Good evening everybody, and welcome to tonight's webinar. My name is Bruce Stevenson and I am very honoured and pleased to be the chair for tonight. And, the first thing I'd like to do is a huge big thank you to Bailey's Horse Feeds for their generous sponsorship of tonight's webinar.

Little bit of housekeeping for everybody that hasn't been with us before. If you want to ask a question, please just Move your mouse over the screen, a control panel, it's normally black and at the bottom, will pop up and you'll see a Q&A box. Click on that, type in your questions.

They will come through to me, and we will hold those all over to the end. If we do run out of a little bit of time, we can still get back to you with answers, but we will certainly endeavour to cover as many of those questions as what we can. So tonight's presenter is Emma Short, and Emma's role is very varied, covering the provision of feed advice for general horse owners, working on specialist feeding programmes for larger yards, as well as professionals, and providing technical support for the Bailey sales and marketing teams.

Emma enjoys applied and clinical nutrition and having seen plenty of changes and progression over the years within the industry, she helps supply any new research to the benefits of the welfare and performance of the horses through Bailey's product development programme. Emma also provides educational talks to horse owners, equestrian associations, veterinary practises, as well as to retailers to achieve these goals. Emma, welcome to the webinar vet and it's over to you.

Thank you very much and good evening everybody. I'm going to try and cover the importance of nutrition and how correct feeding can support both the mare throughout pregnancy and also lactation. And the foal up to weaning.

Growing involves building body tissues, the components of which are supplied by nutrients. With the considerable investment involved in producing any youngster, it seems foolish not to help ensure correct growth by providing the best possible diet. So we're gonna start with looking at nutrition of the brood mare and over an 11 month gestation period, the mare faces varying nutritional needs.

In my experience, we generally encounter two, common problems. With the brood mare, with owners wanting to overfeed throughout pregnancy, and then subsequently not adjusting the diet properly, for when the mare enters into lactation and therefore generally looking at sort of underfeeding. Whilst inadequate nutrition may not lead to immediate apparent problems, long-term shortfalls of nutrients or depletion of internal reserves could affect the development of subsequent falls, with poor nutrition leading to prolonged gestation, developmental abnormalities, and also low birth weights.

Conception rates are influenced by the mare's body condition at the time of breeding, and ideally the mare should be in an optimum condition with a condition score ranging from 5 to 6. And this is using the 1 to 9 Henney system. So 1 to 9, so 5 to 6 being sort of optimum.

A fat or a thin mare has a much lower conception rate compared to those in good condition. Conception rates can be improved by increasing the amount of concentrate that you feed a few weeks prior to breeding so that you're increasing the mare's plain of nutrition prior to conception. And although a balanced diet should be maintained consistently, really whether the mare is, is going to, to stud or not.

And it has been seen that mares actually gaining weight at the time of breeding, appear to have a better conception rate. However, we do need to be careful that we're not encouraging maybe our already good doers, our mares that already hold weight, maybe a little too well to become fat, cos that's the last thing we want. If you do have a a mare that is a little overweight or potentially what we class as a good doer, ideally we need to be looking at reducing her calorie intake, as she enters the breeding season, so that she's actually entering in optimum condition.

We don't want an overweight fleshhy mare because that can create issues in itself with difficulties with foaling, for example. And the diet should be tailored to maintain the horse in a fit but not fat condition. Even though calories are being restricted.

It's really important that we are supplying the mare with the correct balance of essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals so that she's actually receiving a balanced diet, because fertility can be significantly reduced if essential nutrients are not being provided. And this is where really a specifically designed sort of stud balancer is beneficial. Your balances will supply the correct amount of nutrients with respect to your amino acid, your vitamins and your minerals, whilst actually providing very little calories.

Underweight mares can be prone to abortion if they're severely underweight. And can produce much smaller and weaker weaker foals at birth. So therefore, a higher calorie sort of based diet is required in this instance.

So moving her onto something like a stud cube or a mix that has a much higher calorie content, as well as the correct amount of nutrients is really key, in this instance. You may also need to potentially top dress the ration . With higher sort of oil or oil-based supplements again to boost calorie intake, along with possibly much better soluble, digestible forms of fibre.

So things like sugar beet pulp, for example, is a great way of providing, not only fibre, but also a good source of calories, as well as things like alfalfa, for example, with additional oil added into it again to boost calorie intake. And it's really key that although we're trying to push sort of calories into the ration that we're also making sure that the nutrients are not being compromised. So it should all be about balance and optimising nutrition in the safest and the best possible way.

So moving on to the pregnant mare, now the growth of the foetus begins from conception, as I'm sure we all know, and therefore we really need to be considering feeding the mare in the same light. Now correct nutrition in the provision of nutrients throughout pregnancy is not only required to support the growing foetus, but it's also the development of the placenta, the uterus, as well as the mammary glands. As well as ensuring that internal reserves are built up for both the mare and the foal after birth.

Now, quite often we concentrate on the last trimester, so the last 3 months of pregnancy, and this is where the foetus is growing in, in the quickest or the most rapid amount if you like, and it. Be gaining around 50 to 60% of its final birth weight at this stage. However, it's really interesting to note that actually the mare's requirements actually start to increase as little as 5 months into gestation.

Her requirements for things like lysine, the essential amino acid and things like your protein will start to increase at this point. So feeding throughout pregnancy and feeding from a stud rationing from conception. Really can't be overemphasised and to ensure that we are getting, the diet balanced from day one.

Now, in terms of energy or calories, we're feeding the pregnant mare in terms of maintenance, in the 1st and 2nd trimester. With the exception of the mare that already has a folate foot. So in this instance, we are feeding the mare as if she is lactating because she's obviously producing milk at the same time.

