Mottled Muzzle Puzzle???

As a veterinarian who works for an animal nutrition company, I frequently have the opportunity to interact with customers who have questions about health issues that may be nutritionally related. I frequently hear from horse owners whose horse has developed white spots on their face, usually around the muzzle and/or eyes. The conversation typically goes something like this: “My horse suddenly developed white spots on his muzzle and around his eyes. I read on the internet how this was called vitiligo or leukoderma and is caused by a deficiency of vitamin A (or copper or zinc or iron or vitamin D or….). How could this be since he is on Strategy^® horse feed and excellent pasture, and I know he is getting all the vitamins and minerals he needs? I tried to find more information about this online, but couldn’t find much that was very scientific. When I asked my vet, she told me that it was a cosmetic problem that won’t affect his overall health and that not much is known about what causes it or how to treat it. I’m confused, and don’t know what to believe or what I can do about it. Can you help me?”

The confusion is understandable. There are at least two distinct conditions which result in virtually identical outward clinical appearance: depigmentation (loss of color) of pigmented bare (no hair cover) skin. As a result, there is a great deal of uncertainty about which term should be applied and what the inciting cause of the depigmentation may be. Therefore the terms “leukoderma” and “vitiligo” are often used interchangeably, even though leukoderma and vitiligo are definitely not the same. And misinformation propagated on the Internet further muddies the waters.

Purina ambassador Guest Post – Beezie Madden

Purina has been our choice of feeds through the past two Olympics, numerous World Cup Finals, including one fantastic win and through the development of many top horses. I have been honored to represent Purina® products since 2007 and this relationship has always been about providing the best for the horses. John and I made a decision to feed Purina® products for an entire year before signing a sponsorship deal, to make sure we were happy, our staff was happy and most importantly, our horses were happy. At the end of that test year, we were convinced that Purina offered products, research and service that we could feel confident lending our names to.

We always say that winning is just a byproduct of what we do every day outside of the show ring. We strive to provide the best in care for the horses in everything from shoeing to vet-work to consistent training. Our feed program naturally fits into this. Purina products, especially the Enrich Plus™ ration balancing feed we've been using recently, have offered our horses consistent quality. It is great that our staff can be secure knowing that whether we're at our home farm in Cazenovia, New York, our winter home in Wellington, Florida or at any of the many other shows we frequent throughout a show season, when we pick up a bag of feed for our horses, we know the feed will have the same quality products inside.

Purina Ambassador Laura Kraut – Guest Post

For as long as I can remember the red and white checkerboard has been part of my life. We fed my first pony Purina® horse feed. I’m not sure which type we used, but I remember the checkerboard on the label and the great smell when we opened a new bag.  My pony loved it of course, and I was very proud to feed him grain made by such a famous company. Now, many years later (more than I want to count) my horses are all fed Purina® products. From my pony, “Siamese Kat,” at the barn down the road, to “Cedric” at the games in Beijing and countless international competitions, Purina has been with me every stride along the way. 

My stable in Wisconsin was a test barn for Strategy® horse feed over 20 years ago. I found this to be an interesting process during which my sister and barn manager Mary Elizabeth and I learned a great deal about equine nutrition. We were happy to be part of the team who helped bring the Strategy® formula to market, and now, many years later Purina® Strategy® horse feeds have provided over a billion feedings to horses across the country. We also utilize other grains such as Equine Senior® horse feed, Ultium® Competition Horse Formula, Omolene#100® and Omolene #400® horse feeds and the recent addition of Strategy®Healthy Edge® horse feed. Horses have different nutritional needs depending on their age and level of work, but we have found that these products meet the needs of everyone in the barn. 

Eastern Equine Encephalomyelitis continues to be an issue in 2013: are your horses protected?

2012 was a fairly bad year for Eastern Equine Encephalomyelitis (EEE) in the US.  209 cases were reported to the USDA-APHIS Veterinary Service.  This was a marked increase compared to the 60 cases reported in 2011, but still not quite as high as the 2 previous years.  (For a breakdown of the historical cases of EEE in the US for the last 10 years please visit:  http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahss/equine/ee/2012_eastern_equine_encephalitis_final.pdf ).

As of August 13, there have been 55 reported veterinary cases of EEE in the US.  Florida leads the way with 25 cases, and Georgia is second with 10.  Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas and Maryland are also reporting cases.

Purina Ambassador Brittany Pozzi Guest Post

Hi Purina Readers! My name is Brittany Pozzi and I am a 2x World Champion and 9x NFR qualifier for Victoria, TX. I have been teamed up with Purina for about 7 years now and would not feed any other product. Purina strives to be the best and I want to give the best feed on the market to my horses. Before Purina ever became one of my sponsors I was on the test program for Ultium® Growth Horse Formula and loved it.

My small operation that I started with has grown to a semi large operation with 11 broodmare, 2 studs, 30 horses in barrel training, race horses on the track, and 3 full time rodeo horses. Needless to say that is a lot of horse to feed and take care of and make sure they are always on top of their game and with Purina I can do that. 

