Ep. 093: Cracking the Code on Horse Energy - What Every Owner Should Know

Episode Notes

When it comes to horse nutrition, understanding energy is key to building a healthier, more resilient equine partner.

On this episode, co-hosts Dr. Tania Cubitt and Katy Starr discuss important insights into horse energy needs, including:

• What “energy” actually means for horses and why it’s different than you might think
• How carbohydrates, fats, and fiber each contribute differently to a horse’s energy supply
• How to match energy intake to your horse’s work level and body condition

Whether you're feeding a top competitor or a trail partner, this conversation will give you more confidence in what and how you're feeding your horse.

🎧 Listen now on Beyond the Barn!

Have a topic idea or feedback to share? We want to connect with you! Email podcast@standlee.com

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*Views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Standlee Premium Products, LLC.*

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Supporting Resources – 

• ~19:30 – Discussing lower critical temperature in horses, knowing how much extra digestible energy is needed in the diet to keep warm in the colder temperatures and then also in windy and rainy conditions - Ep. 024: Why Horses Need to Be Fed Differently During Winter podcast episode
• ~20:21 – National Research Council. 2007. Nutrient Requirements of Horses: Sixth Revised Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/11653.

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Read full episode transcript

Katy Starr (00:01):

Hi, I'm Katy.

 

Dr. Cubitt (00:02):

And I'm Dr. Cubitt. We're going Beyond the Barn. Come join us on this journey as we bust equine and livestock nutrition myths, and interview some of the most intriguing experts in the country.

 

Katy Starr (00:15):

We'll go behind the scenes of how premium Western quality forage is grown and brought to your favorite farm and ranch retail store. We're so glad you're here. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Barn. Dr. Cubitt, it's great to have you back with us today.

 

Dr. Cubitt (00:33):

Good to be back.

 

Katy Starr (00:34):

Today we're going to be talking about energy in horse diets, how it's used in the horse's body, different sources for it, things like that. And so, I think today will be an interesting conversation for us.

 

Dr. Cubitt (00:48):

You and I always come up with these topics and we think, "oh, it'll just be a short one." And I think we thought that with this, but in our earlier discussion we realized that there is so many facets to talking about energy in horses. Everybody kind of, when you say the word energy thinks of something different. So, hopefully we can clear up some of that, clarify some of that touch on all the usage terms for energy. So, I think it'll be a good one today.

 

Katy Starr (01:16):

Yeah, that'll be great. Just as a reminder, any of the topics that we cover on the Beyond the Barn podcast are more generalized and not specific to any individual horse or any specific situation. So, be sure to always work with your veterinarian and nutritionist before making any drastic changes to your horse's feed program. Or you can reach out and talk directly with Dr. Cubitt or Dr. Duren about any specifics that you would like to know. So, let's get started on with some of the basics. When we talk about energy, like you said, there's so many facets to it, but in a horse's diet, what is energy exactly?

 

Dr. Cubitt (01:54):

Let's just go back and not say horse or human or anything but go back to high school. Actually, my 11-year-old son is in elementary school and had to learn this,energy is the ability to do work, right? And the basic unit of energy, like you weigh yourself in pounds, you measure distance in miles. The energy unit is calories. We use the term synonymously all the time, but calories are really the measurement that we use for energy. And one little calorie is actually how much heat does it take to take one gram of water and heat it one degree centigrade. I know we're using metric, but that's a scientific world. So, that is what, one little, tiny calorie, how much energy does it take to get that little gram of water increased by a degree? And I know that doesn't really make much sense when we're talking about feeding horses, but that's just kind of the basic science of energy and how to measure it, what the measurement is.

 

Katy Starr (03:10):

Excellent. And so, what would you say maybe is a common misconception about energy that horse owners have?

