Feeding Program for Orphan Foals

A mare’s death is a tragedy that will be compounded if her foal isn’t quickly placed on an effective feeding and care program.  However, with proper nutrition and veterinary support, orphaned foals can be managed and successfully developed into healthy adults.  To help orphans through the tough early stages of life, an emergency feeding program was developed at the Purina Animal Nutrition Center.

Starting at birth, here are the steps in an orphan foal feeding program:

• Day 1: The first and most important step is getting colostrum into newborn foals within the first 2 hours of life. This “first milk” gives foals the antibodies they need to temporarily build up their immune systems to fight disease, but after 18-24 hours they can no longer absorb these antibodies. Check with your veterinarian right away to see if foals should receive medication of any kind and if they have achieved proper immunoglobulin levels.

Congratulations Dr. Kelly Vineyard on your book chapter!

Equine Applied and Clinical Nutrition is a brand new text book available from Elsevier Publishing. It is an up-to-date, in-depth resource for equine nutritionists, veterinarians and nutrition buffs; written by experts in their individual fields. Dr. Warren (University of Florida) and Dr. Vineyard are authorities on the utilization and supplementation of fat in horses. I have enjoyed paging through the text and appreciate all the time and diligence that goes into such an undertaking. Writing a book chapter is a labor of love and the rewards include a personal sense of accomplishment and service instead of payment and great accolades. So congrats Dr. Vineyard on your contribution to Equine Applied and Clinical Nutrition, we are happy to have a “fat expert” in the house! 

A Sunny Week in Seattle

Last week the annual ACVIM (American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine) Forum was held in Seattle Washington. I was privileged to attend this event both as representative of Purina Animal Nutrition at the trade show that accompanies this meeting, as well as a practicing veterinarian to acquire continuing education. Ordinarily, I don’t mind spending all day inside a convention center when meetings like this are held in Seattle because the weather is usually less than ideal. However this year was different, with bright sun and daytime temperatures in the mid 60’s and 70’s, making it hard to be stuck inside all day. Fortunately, the ACVIM Forum is among the premier veterinary CE events in the country, known for its state of the art presentations by the top veterinarians in the world. The Forum is attended by more than 1300 veterinary internal medicine specialists and general practitioners.

In conjunction with the Forum, the AAVN (American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition) held its 13^th Annual Clinical Nutrition and Research Symposium. This event gives veterinary nutritionists, animal nutritionists and graduate students the opportunity to present their latest research findings related to nutrition and its effects on veterinary health. This year a record was set for attendance with over 160 veterinarians, nutritionists and students in attendance.  Purina Animal Nutrition was proud to sponsor the AAVN Large Animal/Equine Case Report Award, which was presented to Jennifer Gill from North Carolina State University for her submission entitled, “Evaluation of a potential insulin resistance in an obese Paso Fino mare with bilateral hind limb laminitis.” This year’s symposium featured primarily small animal (dog and cat) research abstracts that were very thought provoking. It can very useful and interesting to hear about advances in research involving other species and then to think about how they might apply to horses. An example of this was a presentation about a study investigating the traditional dietary recommendations for dogs with chronic kidney disease. This study found that protein restriction in the diet is likely not as critical as once thought, particularly with the advance of higher quality protein in most diets. It was a very enlightening talk that challenged one of the old dogmas of dietary management of dogs (and most other mammals) with kidney disease and these finding may have implications across all species including horses.

Our Time at the Equine Science Symposium

Part of the fun of traveling around the country doing horse research and attending scientific conferences is passing by sights like the “World’s Largest Pistachio.”  We couldn’t help but stop and take this in on our way to Ruidoso, New Mexico to attend the Equine Science Society (ESS) Symposium. The little shop there was full of homemade pistachio mixes from nuts grown on the property, local wine and fun gifts.  I am still enjoying the lemon-lime pistachios I picked up.

What in the world?

