Page 138 - September 2019

Omega fatty acids have health benefits and are vital for vitamin absorption and metabolism.
“. . . endurance horses, or any horses that work long and hard, can utilize fat better than the sprinter can.”
FEEDING FAT AS
A SUPPLEMENT MANY OPTIONS
by Heather Smith Thomas
Other reasons horsemen add oil to a concentrate feed include using the oil as a way to reduce dustiness along with adding a few more calories. “Feed manu- facturers use fat to improve mixing quality; it makes the ingredients slide and mix better without clump- ing. This is especially beneficial in winter, when any moisture in a feed might freeze and have solid clumps or the whole bag of feed may be hard as a brick. Increasing the oil content can help prevent that prob- lem. For this reason, feed manufacturers commonly change the type of molasses they use in the winter, to one with a higher fat content,” says Crandell. This not only keeps the feed from “bricking” but also adds a few extra calories a horse might need in cold weather.
TYPES OF FAT
Regarding general categories, there are vegetable
fats and animal fats. “Animal fats include tallow, lard, rendered fat, fish oil, etc.,” she says. “Lard, tallow, and rendered fat are highly saturated (which makes them solid at room temperature) and they are fairly unpalatable for horses. Fish fat, as well as a long list of vegetable fats, are usually oils (liquid at room temperature).
“The vegetable oils are nearly 100% fat and usually at least 95% digestible. By contrast, the animal fats are only about 75% digestible for horses. While animal fats are often more economical, they don’t taste as good to horses, have lower digestibility, and tend to become ran- cid quicker, so most people don’t feed horses animal fats because there are so many other choices,” says Crandell.
The terms fat and oil are interchangeable. Oils are types of fat, and there are basically two types of oils. “One is cold-pressed and the other is solvent-extract- ed,” she says. “Cold-pressed simply means the oil has been squeezed out of the soybeans, olives, oilseeds, etc. Virgin olive oil is cold-pressed, for instance. For the solvent-extraction process, a chemical is used; the material is first ground up and then combined with something that dissolves the fat out of the solids. Then the residue are removed, and what’s left is oil.
“You get more oil out of the oilseeds with solvent-extraction, but you are also exposing it to
energy in the diet, especially horses in stressful F
eeding fat has become common practice for helping certain horses that need more total
athletic careers, young growing horses, or lactat-
ing broodmares, Kathleen Crandell, PhD (Equine Nutritionist, Kentucky Equine Research), says fat is a very concentrated energy source,” A certain amount of oil, for instance, provides 3 times the energy as the same amount of oats, for example,” she says.
WHY FEED FAT?
Adding a little fat to the diet can help a thin horse put on weight, or help an athletic horse perform bet- ter, providing the extra calories needed for hard work. “Certain types of
work benefit more
from higher fat
diets,” Crandell
says. “For example,
endurance horses,
or any horses that
work long and
hard, can utilize
fat better than the
sprinter can. Some
people feed fat to
improve coat qual-
ity, and some feed
fat as a ‘calming’
source of energy
rather than feed-
ing high levels of grain, which tend to make a horse hyper. Other people feed fat because their horses can’t handle much starch in the diet.
“If a horse needs the extra calories, but you want to lower the amount of starch and sugars, fat can replace most of those calories. You might also feed a little fat
to help with vitamin absorption, since the fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, and E, are transported into body cells via fat. Another reason to feed fat would be because of its fatty-acid content; you might want to increase the Omega-3 fatty acids in the diet, for instance.”
Kathleen Crandell, PhD, Equine Nutritionist, Kentucky Equine Research
136 SPEEDHORSE, September 2019
EQUINE HEALTH