 

Dr. Cubitt (03:20):

Well, maybe there's a couple, but I would say the very first one that jumps out at me, and especially when I was reading through the questions, and we kind of talked about this as a topic, is that people, when you say the word energy, immediately go to, "oh my gosh, that's going to make my horse go fast." We think about energy as a behavior versus as a fuel. So, when I think about energy in the context we're talking about it here, we're talking about fuel. How much fuel does it take to move my legs? How much fuel does it take for my heart to beat? That kind of thing, versus I'm not thinking about how fast is a horse going to go. Also, it's not really a misconception, probably just a misuse of terms, and we didn't talk about it in the first question, so I'll just clarify this now.

 

Dr. Cubitt (04:08):

When you see on human food packaging, you're not going to see it on horse food packaging. We'll talk about that later. But when we talk about a calorie represented with a little C, that is one unit, one calorie is a little C, there are a thousand of those little calories in a kilocalorie. And you may have seen kilocalorie when you talk about horse feed or in a forge analysis. Here's where it gets, you know, why can't everything be super simple? If you see the word calorie written with a capital C, that's actually a kilocalorie. So, that's a thousand calories. Then the megacalorie, which is what we measure horse food in, that's a million little tiny calories. We don't talk about little tiny calories with horses because that's a thousand pound animal. He needs a lot of fuel or a lot of energy. So, we use megacalorie, which is a million tiny little calories.

 

Katy Starr (05:08):

Okay. So, now as we go further into this discussion on energy, can you talk about, because often when we deal with horses, we talk about digestible energy, but there's some different levels to that and how we get to digestible energy. Can you explain some of those for listeners?

 

Dr. Cubitt (05:27):

Yeah, yeah. And especially those listeners that are also familiar with other livestock industries like the cattle, they might have seen the word metabolizable energy. So, it's kind of a whole process. And if you think about the food that's sitting in front of you, the plate of mac and cheese, the bucket of oats, it by itself, we can do some analytical techniques, we can burn it and do some things in a lab, and we can work out how much gross energy, total energy is sitting there in that plate of mac and cheese or in that bucket of oats. But the body is not going to digest that a hundred percent efficiently. Some of that energy is going to be lost in the breakdown. So, in the horse, if you take that gross energy and you minus any energy that might be lost in the manure, that's what we call digestible energy.

 

Dr. Cubitt (06:20):

Then from there, if you then take that digestible energy, which was the gross energy, minus the manure energy, and you then minus the gas or the cow fats and the urinary energy lost, that's what metabolizable energy is. So, that number's always going to be a little bit less, because we're factoring in cows are going to lose more energy with urine and gas losses than horses. And then finally, there's a final number that we call net energy. Now, metabolizable energy, net energy, gross energy. We don't need to know any of these in horses, but I'm just kind of breaking it down. Net energy is the final number. We take that gross energy, we minus what we lost in the manure, we minus what we lost with the gas lost and the urine loss. And then we minus what we lost in chewing it, in digesting it, in the metabolic process that got that food to be turned into energy, more energy is lost doing that. And that final number is called net energy. Now, if you go to grad school or you're in animal science, you may hear these other terms. But ultimately in the horse world, we talk about digestible energy, which only factors in the amount of extra energy that is lost when they poop.

 

Katy Starr (07:44):

Excellent. And when we were talking earlier you brought up a really good point that I thought could be helpful for those that own horses and other livestock when they're sending in analysis for hay testing and feed testing and things like that. How for, if it's specific to a horse, they'll include digestible energy, but if it's not, if it's specific to cattle, they actually might have the metabolizable energy on there. So, talk about that just a little bit, because I thought that was an excellent point.

 

Dr. Cubitt (08:14):

I often get a forage analysis sent to me saying, "oh, can you help me with this for my horse?" But it was done in a lab that was specializing, giving you the numbers as if it was a cattle forage. Because in, especially in the dairy industry, forage testing has been the norm for developing these rations. So, yes, if you are wanting to utilize that forage analysis for horses, you need to make sure that you're clear with the company that you're getting it done, that you need the digestible energy value that this is for horse analysis.

 

Katy Starr (08:49):

Yeah. Excellent. And what are the primary energy sources? You talked about before, how these come from different ingredients, but what are some of the primary energy sources for horses?