As for the conference, we had a great time at ESS and we stayed at the Inn of the Mountain Gods which is part of the Apache Indian reservation just outside of Ruidoso.  We had a busy schedule attending the scientific talks, meeting with colleagues and supplier companies, and catching up with the conglomerate of equine nutritionists that we get to see at this conference.  If you follow this blog regularly, I posted some pictures a few weeks back, which were a “teaser” to the talks Purina would be presenting.  Here is some more information about each one.

Horses, A Family Affair!

It should be pretty apparent if you have been following our blog by now that everyone in the horse group at Purina Animal Nutrition is passionate about horses and interacting with them. If you are involved with horses you know that it is far more complex than your average job or hobby, it is more of a lifestyle. Dr. Gordon posted a couple of weeks ago about our first foal of the year, we are now up to six on the ground and three more to go. As the manager of our research herd and faclility, one of my responsibilities is getting foals on the ground safe and sound. We use several tools to help us out. We have a special camera system and a birth alarm which are the most frequently used. We make every effort possible to be present at birth just in case the foal or mare needs some help. This past Friday I had just picked my children up from school when the birth alarm was activated, I had only been away from work for about an hour. I raced back to the farm and made it in time for my children to witness seeing their first foal being born. What a great experience, they are still talking about it 6 days later! It can be tough splitting time between the barn and family, but I feel it is important to instill in my kids the passion, time, and committment it takes if you want to spend time with these great creatures. I had lots of help bedding a fresh stall for the new foal and mare.

Then we had to get a chance to say hello for the first time before moving to our clean stall.

Being able to experience these things while at work is a chance not many people get. It is just one of the reasons we all work here, and carry so much passion for the horse with us every day. Raising these foals to become future research horses and eventually someones personal horse is a lot of responsibility, but it is one we take seriously. When someone buys a horse from us for their own personal use I know someday it will be a family treasure that hopefully they can use for their own family experience someday! We still have at least a couple of late nights left to go to get the rest of our foals on the ground, but I know I will miss getting those late calls to  get to the barn once we have everybody safe on the ground!

"Winter" Season in Florida

While many parts of the country are weathering spring storms and waiting for mud to vacate, the winter show circuits are in full swing in Florida. Well, winter according to the calendar anyways; you’ll be hard pressed to find a shaggy coat or heavy turnout anywhere in sight so I’ll use the term loosely. I was lucky enough to pack up the sunscreen, leave the snow behind myself and spend some time spectating and catching up with our national ambassadors.

First stop was Wellington and the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center. Our show jumpers keep pretty full schedules throughout their stints there. I stopped by to watch the Thursday grand prix class and see Beezie Madden, Laura Kraut and Todd Minikus in action. It was a big class with 86 entries and a 28 pair jumpoff. There were dozens of international riders also in the class and several Olympians that competed in London last year; as usual the competition in Wellington never disappoints. The jumpoff was chalk full of talent and blistering paces and while we didn’t come away with a Team Purina win, Laura and Cedric held their own with a very respectable fifth place finish from a clear round in 31.468 seconds.

5 Reasons to try the NEW Purina Horse Supplements

Like the Purina Hydration Hay Original Horse Hay Block, we can finally start talking about the BRAND NEW Purina Horse Supplements! Specifically, there are four new supplements that hit the market in January 2013; Purina FreedomFlex Joint Health Product, HydraSalt Salt Supplement, ElectroEase Electrolyte Supplement, and ElectroEase Electrolyte Paste Supplement. They are so new that you probably have not heard much about them. The new Purina supplement website is a great place to find all of the technical information about these new supplements. Here, I want to highlight some special features and unique technology that sets these supplements apart from what is already available on the market. 

The New Purina Horse Supplements

1. Scientific Research

When we first started discussing the possibility of developing a supplement line, we decided very early on that it was important to have scientific data behind any supplement we sold. This was a key reason why we chose to partner with Science Supplements, an established and reputable supplement company based in the UK. We looked at the extensive research that they had already performed, and built upon that with our own studies conducted at the Purina Animal Nutrition Center. This gave us the confidence to bring these products to the U.S. market, knowing that their formulas are backed by sound scientific principles.