Ration Balancers - What are they and how do I use them?

Note: This is an update to a blog originally posted in March 2011. Purina Enrich 12 and Enrich 32, mentioned in the original blog, have been discontinued and replaced by the new and improved version of Enrich 32, Purina Enrich Plus. 

You may have heard the term “ration balancer” before, but do you know what it means and how to use it in a feeding program? Even though I’d been around horses most of my life, I had never heard the term until I was in graduate school. Feeding a ration balancer is a relatively new concept in feeding horses, and it is one of my favorite products in the Purina line because of its versatility of use. A ration balancer is a concentrated feed (usually in pelleted form) designed to be fed at a low feeding rate (~1 – 2 lbs/day) that supplies protein, vitamins, and minerals at the correct level to balance a forage-based forage program. There are several scenarios when you may want to consider feeding a ration balancer, such as Purina Enrich Plus.

The Easy Keeper
Does your horse maintain bodyweight on plenty of good quality forage? Is he currently not in work or only ridden lightly? Then he is the perfect candidate for a ration balancer. Many people think that these types of horses do just fine on forage alone, but this is not necessarily the case. Yes, these horses do not need extra calories from a grain concentrate, but they still need essential amino acids like lysine, vitamins, and minerals like copper and zinc that are not present in adequate amounts in forage. Even though it may look like a horse is “fat and sassy” on forage alone, they could be suffering from a deficiency that would not show itself until the horse becomes stressed (i.e. exposed to a virus, hauled somewhere new, etc.). A ration balancer won’t contribute a significant amount of calories to the horse’s diet because of the low feeding rate, but it will provide the essential nutrients to “balance” a ration based on forage. You can almost think of a ration balancer as a horse’s daily multi-vitamin (+ protein). Many easy keepers are also suffering from metabolic syndrome, and Enrich Plus is low in soluble carbohydrates and appropriate for horses requiring a carbohydrate-restricted diet.

Feeding below the Recommended Feeding Rate
Did you know that feed manufactures have a minimum recommended feeding rate for their feeds? At Purina, we pay close attention to this. We formulate feeds to be fed at rates ranging from 0.3 lbs – 0.9 lbs/100 lbs bodyweight, depending on the specific formula. This information can usually be found as a sentence on the feed tag stating “do not feed less than 0.X lbs per 100 lbs bodyweight per day”. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize this and end up underfeeding their horses. For example, if you are feeding a 1000 lb horse 2 lbs per day of Strategy (this might equate to ~1/2 “scoop” per day, depending on the scoop size), you are most likely not meeting all nutrient requirements, since the recommended feeding rate is 0.3 lbs/100 lbs bodyweight. I see this even more commonly with complete feeds like Equine Senior or Omolene 400. The minimum feeding rates for complete feeds are a bit higher at 0.6 lbs per 100 lbs bodyweight. This means that a 1000 lb horse should be receiving 6 lbs per day. Many horses are fed well below this level. This is where a ration balancer comes in handy. Enrich Plus works really well to “fill in the nutritional gaps” of a diet where a horse is only being fed a small amount of concentrate.

I find that I use a combination of Enrich Plus and Ultium frequently for Warmblood horses in light to moderate work (i.e. low level dressage). Warmbloods tend to be easy keepers, but those that are working do benefit from some of the unique attributes of Ultium. However, if you fed the minimum recommended amount of this calorie-dense feed to an easy-keeper 1500 lb Hanoverian (6 lbs/day), that horse could quickly become obese! In order to be sure all nutrient requirements are met while avoiding unwanted weight gain, this horse could be fed 1 lb Enrich Plus and 2 – 4 lbs Ultium per day. This program can work quite well in many situations and is not just for Warmbloods or limited to Ultium, but for any easy keeper horse with any feed you prefer.

Feeding Straight Grains or other Unfortified Ingredients
Many people like to feed straight oats, barley, beet pulp, alfalfa pellets, etc. These are all great ingredients, but unfortunately they are not nutritionally balanced by themselves. Another great use for a ration balancer is to supplement this type of a feeding program. Basically, the plain ingredients are used as calorie and fiber sources, and the ration balancer is used to “fill in the nutritional gaps” of these ingredients, supplying essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals.

Feeding as a protein supplement
Sometimes, a horse may benefit from additional high-quality protein in the diet. Perhaps he is returning to work after a long lay-up and needs to rebuild muscle. Perhaps he has lost muscle due to an injury or illness, and needs some additional protein in his diet to help him recover. Enrich Plus can be used in this type of situation as well, simply by top-dressing ½ - 1 lb per day over the horse’s regular daily feed.

But isn’t 32% protein TOO MUCH???
This is something that horse owners usually are concerned with if they are not familiar with a ration balancer. To understand why 32% protein is most definitely not too much, you must consider two very important things: 1) the horse’s daily protein requirement, and 2) the recommended feeding rate.