 

Dr. Cubitt (09:02):

I think when we think about primary energy sources, we are thinking about carbohydrates we're thinking about fat, we're thinking about fiber. And to a lesser extent, we're talking about protein. Now all of these sources come from different ingredients and some ingredients can give you multiple sources. But these are the primary sources that the body is going to break down that ingredient into its different categories, and they're going to then be broken down and absorbed and utilized differently in the body based on the energy source that it is. It'll use different pathways and be stored in different areas of the body.

 

Katy Starr (09:42):

Okay. Can you talk a little bit about some of those different, so what would you start with? Carbohydrates? Maybe?

 

Dr. Cubitt (09:49):

I would start with carbohydrates. Yeah. I would start with carbohydrates. And I'd really break that down into, really, I shouldn't be using the term carbohydrate as an umbrella term, because carbohydrates, we know we have those sugars and starches, which are your kind of non-structural carbohydrates. And then you have fiber, which is your structural carbohydrates. So, we're really talking about the sugars and starches first, which are going to come from ingredients like cereal, grains, even spring grass can obviously give you sugar, but that source of energy is going to be broken down in the small intestine. Well, it's broken down all the way from the teeth grinding and mixing with saliva, which has got some enzymes in the stomach. And then by the time it gets to the small intestine, it's fully broken down and absorbed in the small intestine as energy. So, these sugars and starches, they're broken down into glucose and they're going to be either utilized or stored in the muscle and liver as glycogen.

 

Dr. Cubitt (10:50):

That's how it gets stored. And then when the body needs to use some of that energy, it's going to get that glycogen out of the muscle or liver, turn it back into glucose, and then use it for energy. Glycogen can be used in two different pathways. There's a pathway that we call an anaerobic pathway. It just means no oxygen. But that energy pathway fuels any exercise that is done at speed. Short bursts of fast energy - barrel racing, cutting, racehorses, right? And glycogen. That's the only energy that's going to be used there. And aerobic pathways, which utilize oxygen, which are much slower released energy sources, you're not getting it really quickly, can use glycogen, but will also use fatty acids. So, your fats. So, glycogen is a very useful source of energy. So, we started with carbohydrates. Then I would go to fats because fats are also very powerful.

 

Dr. Cubitt (11:51):

So, fats from oils or oil seeds are going to be broken down into fatty acids and glycerol, again, absorbed in the small intestine, transported via the blood to the liver where they're going to be put back together. So, in the diet, they're big, and then they get broken down into smaller particles that can be transported, and then they get put back into those bigger molecules, the triglycerides and phospholipids, so that they can be then utilized in that aerobic, using oxygen pathway. Or if it's not utilized, it's stored. And we all know what stored excess fats look like. It's just lumps of fat stored in your body. And that's primarily used for a long, slow exercise. Fats are not going to be fueling that quick release, right? That glycolytic pathway. Then we've got fiber. Fiber could be considered an ingredient, but I'm talking about it as a source.

 

Dr. Cubitt (12:54):

And fiber, the horse doesn't have the enzymes to necessarily break down fibers, but that's why we have all these bugs in microbiome that live in the hindgut of the horse, and they break down and ferment those fibers and they break them down into volatile fatty acids, which are absorbed and used immediately, not stored, just used immediately. So, you think about the hindgut is really big in its capacity. Trillions of different types of bugs. The largest part of the horse's diet is the forage, and it's getting broken down. Other things are getting absorbed. But when it comes to those microbes breaking down the volatile fatty acids, using breaking down, using, breaking down, using, right, not necessarily stored anywhere. And then the last one, and I put it last because I feel like if you ask me what's the biggest misconception about protein, is that protein is used as energy and it's going to make my horse crazy.

 

Dr. Cubitt (13:49):

Well, I always say that with every myth, there's an element of truth that started the myth. Protein can be used as an energy source, but unlike the energy sources that I've already talked about, sugars, starches, fats that get broken down, absorbed, and used directly, protein, it's not a primary energy source because it's going to get broken down into those amino acids. Those amino acids are going to go off into the body to build muscle, build tissue. Anywhere that there's tissue breakdown, amino acids are going to get used. The liver breaks down excess amino acids and can get rid of them. And one of the ways that that can happen is there's this carbon backbone on the amino acids. So, that's going to get yanked off and either oxidized and used as energy or yanked the carbon skeleton off and turn it into glucose and use it as energy. So, you can see energy has to be used to crack the carbon skeleton off, to oxidize it, to turn it into energy.