And therefore her requirements are going to be very much different to just a mare that just is involved with no fold at foot. You may also need, to be a little bit flexible here if you have a mare also that requires weight gains. If you have an underweight mare, again, she may need a gaining ration and therefore, her calorie requirements may be higher than what a maintenance level is.

What we don't want is we don't want the mayor entering into, certainly the first part of lactation underweight. She needs to be in a good optimum body condition because it's very unlikely that she's going to gain that condition once she's lactating. Her requirements are going to be quite high during that period.

So we may need to be a little bit flexible here. Pregnant mares are often actually able to consume enough calories from good quality forage to maintain and even gain weight in some instances. However, it's really important to note that forage alone will not supply all the nutrients required, with forage quality varying greatly throughout the year.

And it's very unlikely that forage will be able to meet. The correct lysine, so essentially amino acid levels, as well as mineral levels on its own. So some form of supplementation will be required at some point.

And if you consider, for example, the mare, such as the thoroughbred mare, for example, that will be covered much earlier on in the season, potentially as early as February, March, . You know your forage, your grass quality, availability and the abundance of grass, for example, during that time is actually going to be, You know, fairly low, so actually you're going to be relying on forage sources from things like haze and haulages, and if you look at some of the analysis that we have with our haze and haages, you will know that actually from a particularly from a mineral perspective and in a majority of cases from a protein perspective, there is just simply not enough in our forage sources to completely support a balanced diet. As we move into the final trimester, so during the, the last three months of pregnancy, we know that the foetus is growing at the quickest or the most rapid, amount.

So again, going back to set up that 50%. 60% of sort of final birth rate. And actually at this point, the foetus may start to pull on the mare's reserves.

Now, ideally your mare should already be on a stud ration, so ideally from conception at this point. And what you may find is coming into the final 3 months of the final trimester, you may find that she has an increasing requirement for higher calorie-based stud feed, such as your stud cubes or your stud mixes during this time, but essentially going to provide her with more energy or more calories in order to support. That growth of the foetus.

You may, if you're feeding something like a balancer and you have access to them, you may also want to introduce some of your traditional sort of type cereals or straights such as your oats as a further means or an additional means of providing calories during that time. If you're already feeding a stud ration, it's unlikely that you will need to increase the amount significantly throughout pregnancy as long as you are meeting and meeting the correct amounts that are required by the product that you are feeding, and you are feeding according to body weight. And it's really important, that you're feeding little and often also throughout this time, because the mare may struggle to consume large quantities of feed, purely because there's a lack of space at this stage.

So the foetus is obviously getting much larger, much bigger, and there is a limited amount of space. So. Organs, stomach, etc.

Will start to become a little bit squashed and actually feeding little and often so small bucket feeds of concentrate is really key. Her appetite may certainly decline, at this stage. And we, as I say, we would typically keep the feeding amounts and rates pretty much the same throughout pregnancy, and we Then look at increasing the quantity of hard feed once we're in that first week of lactation typically.

So as I say, you might find that you need to change the product for something with a higher calorie content in order to support her calorie requirements. But apart from that, you should find that it should be, relatively consistent throughout pregnancy. So moving into lactation, we tend to break the lactation down into two halves, so you have the 1st 3 months where the foal is very much reliant on the mare's milk for the majority of its nutrition.

And then the length of the second half of lactation will really be very much dependent on when you are weaning the foal. Now both the quality and the quantity of mare's milk is mostly genetic, however, depending on how much energy is available and also depending on the quality of the amino acids that are available, we can influence the amount of milk that the mare is actually producing. So again, diet certainly comes into play here very much.

Now, as we're moving into sort of the 1st 3 months of lactation, the mayor's requirements significantly increase in this time, and this is why in that first week, we look at increasing the amount of concentrate that she is getting purely to help with milk production. And you're basically looking around 3% of the mare's body weight being produced as milk per day. So if you're looking at your typical 500 kg thoroughbred, for example, she will produce between sort of 18 to 20 litres of milk per day.

Now, the quantity of feed will also increase quite significantly during this time. And it increases to around 2.5 to 3% of her body weight as feed per day, equating to around 12.5 to 15 kgs a day for that 500 kg mare.

Whereas during pregnancy, she would typically be receiving between sort of 1.5 to 2% of her body weight as feed per day. So you can see there's quite a big difference coming from pregnancy into early lactation.

Now, the type of products or type of Feeds that you are going to supply your mare, as well as how much you're going to feed her, is very much influenced by the time of year. So if you have a mare that is falling early on in the season, for example, between January and March, which a lot of the thoroughbreds are, your mares are typically coping with poorer weather conditions, it may be colder, and with respect to forage and forage quality, there's not a lot of grass that's available at this time of the year. And the quality of the grass is also not as good with nutrients, etc.

Being considerably lower. Whereas if you have a mare that is falling down later on in the season, for example, spring, when the weather conditions are much warmer, the grass is much more abundant during that time and particularly higher in, in quality with respect to energy and protein and other nutrients, then naturally what you're. To feed that Mary is going to be very different.

With your early foers potentially looking at requiring a much higher calorie stud cube or stud meat during that time in order to support body weight, for example, and potentially those that are folding later on in the season may be only needing a low calorie stud balancer in order to simply support, or counteract any nu nutrient shortfalls, within the forage. Now I thought it was interesting to actually have a look at the lactation curve, so, so that we can follow you know, how milk production is produced throughout lactation. Now it's estimated that at birth the foal is 10% of its mature body weight and increases rapidly to about 30% in the 1st 3 months, so it's growing really, really quickly and you can see.