Hydration Hay is now available and we can finally talk about it!

Hydration Hay Package, Block and Fully Soaked

When I show customers the Hydration Hay for the first time, I joke that this product is worth 7 years of my life. When I joined Purina in 2005, they were already working on a similar project that involved compressed hay blocks that could potentially slow down intake time and reduce glucose and insulin response to feeding. At the time, we worked with a company that made custom, handmade machinery for the compression and research trials were underway. In that process, we learned that A) horses found ways to eat the dry, compressed blocks more quickly than expected (picking them up with their mouths, dropping hayblocks on the ground, crushing them with their hoof and then eating the pieces) and B) our manufacturers were not able to keep up with the projected demand for the product. So we kept going back to the drawing board and the hayblocks even went back on the research shelf for short while until we figured out our next steps.

Drs. Vineyard and Gordon present Purina research at a national scientific meeting

It is no secret that we stay very busy with research projects throughout the year at the Purina Animal Nutrition Center in Gray Summit, MO. Not surprisingly, every project is in some way related to horse feed, whether it is the formulation, palatability, physiological effect on the horse, or some other aspect we are interested in. The results of all these studies are used to enhance our current products or to create new ones. When we discover something we feel is of interest to other nutritionists (and is not considered proprietary), we will present and publish the results of the study at a national scientific meeting to an audience of our peers (i.e. other scientists).

Scientific meetings are a great place to meet with fellow nutritionists and discover what is new and exciting in the world of equine nutrition. The American Society of Animal Science held its annual meeting in mid-July in Phoenix, AZ, and Dr. Gordon and I attended to present 2 Purina research posters.

The study I presented was entitled “Biochemical markers of bone metabolism in growing Quarter Horses fed a higher starch versus a higher fat diet”. This abstract was published in the Journal of Animal Science (W146, J.Anim. Sci. Vol. 90, Suppl. 3).

Dr. Gordon presented a study entitled “Horses decrease water intake when supplements are added to drinking water”. This abstract was also published in the Journal of Animal Science (W138, J. Anim. Sci. Vol. 90, Suppl. 3).

One other fun thing for me was to be featured as part of the “I am an Animal Scientist” campaign at the meeting. The Animal Science Society asked members to send in a picture of themselves doing something with the animal they work with and to provide a quote explaining "why you are an Animal Scientist”. These photos/quotes were posted at various places at the convention center where the meetings took place. I just wish I had been a little less “verbose” so that more of my horse Roman would have shown up in the picture!

All in all, attending and presenting data at scientific meetings is a great way to stay on top of the latest research and to share information with other scientists that ultimately can be used for the benefit of the horse.

2011 Equine Science Society Symposium

Recently, the Purina team travelled to Murfreesboro, TN, for the Equine Science Society Symposium. If you’ve never heard of the Equine Science Society, you can learn more about it at their website. The Society is comprised of equine scientists from both academia and industry, and the bi-annual symposium is a place where any significant research in the fields of nutrition, reproduction, exercise physiology, genetics, management, and many other fields pertaining to equine health and management are presented. Basically, anyone doing any “real” research involving equine science will be at this meeting. Many cutting edge ideas and technologies in nutrition and other aspects of horse management are presented here first. This is why I personally had to be there, even if it meant hauling my 8-week old son along with me. He handed the trip very well, by the way, and check out the amount of stuff we needed for just 4 days (good thing we drove and did not fly)!

I also was there to present the data from two of Purina’s research studies in the poster session. One of the studies was entitled “Evaluation of the safety and performance of an enteral diet formulated specifically for horses”. This was the culmination of the research that went into the development of our new liquid diet for sick horses, Wellsolve Well-Gel, which is now currently available to veterinarians. The other study was entitled “Milk composition in mares fed a fat and fiber-added concentrate”. This data was compiled as part of the research that was done for the development of Ultium Growth. Dr. Mary Beth Gordon presented the majority of the data from the Ultium Growth project in an oral presentation, which covered the growth characteristics and the glucose/insulin dynamics of foals on the trial. She did an excellent job presenting the comprehensive data that spanned the course of two years. This data showed that feeding foals a typical sweet feed such as Omolene 300 will not cause them to become insulin resistant. Her final summarizing comment that “carbohydrates are not always evil” was met with hearty applause by the scientists in the audience! Dr. Kathy Williamson also gave a presentation that discussed our use of a GPS tracking system to assess the activity level of the foals on the Ultium Growth research trial. All of these studies were published in the May 2011 issue of the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science.