 

Dr. Cubitt (14:55):

Energy's got to be used to crack the carbon skeleton off to turn it into glucose, to use it as energy. It's not direct energy has to be used. The primary time that an animal horse, human dog, whatever, will use protein as an energy source is literally when they're starving, there's no other more efficient source available. And they're going to start breaking down their own tissue, breaking down their own muscles. So, usually we see it in a starvation case and then turning that into energy, but it's very inefficient. So, don't think about protein as a primary energy source. Yes, it can be turned into energy, but it, it's not very efficient.

 

Katy Starr (15:34):

Yeah, no, that's excellent. That breakdown was very helpful. Can you provide some examples of, I mean, we talked about megacalories, right? In terms of feeding horses. So, can you talk about some examples in different types of feeds and forages, to kind of show the range of that.

 

Dr. Cubitt (15:53):

So, I'll go from lowest to highest, and of course there's other things that are lower than this, but grass hays, and I'll say local meadow grass hays. I work a lot on the east coast. What we've seen a lot on the east coast is a local meadow grass hay with an energy value of about 0.8 Mcal per pound. So, that's kind of low. And then you know, an orchardgrass hay or a good quality, maybe second cut, timothy might be in the 0.9 Mcal per pound. If we think about alfalfa, that is ideal for horses, we're looking at about 1.1 Mcal per pound, beet pulp, slightly more calorie dense, about 1.27 Mcal per pound. Then if we bump up into the more typical energy sources like your cereal grains or rice bran, oats has a calorie contented above 1.5 Mcal per pound.

 

Dr. Cubitt (16:56):

Rice bran is the same about 1.5 Mcal per pound. But I always put those two because they're kind of opposite. If you look at one and a half pounds of oats in a bucket, because it's so dense, it looks like less volume. It is, it's less volume, 1.5 Mcal per pound of rice bran. So, a pound of rice bran in a bucket volume wise is a lot more. So, when we are thinking about kind of energy density, especially with certain horses that are not eating a lot or they don't have a lot of desire to eat, having more energy dense as in less volume can be more beneficial for them. Then if we think about something like corn, corn is stereotypical, everybody knows corn is really high in calories and it's about 1.76 Mcal per pound. But my go-to if I want pure calories, nothing else, and safe, fast amount of calories, it’s always oil fat, oil, 99% fat, and it's about 4.6 Mcal per pound.

 

Katy Starr (18:03):

Quite a bit different.

 

Dr. Cubitt (18:04):

Very, very energy dense. Right.

 

Katy Starr (18:08):

Excellent. And what would you say, what factors influence a horse's energy needs?

 

Dr. Cubitt (18:15):

Oh, well, there's so many, but the first thing I look at in determining whether the horse has enough energy or not is his body condition, right? If he's thin, he's not getting enough calories, if he's fat, he's getting too much calories. There are other things that will affect that. Age. Older horses tend to be a little thinner. Maybe they're not as effective or efficient at digesting the energy that you give them. Breaking it down workload, of course, if you're expending a lot of energy, if you're doing a lot of work because you're exercising heavily, then you need more calories. Metabolism, we all know some people have a really high metabolism. Other people's metabolism is slower. If you have a high metabolism, you're going to break down, utilize, get rid of or store calories much faster than somebody with a slow metabolism is usually someone who's going to gain weight by just looking at food. So, we know that. And then the environment, I kind of think about, okay, is it a herd environment? Is it a stallion? And they've got mares next to them, that one can factor in too.

 

Katy Starr (19:24):

Excellent. Environment-wise, would that also have to do with seasonal conditions?

 

Dr. Cubitt (19:30):

Absolutely. Temperature, we've done a podcast on cold and you know that lower critical temperature and how that's affected by wind and rain and snow covering. So, absolutely the seasonal changes can also affect a horse's energy needs.