From, the chart here, that sort of the 1st 24 hours, you haven't got a lot going on. There's not a lot of milk being produced during this period of time, and that's simply because the mare is producing colostrum, to provide to the foal in the. 1st 24 hours.

You will then see once the milk starts to come in and as the foal suckles, it will start to stimulate more milk production. And you will see that obviously the yield is peaking at around 5 weeks into lactation. So fairly early on.

You will then see that this starts to plateau off and then it starts to sort of drop down at around sort of 3 to 4 months. The idea here being that the mayor is actually, preparing the foal, for weaning. Now, we know that the foal relies upon the majority of its nutrition to come from the mare's milk in the 1st 3 months of its life, and.

The energy and the total protein is often met during this time. However, interestingly, mineral intake in the first three weeks of its life, just purely just coming from milk and potentially pasture alone is not enough, to support the foals mineral requirements, and naturally will start to pull on its own reserves as. Early on, as I say, 1 to sort of 3 weeks.

So it's really important to hold that into your mind, hold that in your mind, because I will come on to that, at a later stage. And you can see from this next slide, which shows us the mineral density in the mare's milk. But again, looking at that 5 week mark, so 5 weeks is, is quite sort of, an important, sort of time for us when we're looking at nutri.

Nutritional, sort of fluctuations. So what you will find at 5 weeks is that the energy, level is peaking, in lactation, but you will see the mineral, levels in milk, so when you're looking at the zinc, the iron, and the copper levels at 5 weeks, are starting to decline at this 5 week, level. And this and at this level, this is where we are getting sort of a very high levels of energy with a diluted amount of minerals which can essentially lead to complications such as congenital sort of bone disorders.

Moving on to the second part of lactation. The quantity of feed that the mare requires is reduced to around 2 to 2.5% of body weight, and we're looking at gradually decreasing her pain of nutrition at this time in preparation for weaning.

So it's really important that we're. Reducing her pain of nutrition, because what we don't want to happen is that she is struggling to dry up her milk, milk supply and potentially then lead into issues such as mastitis, for example. Now, typically we would expect the mayor to take around 10 days to dry up her milk production.

If it's taking longer, or you're noticing that there are potentially signs of something like mastitis, for example. Then what we would do is we would just remove, the concentrate food altogether for a short period of time, and then once everything is normal and we're happy, we would then reintroduce, the concentrates back into the, into the ration. Now, where we go here post weaning is very much dependent on your mayor's circumstances.

So the first question that we need to look at is, is the mayor in the foal? And if she is, obviously she has a foetus to support and therefore we would then return her to pregnant rations, in order to support her again throughout the gestation period. If your mayor is not back in foal and she She is to be rested or she's going to be reintroduced to work, then actually we would look at potentially a maintenance diet.

If she is holding her weight very well and we class her as a good doer, then a balance is ideal in this instance. Equally, if she requires a higher calorie diet, in order to potentially either support weight that may maybe she has lost throughout lactation, then something like a cube or maybe a coarse mix ration may be more appropriate, in this instance. So this brings us to a close for the moment on the mare, and we are now going to move on to the foal, looking at the newborn foal initially, obviously starting from the beginning.

And the newborn foal relies upon the majority of its nutrition to come from the mare's milk, as we know. Suckling foals are what we class as monogastrics, so they have an inability to digest fibre from the dark when they're first born, and this will gradually, sort of increase as we progress. They can suckle for sort of between sort of 4 to 6 times an hour, and they have a very rapid growth rate at this stage, following sort of a natural growth curve, and they're typically gaining around 1 kg in weight per day in early life.

And this is based on a fold that is going to mature to around the 500 kg mark. Now in the 1st 24 hours, our newborn foals need to consume colostrum, which is the thick sort of yellowish, fluid produced by mares before their true milk is produced. And it's essentially an anti.

Body rich milk that will fight the pathogens until the foal's own immune system, matures. Now it's essential that the foal gets this colostrum in the 1st 24 hours, as there's very little transfer of immunity across the centre. And the foal's digestive tract can only absorb antibodies in the first sort of 12 to 24 hours after birth.

And in an ideal world, the foal should be up and nursing within the 1st 2 hours, so that it's ingesting the right amount of colostrum. Without this colostrum, the foal is at much greater risk of disease and in some instances, what you will find with some mares is that they can drip, sort of sometimes significant amounts of colosttrim before falling, and this ideally needs to be avoided. So what we can do in this instance is you can look at sort of milking the mare prior to folding so that you can gather, This vital colostrum and it can then be frozen, which can then be given to the foal at birth.

It's really important if this is the case and you are freezing any colostrum, then actually that you're thawing it out in sort of a warm water bath, if you like, and not heating it on the stove or in the microwave because that actually could kill off your your antibodies, which is not ideal. And some of your big yards, I mean big studs, for example, will often have, sort of frozen sort of coloss that they've maybe gathered from donor mares, etc. Which they would also use, and potentially administer.

If you have a weak foal at birth that is struggling to stand and suckle, then again, if the mayor has got sufficient colostrum at birth, you can again look at milking her if she'll let you. And therefore you can then bottle feed the foal, or potentially the vets can then look at tubing the foal if, if you want bottle feed. So there are lots of things, that we can do to sort of try and ensure that the foal is getting its colostrum, and once the foal has received the colostrum that it requires and the milk has established her milk supply.

We then possibly need to consider the next question of whether actually. Do we need to further supplement her milk supply with something like a creep feed, for example, and is this always necessary? Now, in some instances, we may need to support the mayor, the mare's milk production with an additional creep feed and essentially what your creep feed is, it's a milk-based.

Protein, concentrate feed that's designed to complement sort of the natural decline, if you like, in the mare's milk. And typically you're feeding around sort of 0.5 kg per 45 kg of body weight for the foal.

