LET’S DO SOME MATH PART 2

What does % mean when it pertains to equine nutrition.  It means that you need to know a little bit about math.  We can get into part per million and grams, but that will be another day.  Let’s focus on percentages today. 

Throughout the years of feeding horses, feed companies have trained consumers, not with purpose, to buy a specific type of feed based solely on protein percentage, 10%, 12%, 14%, and 16% since the choices were rather limited.  These percentages do not tell you the quality of the proteins, nor does it tell the amino acid breakdown. That being said, many higher quality 10% protein feeds can outperform lower quality 14% feeds. Your homework has begun at this point.  Which feed is the best for your horses breed, age, discipline, work intensity, geographical location, and access to pasture? These are some of the essential talking points for your horse as an individual. 

Throughout the years, I’ve seen many ways folks have fed their horses.  Mostly with what I call the Juan Valdez system of feeding, with the proverbial coffee can. I often have to ask what brand and what size coffee can is being used……a little humor never hurt anyone.  The reason behind this question is that we need to know what our feed weighs.  We should feed by weight, not by quart, not by coffee can.  This is where math comes in.  If you are feeding one pound of 14% protein feed per day, your horse is taking in .14 pounds of protein from the feed. Two pounds of feed, .28 pounds, and so on. Depending on the horse work intensity, some horses need to take in as little as 1.4 pounds of protein per day and the heavy work intensity horses may need up to 4 pounds of protein per day. The same can be done with any of the percentages on the feed tag.  This way, you know how much your horses is taking in from his feed alone.   

Let’s now add in the hay.  Do you have your hay analyzed? How much protein is coming from your hay if you don’t have it analyzed? Let’s say your hay analysis comes back at 9% and you feed 18 pounds of hay per day to your horse. That equals 1.62 pounds of protein. If your analysis comes back at 5.5%, now you are down to .99 pounds of protein. You have now passed 5th grade math! The takeaway here is that your feed bag comes with a feed tag, your bale of hay does not. The fact that you feed more pounds of hay per day than concentrate, it is essential to know about your hay.  

Your horse is an elite athlete, no matter if you just hit the trails, event, or barrel race.  An athlete needs to make sure the body receives the proper nutrition in order to perform at the levels being asked. I do make farm calls, analyze hay, and will help balance your feed program to get to the next level.  Horse can look great on the outside, but may not look the same on the inside.  

Nutrition Hint: Do you feed a muscle building/recovery supplement? 

After a workout, you have approximately 30 minutes before your horse’s muscle fibers and fibrils start to close. This is the most opportune time to feed the muscle with proprietary blends of limiting amino acids among other vitamins and minerals. Your horse will absorb a much higher percentage opposed to feeding your muscle supplement at one of your regular feeding times. 

I can be reached at thefeedgeek@gmail.com if you have questions or comments as well as 603-520-3875.  

Ride. Ride. Adios for now 

 John Toli, The Feed Geek 

Picture of John Toli

John Toli

John has a lifelong relationship with horses. Well known in the equine industry, he has balanced his time training, instructing, judging, and teaching equine nutrition. John has worked for a nationally recognized feed company as well as serving as consultant to others. Prior to The Feed Geek, he managed New England Performance Nutrition, another equine nutrition consulting business. His guiding principle is a pure belief in the importance of balanced equine nutrition in regards to equine health and performance. John’s schooling included Texas A&M, Oregon State University, Kansas State, Purina Mills Equine Research Farm, and on-going equine nutrition based education. He has also spoken at conferences at Tufts University as well as in veterinary practices. John now owns The Feed Geek, Equine Nutrition Consulting. For more information, feel free to call him at 603.520.3875, email TheFeedGeek@gmail.com, or visit The Feed Geek on Facebook.
Picture of John Toli

John Toli

John has a lifelong relationship with horses. Well known in the equine industry, he has balanced his time training, instructing, judging, and teaching equine nutrition. John has worked for a nationally recognized feed company as well as serving as consultant to others. Prior to The Feed Geek, he managed New England Performance Nutrition, another equine nutrition consulting business. His guiding principle is a pure belief in the importance of balanced equine nutrition in regards to equine health and performance. John’s schooling included Texas A&M, Oregon State University, Kansas State, Purina Mills Equine Research Farm, and on-going equine nutrition based education. He has also spoken at conferences at Tufts University as well as in veterinary practices. John now owns The Feed Geek, Equine Nutrition Consulting. For more information, feel free to call him at 603.520.3875, email TheFeedGeek@gmail.com, or visit The Feed Geek on Facebook.

In the know

Related Stories

How Can LDN Help in Chronic Conditions and Pain? | Palmetto Bella

How Can LDN Help in Chronic Conditions and Pain?

Nearly half of all Americans have at least one chronic disease. Once you have one chronic disease, you have a higher risk of developing others. Inflammation seems to be at the root of all disease. What if there were a cost effective agent that could help fight inflammation, that could regulate your immune system so it doesn’t get out of hand, and that could be useful in treating major health issues like chronic pain, mental health conditions, autoimmune conditions, and even cancers? It does seem too good to be true, so let’s look at the science, and then you can decide whether this may be right for you. What is

Read More »
Love and Lemon Pound Cake | Palmetto Cake

Love and Lemon Pound Cake

I was walking through the market area in Charleston in May of 2019. As I was noticing the sweetgrass baskets, kitschy T-shirts, spice mixes, and beach treasures, I spied some bottles of extract. This was a brand that I had not often seen since childhood. There, among the many items of the market, were bottles of lemon extract. Seeing them took me back to the kitchen of my childhood home in Greensboro, North Carolina, some 45 years earlier, where that extract could be found on the spice rack. “Hi Mom! Hi Nano! I’m home from school!” I yelled to my mother and grandmother as I opened the back door that

Read More »
Childhood Obesity: Who is to blame? | Palmetto Bella

Childhood Obesity: Who is to blame?

A society must be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members: its children. It seems that America is falling shamefully short. We know that to succeed, children need stable homes, quality health care, ample nutritious food, good schools, safe neighborhoods, and access to resources and opportunities that enable them to reach their potential. For too many of our children, especially children of color, these basic building blocks are out of reach. And yet, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, the proportion of federal dollars invested in children has fallen to its lowest level in a decade. The shameful state of your child’s health is not an inevitability —

Read More »
Could Some Hormones Be More Protective Against COVID-19? | Palmetto Bella

Could Some Hormones Be More Protective Against COVID-19?

Good news for those of you who are currently on hormone replacement therapy especially if you’re a woman — new research suggests that sex steroids may play a role in keeping people from developing severe COVID-19 symptoms. One trend that has emerged is the tendency for males to have a more difficult experience with the disease than females. The ratio of COVID-19 deaths are higher among men than women. For every 100 women who die, 135 men die from the disease. In an article recently published in Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, Graziano Pinna from the University of Illinois in Chicago outlines some of the evidence suggesting that female reproductive

Read More »