To easily illustrate this, let’s take a hypothetical 1000 lb Quarter Horse in light work. See the table below to see where the dietary protein and lysine would come from:

	Protein (g)	Lysine (g)
1 lb Enrich Plus (32% protein; 2.7% lysine)	145	12
3 lbs Strategy (14% protein; 0.9% lysine)	191	12
12 lbs grass hay (10% protein; 0.4% lysine)	545	22
Horse’s daily requirement	635	25

So, as you can see, the amount of protein contained in the recommended amount of Enrich Plus is actually LESS than the amount of protein in the recommended level of Strategy for this particular horse. You can also see that the majority of the protein requirement would be provided by the forage, but that forage alone does not meet the horse's lysine and protein requirement. Feeding either Enrich Plus or Strategy would meet the horse’s daily protein and lysine requirements, and the decision on which to feed should be based on his body condition and calorie requirements.

There are a variety of uses for a ration balancer, and many times it is the most appropriate choice for your horse. If I had one Purina feed product that I could not live without, it would definitely be Enrich Plus!

Feed Fit for a King - Purina and the Budweiser Clydesdales

Ok, I admit it.  Even after a year of working with the Budweiser Clydesdales, I am still the worst stereotype of a horse-crazy tourist—taking pictures with my phone of the horses, the dogs, the wagons, me with the horses, and the dogs, and the horses again, etc.  Lucky for me, the folks who work with the Clydesdales are some of the nicest, most patient people I’ve met.  And the horses are absolutely magnificent!  How can you not be awestruck when you’re standing next to Big Jake, and can barely reach his withers standing on tiptoes?  And the yearlings are as big as my own full-grown horses! To top it off, the horses are really as great as I ever dreamed they would be—sweet, kind, and endlessly tolerant of their admirers. To me, spending time with the Budweiser Clydesdales is pretty much as good as it gets.

 

So what is Purina doing with the Clydesdales?  About a year ago, we started working with the horses at Grant’s Farm in St. Louis, and with the horses on the traveling teams. The folks in charge of the horses were looking for a consistent feed program, and while various Purina® feed products have been fed to the Clydes for quite a few years, this was the first time that the Purina equine technical and research teams put together an organized feeding program and started collecting data on the growing and mature horses.  Mike Jerina (manager of our Equine Research Unit), Tim Maxey from Straatmann Feed, Tod Wideman (Purina local sales specialist) and I have been meeting with Dave Hennen of Anheuser-Busch Clydesdale Operations and his team monthly for the past year to weigh, measure and determine body condition scores of the young Clydes at Grant’s Farm, and make sure that they are on the best feeding program to support growth.  I can’t speak for Mike and the others, but it has been a great learning experience for me!

One of the early issues that emerged from our monthly meetings is that even though the horses are so much larger and heavier than the light horse breeds, many of them are VERY easy keepers and require very little feed to maintain appropriate body weight and condition, especially since they are fed high quality hay and have free access to pasture during much of the year.  This was even true for some of the young growing horses, so we had to make adjustments to the original plan.  We started with Ultium® Growth Horse Formula for the youngsters, but switched to Enrich Plus™ ration balancing feed for several of the easiest keepers to keep them from gaining too much weight. Like all growing horses, it is extremely important to provide essential nutrients in correct balance with calories to support optimal growth.

The Clydesdales on the hitches are a mixed batch.  Since they are working horses, we are feeding a combination of Omolene® horse feed, some Amplify® High-Fat Supplement, and some Enrich Plus™ feed along with high quality grass hay.  A few of the hitch horses are again such easy keepers that Enrich Plus™ feed and hay is enough to maintain body weight and condition.  Of course, it is very important to everyone involved that the horses always look their best, are happy and healthy, and receive the highest quality nutrition possible.

An especially memorable experience took place on January 16 of this year, when Mike and I traveled to Warm Springs Ranch in Booneville, Mo., the Budweiser Clydesdales breeding farm.  We arrived about 5 hours after the birth of the first filly of the year, and enjoyed taking pictures and watching her figure out where to find breakfast (Mama’s elbow was not very rewarding for the little girl).  Little did we know that we were in the presence of a future TV star – the baby was Hope, the star of the Budweiser commercial for the Big Game!

One aspect of our relationship with the Budweiser Clydesdales that struck home with me is the similarities between our companies. Both brands share a history that is rooted in St. Louis, Missouri, and is based on a tradition of quality, integrity and innovation.  In talking and interacting with the people who work with the Clydesdales, it is very quickly apparent that they take great pride in their company and its heritage, and are dedicated to the care and welfare of their horses.  At Purina Animal Nutrition, we certainly share the passion for our animals, as well as the pride in our company and its history.  It seems like a perfect partnership for our two companies to work together, and I look forward to a long and mutually rewarding relationship with the fabulous, beautiful, enormous(!) Budweiser Clydesdales.