So it's important you have an idea of how heavy your foal is. And there are several instances where creep feed, is required in the foal through these sort of early stages. So you may have a suckling foal that is lacking in weight and also conditions.

And who would just simply benefit from sort of that increased nutritional support certainly prior to weaning. If he's underweight with a low growth rate, it may indicate potentially that the mare is maybe a poor milker. Now that could be that she's maybe an older mare, it's maybe struggling.

Or she could possibly be a maiden mare, again, that maybe isn't able to produce sufficient milk. Signs would typically be where the fold is maybe agitated, it's constantly trying to suckle from the mare and maybe not getting enough from her. He may be drinking more, drinking more water because he's hungry.

And also we would look at sort of creep feeding in certain circumstances if we're dealing with an orphan false. Now there are several instances where we do not want to creep feed, so sometimes it is relevant, other times it really isn't. And if you have a fault that is top heavy.

So overweight, potentially growing too quickly, then we certainly do not need to be supplementing, with a creep feed. We do not want to be putting excessive amounts of weight on our folds because it's going to increase strain and also trauma on their young developing joints. And if the mare is fed well during pregnancy and she's maintained on a good diet to meet the demands of lactation.

Then actually it reduces the emphasis on creep feed. However, what we may need to do is actually consider mineral intake. And as we've seen from some of the slides that of previously, we know that obviously the mineral content of the milk is certainly declining at around that 5 weeks.

We also know that even in the first sort of 3 weeks. Of of life that the mayor's milk alone may not be supplying adequate levels of minerals in the foal relying on its own reserves during that time. So actually providing sort of some additional sort of mineral supplementation can be beneficial and particularly most foals that are growing rapidly and are too top heavy.

If you are unlucky enough to be faced with an orphan fo, then we have to look at treating the orphan, really very much depending on the time it's orphaned, so. If the foal is orphaned early on, it's really essential to check that obviously the foal has received the correct amount of colostrum. And then at that point then we would look at considering a milk replacer.

Now, we quite often go to get enquiries about whether we can offer bowls, sort of goat's milk or cow's milk or something alternative, and actually it's really important that if you are having to go down this route, then actually you're looking at a specific mare's milk for places, so something that's equine based. Just purely because other breeds differ. So for example, if you look at cow milk, for example, it provides too much, crude protein, it's got high levels of fat, and it's also much lower in lactose when you compare it to equine milk.

So actually a specific equine mi milk replacer is really important in this instance. We would then potentially look at supporting this, with a foal creek pellet. Now it's really important to say that actually with our orphan foals, looking at something like a mare's milk replacer isn't always necessary depending on where.

The foal has been orphaned. So if you have a foal that has been orphaned very early on, then certainly a mare's milk replacer is something that we would certainly introduce and look at. However, if you have a foal that's orphaned maybe later on, and has actually been on the mare for a reasonable amount of time, moving it onto a milk replacer later on, can prove quite difficult.

Purely because they do not like the taste potentially of a milk replacer because they're just not used to it. So actually in this sort of instance we would look at providing maybe a pellet that's maybe been sort of soaked or sort of softened down with either a little bit of mare's milk replaced, or if you have some of the mare's milk to hand, then also you can use that to encourage the foal to go down that route. And what we're looking for is to really emulate.

The foal's natural feeding habits, where possible, to simply help to reduce digestive upsets, such as things like your gastric ulcers. What we like to do when we're establishing our foals on something like mare's milk replacer, is to eventually get to the point where we are bucket feeding them, and we are doing it sort of every, replacing it and replenishing it sort of every 12 hours. And this sort of mimics sort of natural feeding.

Behaviours where the foal can drink, as it wishes, and therefore, again, say, reducing sort of the risk of any digestive upset. Usually at around sort of 6 to 10 weeks of age, we look at sort of phasing out a milk replacer, if you're on one, and then introducing, something like the creep pellets into the ration, purely just cause it makes it an easier transition for the foal onto a more mature stud ration. And we would look at doing this gradual transition onto a pre-weaning diet, so a stud ration at around the 3 to 4 months of age.

You can see here from this chart that this is showing you essentially the changing digestive system. So horses like other mammals are dependent on enzymes to break down certain nutrients. And young mammals start with increased levels of lactase as you would expect, because this is the enzyme that breaks down milk, but they gradually this gradually declines as the levels of other enzymes start to increase.

Now you can see here that as the foal approaches 3 to 4 months of age, they are able to digest other protein and energy sources. So you can see where the lac. Tase is dropping at around that 3 to 4 months, sort of mark.

You can also see that you've got amylase and protease enzymes starting to increase and you've got sort of that crossover at the 3 to 4 months sort of mark. So this is indicating to us that actually the foal at this stage of its life is now no longer completely solely dependent on a milk-based diet. So this allows us to provide a gradual transition from this milk-based diet to one that's designed to complement forage such as the stud feed.

It helps to compensate for the natural decline in mi milk, so that the quant the quality, as we know, the mineral levels are declining quite early on, and also the quantity, if you can remember back to the charts with the volume of milk, we know at about 3 to 4 months that the quantity is starting to be reduced in preparation for weaning also at this time. We know through research and also through my own experience that actually introducing a stud feed at around sort of the 3 to 4 months mark prior to weaning significantly reduces stress at weaning, ensuring that that foal is. On that sort of bucket feed, if you like, prior to, prior to being removed from the mare.

If you are introducing a feed at the time of weaning when that foal is particularly stressed, you may find it very difficult to establish that foal on that bucket feed. Now what this does, is it basically helps to lessen the decrease in growth rates, it's often seen at weaning and then subsequently compensated growth or catch up if you like. So they drop off, they're maybe not eating properly and therefore they are not getting the correct level of nutrients at weaning.