In addition to me and Drs. Gordon and Williamson, Drs. Raub, Davison, and Young, several members of our sales force, and Mike and Andrea from the research farm were in attendance. I am very proud of the fact that I work for a company that remains active in equine nutrition research and emphasizes proven science over fads and hype, which seems to be the norm for many feed and supplement companies these days. I know it is often hard for horse owners to decipher what is real from what is just a “good story”, because marketers do such a good job of making outrageous claims sound so…legitimate. If you ever question the validity of a claim, just ask to be shown the science that supports that claim. At Purina, I can assure you that we go to great lengths to ensure that any claim we make is backed by solid research and proven results.

More research feed going out the door...

Last week, Kent Lanter and I traveled to our horse feed plant in Guilderland, NY. We were there to make a test run of a new feed formulation we are doing research on. This is a different feed than the one we made at Mulberry in April- we have lots of irons in the fire!

As usual, the plant did a great job prepping for our test and having everything on hand we needed. Its always great to work in the plants and get to be involved in the manufacturing process from set up to sewing up the bags! Special thanks to Jim Hopkins, Gary Slater and the rest of the GNY team.

After our successful manufacturing test, the feed was shipped out to 9 different farms across the country to be fed to over 100 horses. Feed is also being shipped to our research farm at Longview where it will continue in trials with our own horses.

And for those of you that know Kent Lanter (aka MacGyver), I was especially lucky to have him in my neck of the woods last week. During his visit, he helped me to feed my horses, do barn chores and fix a window in my sunroom that had been broken for quite some time. Hand him a screwdriver and that man goes to work!

Have a great day! Mary Beth

Manufacturing research feeds

I had a fun and productive day yesterday with Kent Lanter and Steve Furst at our Mulberry horse feed mill in central Florida. Kent and I traveled there to oversee the manufacturing of a new feed that is being shipped out for a large research project. Kent is our "mad scientist" so to speak that helps us on the process research side and to figure out how all the different ingredients us nutritionists want to put in a feed will actually end up as something a horse will eat! Steve is the plant manager with a huge amount of experience and always runs a great mill with a crew that is willing to work with us on new feeds and designs.

I always like spending time in our mills and it makes me proud to see how things are running smoothly- from ingredient testing, to mixing, pelleting, blending, packing, etc. Its nice to work with all our dedicated employees that are ensuring the feed is made correctly and with our high quality standards.

We made three different rations yesterday, 30 tons of feed in all that is now enroute to its research location. I wish I could tell you what it was, but of course, that is top secret while we are in the development phase. I can tell you this- if this product performs as expected, it won't hit the market until 2012 at the earliest! It takes time to do good research and develop new and innovative products that are good for the horse. A lot of formulating, testing, retesting, field trials and more.

So enjoy the pics of our Mulberry mill at sunrise and all the feed ready to load on the trucks! That's all you're getting for now....

And I have to give a shout out to Dr. Kelly Vineyard. This is actually a research project that she has been working on- and she was not able to make it to the mill because she is officially on maternity leave! Baby Owen Robert Vineyard was born last Tuesday, April 5th and the whole family is doing very well.

Have a great day!

Welcome to our farm!

