Tuesday, February 12, 2013

It is Fat Tuesday Afterall...

...so lets talk food. My goal for the next couple of months is to get Kwik settled into a routine- nutritionally and training-wise.

I need to figure out what feed/supplement combinations will best work for him. At the old barn, I opted to keep him on the same program he was on before I arrived on the scene, which from what I understand, was a scoop of a high fat, high fiber texturized custom blend feed, 2 cups Advantage 30 ration balancer, 1 cup rice bran twice daily with 4 oz dac Oil in the AM. My new BO has been great about working with me to design a feed program for Kwik. The goal was to start him on something similar to what he's been eating (mixed with his old feed), and then make changes as needed. As of now, he is receiving a scoop of Seminole Wellness Show and Sport (12% Protein, 12% Fat) since it was the option most similar to his old feed in addition to dac Oil and rice bran. BO and I are a bit worried the Show and Sport will make him hot since he's not in strenuous work, and truth be told, I have noticed he's a bit more up than usual. Granted, he's still settling in, but the plan is to gradually switch him over to Perform Safe (12% Protein, 8% Fat) and keep the rice bran. I'm a little unsure at this point whether or not to keep the fat supplement- Kwik definitely needs to put some weight on, but I don't want to add unnecessary calories. I'd also like to put him on a digestive supplement to see if he can maintain his weight a little better with some probiotic/prebiotic support.

I've also been in a perpetual state of confusion surrounding joint maintenance. My vet strongly recommends injectables for long-term therapy in horses with no to mild joint disease, and many of his clients have seen great results with Acetylglucosamine. I had just about made up my mind to go solely with AGS until SmartPak's lil magazine came in the mail last night. I was intrigued by the two papers Dr. Gray referenced that found that consistent use of oral glucosamine/chondroitin supplements decreased the need for joint injections to maintain soundness in a cohort of show hunters/jumpers and that consistent use of oral MSM may help to protect against oxidative and inflammatory exercise-induced injury (from jumping, etc.). I will pull the papers and read them in their entirety, but it was nice to see some science supporting oral joint supplements. At this point, I'm going to start two doses/month of injectable AGS, and I may add MSM to Kwik's SmartPak.

Yikes, as a nutrition newbie, there are so many options out there, and wading through all of the information is overwhelming. It will take some time, but I'm determined to educate myself so I can get Kwik going as his healthiest self. Any comments, suggestions, advice are welcome and appreciated!

In other news, we went on a trail ride on Saturday with M and Sherlock and two new horses, one of which was a little on edge. Kwik definitely fed off of that energy- he wasn't bad per say, but he definitely wasn't his usual relaxed self on the trail. I'm thinking, at least for these first couple of months, that I need to be careful about only going out with horses who are familiar with the trails and rock steady so each experience is relaxed, fun, and stress-free. We had a wonderful flat school in the arena Sunday morning (no mach 10 trot!) and a beautiful trail ride with J and Annie, the farm's oldest resident (Kwik was great). Let the good times roll!

2 comments:

  1. Sounds great. Glad that your trail ride was fun. Joint supplements are kind of an anomaly to me. Different vets will recommend different things. The general consensus among my various vets seems to be that oral joint supplements aren't proven or effective. Yet one of them recommended hue take tandem. I also did a trial of polyglycan and thought it worked well. It would be similar to adequan. Good luck figuring out what works for kwik!

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    1. It really is confusing! Hopefully the combo of MSM and AGS will work. We will see!

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