And then a little later they are then a little bit more settled. They're then taking their bucket feed. They may be introduced onto, better quality pasture, which has a much higher energy content, and then you get that sort of compensatory growth, that catch up, a very rapid growth, which we do not want.

So your catch up or your compensatory growth can increase the risk of developmental issues from occurring. And what we're really looking. For is for a steady growth rate.

We want a nice gradual growth curve. We don't want them to suddenly have a rapid growth spurt and then for them to come back down again, and then another rapid growth spurt. We want it to be nice and even.

And at this stage, we would expect them to be gaining around 650 to 900 grammes, per day, again, based on, the fold maturing to around 500 kg in body weight. The foal should have reached nearly 50% of its mature weight by the time it gets to 6 months of age. And actually, the foal should be receiving enough nutri nutrients and nutrition from his stud ration at this stage to maintain weight and also a consistent growth so that when the milk supply is removed, he is stable and we've got that nice even growth.

So that is what we're looking. For he is already established onto that, that sort of concentrate feed onto the right diet that we want him to be on once he's weaned. We also need to be really careful that we are avoiding overfeeding energy or calories.

We certainly do not want a fold that is too top heavy and therefore he's putting more strain, too much strain on his young developing limbs and creating trauma. We also need to be aware of the size of his meals and also the glycemic response that is occurring. So we look at this here purely because if there is a glucose peak in the blood, there is then, this is then followed up by an insulin surge.

And unfortunately this insulin surge, can depress thyroxine. Now this hormone is involved in the conversion to cartilage to bone. So it's really important that we try and keep this under control, and actually feeding lots of small feeds, throughout the day, is beneficial because you're less likely to get these sort of big glucose.

Sort of surges followed by, by insulin which is going to then potentially create a problem. So if you're able to feed your your foals sort of smaller quantities throughout the day, this is great, particularly if you're feed things like a stud mix or a stud cube if you're needing a higher calorie diet. If, however, you're feeling things like a balancer, the amount of sort of carbohydrate or the amount of glycaemic response you're going to get from those types of products are significantly lower and in some instances are more beneficial.

However, we've got the other end of the spectrum whereby underfeeding, can also lead to compensatory grains. So what can happen in this instance again is if you're not feeding, your foal correctly or the right quantity for what it needs for its growing period. And all of a sudden then at a later date, it's introduced onto a bucket feed, it's getting.

Surge of nutrients or potentially it again is introduced to maybe more lush, abundant pasture with a much higher energy content. All of a sudden that fall is potentially, receiving more energy and receiving more nutrients, and therefore again can have a bit of a surge with respect to growth. So it's all about balance and trying to sort of keep it nice and steady.

So what, what do we feed our foals at this, at this point? And I think there are several questions that we need to consider before we're choosing the best course of action and the best diet and the right product for a foal. So the first thing that I want to know is, is, is the foal maintaining a good weight?

If it is. Then potentially a balancer is a good option. If it needs a little help, then we may need to look at a higher calorie product for it.

Secondly, which is very important, has the foal got any growth problems? And we will come on to some slides, in a moment to discuss what we do if we have issues with growth. Also, what are the practicalities?

So what's the time of year? This is really important because it really depends on what the grass quality is like, how much grass is available, available at this time. Grass is going to provide significantly more nutrients and more calories than things like hazes and haulages, for example.

So if you're weaning your folds at a later stage, so coming into autumn, for example. That actually the amount of grass that's going to be available and nutrients that are going to be available, is going to be very different. So this may affect what product you choose at this time.

Also, are you feeding your foals as an individual, or are they out in a big group? And if this is the case, then it's really important as a group that you're feeding for the oldest foal within the group so that you're actually meeting, his requirements for growth as well. You also need to potentially look at economics, and also future plans, you know, if you're looking at something like the thoroughbred foal, for example, that potentially is going to race as a 2 year old, it's going to be pushed, potentially it's going to go to the south, it's going to be, you know, backed and exercised much earlier on than, say, something like a sports horse that may not see a saddle until, you know, it's 4 or 5 years of age.

So all these things are things that we are looking to ask ourselves before we choose the right diet. I also wanted to pop a slide in about forage because I think forage is very much underestimated unfortunately. And forage is the biggest component of our horses diet and therefore plays a really big part and will determine what feed is gonna be best for your animal.

If you have a poorer quality, more mature forage, for example, it's going to provide fewer nutrients and also calories. Also forages that are much higher indigestible fibre, so those forages that have potentially been harvested much later on in the system, will be sitting in the gut for longer periods of time because they're not as digestible. And for the foal, for example, you might see this in the form of something like a pot belly.

Or a grass belly, and they may be lacking in muscle and top line because they're not utilising or able to utilise the nutrients effectively within that forage source. And if your forage is of, you know, of poorer quality with respect to nutrition, or it's not as digestible, then that's the reliance of the bucket feed is increased. And you may need to look at increasing the nutrient content of your bucket feed in order to counteract any shortfalls that you may have within your forage.

Equally. It works, you know, vice versa as well if you've got fantastic forage and really good quality forage, naturally you may be able to feed slightly less, than the full recommendations, but actually we do need to typically look at, forage analysis to, to really be sure about what we're, what we're facing. So, ideally, we want to be putting our foals onto a stud ration purely because these are specifically designed to provide the correct balance of nutrients for both mare and foal.

The stud feeds will have sort of your added benefits as with things such as your chelated minerals you may find, and what this basically means is they're attached to an amino acid. They're typically, copper, zinc, and manganese, but you can sometimes find things like iron, for example, that can be chelated, but it's quite rare in in horse feed. And basically what these chelated minerals are is they're more bioavailable, so they're more digestible, to the horse, which is key.