 

Katy Starr (19:48):

And given that all horses, I mean, we like to try to speak to the fact that they are, we should treat them as individuals. There's not one set list of rules that we do for every single horse. But what are the typical energy requirements for maybe like an adult maintenance horse that doesn't have other health issues?

 

Dr. Cubitt (20:07):

Okay. So, to put this into context, I really think you need to more compare, let's say a maintenance horse versus heavy exercise versus lactation. And for those of you that are able to view our podcast, this book here, the nutrient requirements of horses is where we get all of our values from, whether it be protein requirements or energy requirements. And so for an 1100 pound horse, 500 kilograms, the Mcal, the amount of digestible energy that that horse as a guide needs per day for maintenance. So, not doing exercise, just standing out in a field, 16.7 Mcal per day. If we look at a horse, not doing light or moderate, but doing heavy exercise, we're looking at 26.6 Mcal of energy per day. For very heavy exercise like polo or racing, we're looking into the thirties for Mcal. For early lactation, that first, second, and third month of lactation, we're looking at about 31.7 Mcal per day. And then if we think about that yearling, so still growing, not doing a lot of exercise, we're looking at about 18.8 Mcal of energy per day requirement. So, you can kinda see the contrast between the physiological stage, what might be happening, those other factors that are influencing that horse and how they're influencing the energy requirements.

 

Katy Starr (21:37):

Excellent. And can a horse meet all of its energy requirements from just hay or pasture, or do some horses need more?

 

Dr. Cubitt (21:49):

Yeah, of course. Let's go back to look at these numbers here and say a horse at maintenance needs 16.7 Mcal of energy per day. Let's say you were feeding at a hundred percent alfalfa, which is 1.1 Mcal per day, and you're feeding it the bare minimum, 1.5% of its body weight. So, we're darn close 1.1 times 15 and we're 15 point something. So, absolutely, depending on the requirements of the horse and the energy value of the forage you're providing it. Yeah, there are a lot of horses that can get their energy requirements and even maybe their protein requirements from good quality forage or pasture alone.

 

Katy Starr (22:38):

Right. Excellent. And are there certain types of horses that may benefit from fat more than others as an energy ingredient?

 

Dr. Cubitt (22:51):

Yeah, I mean, I think that comes down to what are you doing with the horse? Are you doing endurance type exercise or long, slow exercise? We can also then branch out a little bit and to the less scientific world and a little bit more anecdotal and say, okay, well every horse is individual and every horse responds differently for a whole slew of different reasons. Some of which we know, some we just don't know. I have in my career worked with a lot of horses that on paper are getting a very high fat diet and enough of it that they should be morbidly obese and they're not. Why not? No idea. I can say, well, maybe it's because of the microbiome or this or that, and we put them on a higher sugar diet that is going to be converted into glucose, and they respond much better.

 

Dr. Cubitt (23:40):

So, in general, I equate I find out, okay, what are you doing with your horse? What's the goal? And then we build a diet that way. But some horses just are outliers, and they do whatever they want, and you have to be able to change. And we are very fortunate in the equine industry that we do have a lot of different options to feed this myriad of different horses. If you look at other livestock, they're all bred to be identical, but they're all bred to do exactly the same job. So, there are a lot less choices because we've designed them that way, but we have a lot of choices.

 

Katy Starr (24:16):

Right. Well, and I think we also need to remember to be a little bit cautious as we like to ask for suggestions, experience, feedback from others, especially like on social media and things like that. I guess just be cautious if somebody says, oh, you should feed this to your horse, or don't feed this to your horse. This did this to me, every horse is different. Every horse kind of utilizes things differently.

 

Dr. Cubitt (24:39):

And I think if you want to tell your story, I think you have to tell the whole story. You say, I have a horse that's 15 years old that we live in California and the weather is very warm and we don't have a lot of cold weather, and he doesn't have any pasture available. So, you're kind of setting it up and you're telling all the things, all the criteria. Right. He lives in a pasture by himself. He's not got the herd dynamic, and I fed X and it worked well for him. Right? Because someone in New England where it's snowing, they have pasture availability. The horses live in a herd, they don't come into stalls and they fed product X and it didn't work for their horse. There's nothing wrong with product X. It's just all horses are different, so, right. Yeah.

