, I know they have made sorting through hoof and joint supplements much easier for me!

Cottonseed meal is a relatively common ingredient used in horse feeds. It is most often found in pellets or cubes and will usually be listed in the ingredients as a generic 'protein meal' or vegetable protein meal'.

The problem with cottonseed meal is that it contains poor quality protein (ie lacks essential amino acids which are amino acids that absolutely must be provided in the diet) when compared to better quality protein meals like soybean or canola meal. Cotton seed meal contains less of the three most limiting amino acids (lysine, methionine and threonine) and less of the 3 branched chain amino acids which are also essential amino acids (leucine, isoleucine and valine). The graph below shows a comparison of the amino acid content of cottonseed meal versus full fat soybean.

In addition to containing less amino acids, cottonseed meal also contains amino acids that are less available for absorption by the horse. Raw cottonseed contains a toxic compound called gossypol. To deactivate gossypol, cottonseed meal is heated. During this process the gossypol attached itself to amino acids. This deactivates the gossypol and makes it safe to feed, however it also means those amino acids the gossypol has attached itself to are now not able to be absorbed by the horse.

So if you have young horses, lactating mares or horses needing to build muscle mass cottonseed meal based feeds are not ideal. Look instead for feeds that use higher quality protein meals like soybean and canola.

Click here to download:

Protein_Quality.pdf (6 KB)

Cushing's disease is tough to work with, making life complicated, painful and expensive for a horse and its owner. With the prevalence of Cushing's disease seemingly increasing around the world as many of our equines live well into their late 20s and 30s, researchers at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan are beginning a research project to explore new treatment methodology for this disease.

This is welcome news, but to get started they need our help in collecting information about:

• the current prevalence of disease
• the most common treatment protocols being used by practitioners
• the need for developing new treatment methodologies.

If you have a horse affected by Cushing's disease or know someone who does, please encourage the veterinarian treating the horse to complete the Five-minute Cushing's disease survey for veterinarians.

For more information about the survey and research project you can go to http://www.usask.ca/wcvm/veterinarians/cushings_survey.php or contact Dr. James Carmalt, Associate Professor, Equine Surgery Western College of Veterinary Medicine University of Saskatchewan Tel: 306-966-6522Email: james.carmalt@usask.ca

If you can help out please do, as I personally would rather not see more horses like our great Victory Salute lost to Cushing's Disease if we can help it!

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.