So we know that our foals are getting what they need. They quite often have things like your digestive enhancers incorporated within them, things like your pre your probiotics, your yeasts, for example. All of which will help to support the bacterial populations that are being established in the hindgut and to support your foals through particularly stressful times such as weaning, for example.

They will also provide elevated levels of protein and better quality protein with respect to essential amino acids, things like lysine, which is required by the fold for correct growth and development. Your stud cubes and your stud mixes are usually much higher in calories and energy, so you're looking at your digestible energy values, they range from anywhere from sort of 12 to maybe 13.5 megajoules per kilo.

And they're designed to be fed in much larger quantities. People are quite shocked, with the quantities that you would actually need to feed your young horses. And actually, if you're looking at, again going back to the thoroughbred as your standard, your 6 month old thoroughbred at weaning, you would need to be looking at feeding around 3.5 to 4 kg of a stud ration, if it's a cube or a mix.

In order to support correct nutrients. Now the reason why these quantities are so high, is purely because they are growing so quickly in the first year of life. So their requirements for things like your amino acid, your protein, your vitamins and minerals, and potentially also energy because they're growing, is significantly higher, .

Certainly then, you know, mature horses that maintenance or in light levels of work. So I think people are quite often shocked by by the amount that you're actually feeding, but it's key that you feed them at the correct amount because the diet will not be balanced. When you're looking at things like your mixes, they tend to have a higher cereal, therefore starch content.

So if you have a fold that's maybe a little bit excitable, and things like your mixes are quite often, sort of better avoided. However, in some instances they can prove to be more palatable, and it really I suppose depends on your, on your preference. A sub cube, typically not always, but typically will have lower levels of cereal and therefore the starch value will be lower.

And they're quite a good option, particularly if you have a young cult that's a bit sort of exuberant, or you have a stable kept sort of fold it's not got much turnout, for example, just to try and sort of keep energy levels sort of a little bit sort of under wraps, a little bit calmer. Cubes are also generally more economic version, so if you're sort of feeding larger groups of youngsters or mares, then actually a cube can be can work very well in that instance and are also often preferred for those that are being sort of kept out in the paddocks as well, so they're not lost, if the buckets, etc. They're being fed on the floor.

A stud balancer is very different, it's a much smaller pellet, if you compare it to something like a cube, which looks sort of I suppose like a horse, a typical sort of horse and pony nut, and your balances are very concentrated, so they're designed to be fed in much smaller quantities, there's much lower feeding rates, and they're concentrated. To provide higher levels of things like protein, vitamins and minerals. Now again, going back to that thoroughbred, that 6 month old thoroughbred, a balancer, you are typically looking at feeding between 1.14 and 1.4 kg, which roughly equates to around 5 to 6 sort of half pint coffee mugs per day.

So you can see there's quite a big difference in your feeding rates. And this makes it an ideal option for those that have got a limited appetite, particularly with your foals, but also for mares in much later pregnancy, if, you know, if everything's getting a little bit. Sort of limited on the space front, sort of certainly in sort of the last trimester, then your balance is a great way of providing the nutrients but actually keeping the volume that you're feeding much smaller.

But it's really important that when you're actually looking at the nutrient content of your balances, that you are not taking them the wrong way. You're looking at things like the protein values, for example, in something called balance will be sort of around. 30, 32%, maybe higher in some instances, whereas if you're comparing that to something like a stud cube or mix, they will be in the region of about 15 to sort of 16%.

So it looks like it's double, but if you consider the feeding rate of the balancer, it's usually about 3 times less than what you would feed of something like a stud cube or mix. So actually it needs to be higher because it needs to be more concentrated because you're actually feeding considerably smaller quantity. And this is also reflected in the amount of energy or calories that your balances supplies.

So your balances typically are low calorie, low energy, making them ideal for those that are good doers, or for those that hold their weight well. We also use your balances, for those that also have growth problems, which I'll come on to in a moment. Purely because the energy and the calorie content is much lower and your nutrient levels are higher.

Things like your sub cubes and your submixes are ideal for those that require a higher calorie content. So those that are not thriving, those that require weight gain, because they are providing a much higher level of calories, basically because you're feeding considerably more of them. You may have one or two whereby actually a low calorie stud balancer option is not enough, but actually a high calorie sort of stud cube or mix is maybe too much and actually you can potentially look at feeding a combination.

Whereby you would feed less of something like a stud cube or mix, but by doing that you're not feeding a balanced diet because you're not feeding it at the recommended amount, and therefore we would then look at topping up that difference, that nutrient difference with your stud balancer in order to make sure that the diet is fully balanced. So that brings us onto our developmental sort of issues. I thought it was important to cover this, unfortunately I'm unable to go into a significant amount of depth, but I did think it was important for us to cover.

So if you're unlucky enough, and unfortunately it does occur, more often than not in quite a lot of cases depending and sort of varying in sort of severity and, and what's sort of occurring, we have our developmental sort of orthopaedic disease or DOD which is easier to say. And this is basically the disturbance or failure of cartilage to develop into normal, healthy weight-bearing bone. And can affect the function of the skeletal system and associated structures such as your cartilage, bone, tendons, and ligaments.

Now your DOD sort of is an umbrella term if you like, for lots of different, conditions. So one of them being your epiphysitis, which is basically inflammation of the growth plates. And here what you'll see, particularly sort of in things like the fetlock, is you kind of get this sort of hourglass sort of shape, where you're seeing sort of the inflammation of, of the growth plates there.