This week, our horse group hosted an equine nutrition conference for horse owners at LongView Animal Nutrition Center, which is our research farm in Gray Summit, MO. I really enjoy these events, because I get to meet so many interesting and successful horse professionals who have been personally invited by one of our Equine Specialists to attend. I also love the opportunity it gives us to “show off” our facilities and our people! I realize that it is probably impossible for most people to truly understand the level of commitment that Purina has to making exceptional horse feed….until they come to the research farm. I think that once someone actually sees first-hand what goes on “behind the scenes”, the immense amount of time and energy that goes into making our feed becomes obvious. Since we’d never be able to have every single horse owner in the country come to the farm in person, the entire purpose of this research blog is to serve as your personal “behind the scenes” view of our farm...so you can get a feel for our daily activities and our commitment to “do best by the horse” in all things.

If you were at our LongView conference this week, your daily agenda would have included the following lectures by our experts:

• Ingredients and Process Research
• Feed Quality
• Equine Reproduction and Growth
• Equine Sports Nutrition (this was my lecture topic)
• Equine Digestive Physiology
• Body Condition Scoring

In addition, you would taken a farm tour and seen our:

• Horse palatability lab
• Exercise physiology equipment, including a demo by one of our treadmill horses
• Herd of 70+ research horses of all ages
• Veterinary services lab
• Dairy, beef, and other species research units

It’s hard work putting this type of event together, but totally worth it. I hope that as time goes on, you will understand and appreiciate that we take equine nutrition research seriously at Purina. Stay tuned, there’s a lot more to come!

My Research Reality....for today

What is neat about this blog is that all of our followers can see first hand all the great research we are working on at Purina. But my day today didn't really involve exciting hands on work. It instead involved reading literature about digestibility of feedstuffs in horses. This picture on the left shows a small portion of some of the heavy reading I did. Digestibility in horses can be a tricky thing. We have done some very extensive and detailed trials at Purina measuring exactly what is going in and what is going out of our research horses on a daily basis. We collect manure and urine in special collection harnesses and we measure feed intake to a 10th of a pound. But when those animal studies are over, we move onto the analysis phase where we organize and interpret all the data, run statistics on the numbers to look for differences and overall, see if our results match our research hypothesis. Right now, we are analyzing data from a very large digestibility trial that had multiple collection phases and has taken almost 2 years to complete. We will spend the next few months analyzing the thousands of data points we collected. It may not be exciting to many people, but I really enjoy this part of the process. I like analyzing the numbers and really seeing if something works. How did the test product really perform? Are the differences between treatment and control diets significant? What does it mean physiologically to the horse? These are all questions we work to answer everyday. And although it involves just working in front of my computer and reading all day, its fun nonetheless.

You never stop learning

One of the things I love most about my job is the opportunity I have to interact with other nutritionists and to learn “what’s new” in animal nutrition. It is an ever-changing field, so you must stay current with the latest research. Today, I attended the American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition’s Clinical Nutrition and Research Symposium in Anaheim, CA. This meeting was not just for horses, but for all companion animal species. It was my first time to ever attend, and what a great opportunity it was to hear what the “hot topics” are in small animal nutrition as compared to equine nutrition. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are many similarities, and I feel like I am taking some valuable information back home with me. For example, including soluble fiber in dog and cat diets is a big focus right now. The small animal nutritionists are using some alternative sources of fiber that to my knowledge no one is currently using in horse diets (so, is this a potential new ingredient for horse feed??). Also, there was a study in dogs that looked at feeding a probiotic supplement to reduce the incidence of diarrhea. The supplement used in the study had no effect on the frequency or incidence of diarrhea and may actually have had a negative impact on fecal consistency (so, do we need to be more careful about feeding probiotics to horses??).

There were a few horse-specific presentations, and they all somehow related to glucose/insulin regulation in the horse. There was some good evidence to support the recommendation I always give to owners with insulin resistant (IR) horses – “you MUST limit pasture intake”. It is well-documented that grass pasture can induce a significant spike in insulin levels that would not be good for a horse with IR. Luckily, most horses can tolerate pasture grass with no problems. However, we now know that there is a population of susceptible horses out there that we must monitor pasture intake to prevent pasture-associated laminitis and other related health concerns.

I find these types of meetings to be highly educational and very beneficial, as keeping up with “what’s new” in the nutrition world is the only way to stay on the cutting edge.