You also have your osteochondrosis, so your OCD, which is essentially sort of cartilage or bone that can break off, within the joints causing inflammation. So you sort of get swelling in the joints, which is indicating your OCD and you can also have things like your flexual limb deformities or contracted tendons. Which is basically where the leg is excessively straight, and sometimes what we class or say as tippy toes sending sort of like the ballerina effect, if you like, on their tiptoes.

This can be congenital whereby the foal is born with a contraction or it can be acquired whereby it develops over time, usually because of rapid growth or injury. Now there are lots of different causes of, of DOD so genetics is one of them, injury, or trauma, as well as confirmation. But we are obviously here to discuss nutrition.

And from a nutritional point of view, the diet that is most likely to result in DOD is a diet that's much higher in energy and lower in minerals. So basically you have a diet that is higher in energy which stimulates sort of rapid growth, so it's encouraging growth, whereas your minerals are what, Is required to build tissue, so you basically have a disparity between these two, so you have a lot of energy coming into the diet which is encouraging the foal to grow too quickly, too rapidly. So we haven't got that steady rate of growth, which is what we're looking for, and then you're faced with insufficient minerals in order to build those tissue structures.

And therefore that is why you're getting sort of disparity and, and potentially these issues. Now by the time we see a problem, this could be going, have been going on for some time. And could result from an imbalanced diet sort of 30 days prior to you actually detecting anything or being noticeable by the eye.

I think it's really important, and even though there is still a lot of education and a lot of research out there, unfortunately we still get faced with the fact that it's protein that's potentially causing, this sort of rapid growth or causing sort of nutritional related. DOD and actually research has shown that high protein diets are not directly linked to DOD, however, higher energy or calorie sort of based diet that's accompanied by sort of inadequate levels of minerals, is generally what is the culprit. So what do we do?

If the fall arrives with problems, it's quite often due to the fact that the mayor has not received, the right balance, the correct nutrition or diet throughout pregnancy. It could also. So be that maybe she had a comp a compromised placenta, which potentially has restricted the transfer of nutrients across the foetus, typically with things like an older there, for example, that may suffer from something like placenitis for example.

Now, although feeding throughout pregnancy can't be over sort of emphasised and is essential, it doesn't always guarantee that we're reducing the risk, of these issues, unfortunately. Now trace minerals, so trace minerals such as zinc, copper, manganese, supplementation during pregnancy is essential for the foetus because during this time, while the foetus is developing, it will store these trace minerals within its liver, for use during the first few months of its life. So it's really essential, purely because the mayor's milk is obviously relatively low in these essential minerals, which we've already seen in the previous slide.

And just to sort of refresh your brains, again, you can see looking at the 5 weeks sort of going up, that you can see obviously zinc iron and copper levels are sort of declining at around that stage. And that. Actually what we find here at this 5 week mark, is if you can remember going back to the lactation curve that you've got a drop in minerals, but actually you've got, sort of the, the milk yield, if you like, is peaking at this time.

So we've got two things going on. We've got a lot of energy coming into the diet and the mineral, density of the milk is declining. And research has shown that mineral supplementation, in particular copper during pregnancy lowers the incidence of our DOD.

Copper is used in the creation and maintenance of elastic structures such as connective tissue, which is really important in the growing horse, as bone collagen relies on the presence of copper for it to be able to develop. So it, it's, it's really key. Now foals that are born to mares.

That have not been supplemented correctly during pregnancy will not have these liver mineral reserves. And actually liver copper stores actually provide the foal, with its main copper source during the early days, especially when it's on a milk only diet. So you remember sort of when we were talking previously that actually in the 1st 3 weeks of life, the foal starts to pull on its own mineral reserves purely because there's not enough minerals.

Within the milk to support it. So if you have a foal here that actually hasn't got these liver reserves, then actually you may potentially have, a bit of a problem. So this combined obviously with me mineral levels, sort of dropping at around that 5 weeks, and actually we know at that 5 week mark that lactation is peaking, you know, she's producing a huge amount of energy at that time as well.

Again, it's create. That undesirable diet, so you've got a lot of energy being provided, essentially providing rapid growth, with insufficient mineral support, to support that tissue sort of development and tissue structure. And therefore you are really significantly increasing the risk of DOD at that time, and it's a key time, that 5 weeks is quite often, a time where we see, developmental issues starting to occur.

So if you have suck info it does and it has presented with DOD. Then what we are typically looking at, because we know that the mare is producing a lot of milk at this time and potentially lacking minerals within the milk, we would actually look at providing the foal with a source of minerals, whether that's in a drench or a paste, simply to support growth. So we are simply supporting that growth, providing those minerals to support those tissue structures, .

It's very difficult to control sort of growth rate. In some instances it could be that the fold has gotten above average growth rate and that is just what's happening genetically. And in some instances where we cannot control it, so by supporting the foal with the correct amount of minerals to support the tissue structures, if the DOD, depending on what it is, it is, you know, not correcting itself, and we would typically expect it to correct within about 30 days after administrating, sort of mineral support.

If we're finding that is not happening, particularly with a suckling fold, then we need to try and reduce. The energy source. And unfortunately, in some instances, you may need to consider weaning the fold early in order to, to control the diet.

What I do want to point out here is actually restricting the mare's diet, so reducing what the mare is receiving. So moving her off of, say, your stud cube or mix, reducing her calorie intake, for example, or taking the nutrients out of her diet, isn't going to. Help, purely because, the mayor is genetically designed to produce a certain amount of milk.

So regardless of whether you take her feed away from her in order to reduce her milk production, she will simply just milk off her back. So what that means is that she will use her own reserves in order to produce the milk that she needs for that foal. So it's really important that actually restricting the mare isn't necessarily the answer.

If you have a weanling or I know we're not talking about yearlings as such, but if you have a weanling or a yearling that is suffering from DOD. Generally the cause of this, from a nutritional perspective is that either it's being over or it's being underfed a stud ration. So if you're overfeeding something, providing it with too many calories, too much energy, and potentially it could be overweight, it could be top heavy, not only are you putting more trauma on those limbs, and potentially you're providing it with too much energy and therefore encouraging it to grow too quickly.

On the other hand, you may not be using a stud ration, you may be using something like a high fibre cube, for example, that's not specifically designed, for our young stock and therefore the nutrient levels may not actually be high enough to support correct tissue growth, or actually maybe it's just not being fed at the correct level. So it's really important that you're looking at the overall diet and that. You know, you're not over over over or under, supplying on your sod rations.

Now, here what we would do, so we would look at feeding a balancer. So anything sort of really from 3 months upwards, we would look at feeding a stud balancer purely because we can provide the nutrients with respect to your amino acids, your vitamins and minerals by keeping your. Your calorie content very low.

So again, we're minimising, we're trying to sort of control, restrict sort of growth rate if we can, but maximise nutrient intake so we're supporting that tissue growth. It's also really important here that you're considering forage intake as well, because at this stage of life, our foals are actually able to utilise and digest forage, . Very well, far more efficiently, and if they have got an abundance of very rich grass, for example, don't forget that your forage, is also providing potentially higher levels, of energy.

So again, you may need to restrict or remove them off of off of your grazing if it's providing quite a lot. So really looking at sort of summary, really we need to know each horse's individual requirements for taking into account age, size and growth rates so that we can raise sound and healthy athletes. It's really important that you learn and know what nutrients are present within your forage.

You may need to look at analysis, cos it's very difficult to know what your forage is potentially providing. And therefore from that you can then feed the appropriate concentrate feed to counteract nutrient shortfalls within your forage, whether that be a balancer or whether you need something with a higher calorie content such as a stud cube or mix. It's also really important to look and monitor growth rates.

So whether you have only got access to a we tape, although they're not brilliant, and therefore not 100% accurate, it certainly gives you a, a reasonable guide to whether you're suddenly got a fall that's, you know, suddenly put on a huge amount of weight, and it's growing very quickly to maybe one that maybe is, is struggling. And if you've got access to a wave bridge, then brilliant. And to ensure that you're feeding consistently balanced diets, so you're, you're doing everything as much as you can and, and to avoid these unnecessary growth thats, we do not want to catch up, we do not want that compensatory growth because it will increase the risk of your your developmental problems.

So we want that steady, consistent growth. And by monitoring sort of growth rates, it really helps to identify rapidly or slow growing foals. So if you're plotting your weight, you can see whether your foal has suddenly had a big growth spurt and whether maybe we need to increase the mineral content of the diet in order to support tissue development, or actually.

Whether they're maybe not growing enough, and whether we actually maybe need to increase maybe the energy or the calorie content of the rations. So, it basically acts sort of as an early warning system, I suppose, so that you can adjust the diet before they're, you know, you, you've got problems, problems that are evident. And it allows for a much more accurate calculation, of how much you need to feed.

And that brings us to a close. Thank you very much. Emma, thank you very much.

That really was fantastic and if you'll excuse the pun, it provided us with great food for thought. Speaking of food for thought, folks, before we go on any further, in your chat box, you will see that my controller Phil has dropped a link for a survey, monkey. We really do like to get feedback from everybody and find out what you thought of the presentation and the, the webinar and to give us some ideas going.

Forward of other things that you might like us to, to present to you. So if you can just click on that link, you don't have to fill it in straight away. But if you don't open it now when the webinar ends, it disappears.

So if you just open it, you can leave it in the background, and afterwards, you can give us that feedback. We really do appreciate the time and the effort that you put in to give us that feedback. Emma, once again, thank you to you for sharing all this knowledge and a big thank you to Bailey's Horse Feeds, who obviously sponsored tonight's webinar.

You're very welcome. Thank you. We have run a little bit over, one question that, I do want to ask you.

When you were talking about the mayor and the milkr, you know, with the, the, the loss of the mayor and using milk replacers, Edward came up with a really great question and said, what can be given as a substitute for Colostrum in the situation where the dam dies immediately after giving birth? Yeah. I mean, there are, there are lots of options.

I mean, it depends on whether I suppose you're on a big stud and maybe have got the option to maybe have some donor mares whereby they quite often sort of take colostrum from certain mares and then freeze it for that very, for that very reason. In some instances you are able to actually take the Colostrum off the mayor, fairly quickly, unfortunately after she's been lost, which again, you can obviously utilise. There is something called the National Foing Bank.

That you can try and contact. However, from a Closing point of view, you, you may struggle, particularly if she's already, if a donor mayor, foster mayor has potentially already got to fall at foot. I believe you can also get sort of powdered sort of options as well that you can also purchase, but I don't think they are as good as the real thing.

You can also if you are finding that the foal has not taken sufficient colostrum, if the mare's been dripping, for example, you can't get hold of anything. You can obviously look at, you can test basically the fold for how many antibodies it has, and actually you can infuse it, with sort of antibodies, sort of rich plasma if, if necessary, and sometimes that, that is, it is required if you can't get hold of anything. Excellent.

Folks, as I said, unfortunately, we have run over time. There are some other questions, but, we will try and get those answers back to you, but just not this evening. Emma, once again, thank you to you and especially thank you to Bailey's for sponsoring tonight that allowed you to come and share your knowledge.

With us. So thank you very much for that. Thank you.

And to everybody that attended tonight, huge thanks for your time. I hope you enjoyed it and as I say, give us some feedback on that survey, monkey. We really would appreciate it and I look forward to seeing you on the next one.

From myself, Bruce Stevenson, it's good night.