 

Katy Starr (25:24):

Well, and if you're able to work with your veterinarian and an equine nutritionist, that's where you can kind of figure out those things that, yeah, this works really great for my horse.

 

Dr. Cubitt (25:33):

Uniquely tailor a program for your horse, not somebody else's horse.

 

Katy Starr (25:38):

Or if you have more than one horse that you could be dealing with different, just because that's just how it is. I mean, I think about for me, like feeding my kids how they like, yeah. You know, take things in different, So, yeah, that's a great way to think about it. Let's talk about, now this may seem quite obvious, but I still want to talk about this because you actually brought up another thing that I found to be interesting when we were discussing this earlier. But let's talk about energy deficiency. What does that look like for a horse?

 

Dr. Cubitt (26:07):

Well, the immediate answer is energy deficiency means he's thin and you need to feed him more calories. But as you dig into that a little deeper, well, okay, maybe you're providing him plenty of calories in the diet, but there's something else that's going on. Maybe it's an old horse with poor dentition and he's not able to chew it enough to start that breakdown. Or he is spitting it out onto the ground. Maybe there's something else going on internally. I mentioned some horses responding better to fats versus carbohydrates and the connection maybe to the microbiome. There's certainly that. So, if your horse is thin, first evaluate, am I providing them enough calories? Am I providing it in a way that is the most efficient for them to digest? So, maybe I'm providing enough calories, but I'm just giving them one meal a day, not efficient. I'm breaking into three meals a day. And if you can kind of take away all of those factors, I'm giving him enough, I'm breaking it down so he should be efficient and he's still thin, then we dig a little deeper. Okay, what else is going on? Is there a disease state? Is there parasites? Is there dental issues? But if everything's perfect and they're getting everything and there's nothing wrong with them and they're still thin and you're just not feeding enough calories.

 

Katy Starr (27:22):

Right, and then how about excess energy? What happens when we feed horses more energy than they're able to use?

 

Dr. Cubitt (27:30):

They get fat. But that being said, some horses are going to get fatter on less calories than others, like 15 calories across the board is going to affect everybody differently, just like people.

 

Katy Starr (27:43):

And what would you say might be, if there is a difference that you notice, which is more common when feeding horses, having an energy deficient diet or having excess energy in the horse's diet?

 

Dr. Cubitt (27:56):

As a whole, most horses are too fat.

 

Katy Starr (28:00):

And why do you feel that way?

 

Dr. Cubitt (28:02):

I think typically people overestimate the amount of work that their horse does, so we're just feeding too many calories.

 

Katy Starr (28:10):

Do you think some people might also just out of the goodness of their heart, just feel compelled that, oh, I'll give them a little extra.

 

Dr. Cubitt (28:18):

Oh yeah. And I think there are other things that people just don't know. Like, oh, well, I'm giving him a topline builder. I'm giving him a coat conditioner. And we look at all these supplements, and most coat conditioners are very high in fat. Topline is more protein or more fat. So, you might be inadvertently just giving them a bunch of extra calories that you didn't think you were giving them.

 

Katy Starr (28:43):

You just didn't realize the different nutrients that are involved there.

 

Dr. Cubitt (28:46):

I am using oil to help his shiny coat. Well, it's also going to make them fat.

 

Katy Starr (28:51):

For horse owners that are looking to improve their feeding program, what would be some simple ways to maybe assess whether the horse's energy needs are being met so that way they aren't overfed or underfed?

 

Dr. Cubitt (29:09):

I mean, ultimately just comes down to body condition, evaluating body condition. And if you don't feel like you can honestly do it, having a third party like your veterinarian or nutritionist do it for you, that isn't like emotionally connected to the situation.

 

Katy Starr (29:23):

Biased. Yeah.

 

Dr. Cubitt (29:24):

That is the way to tell if your getting enough calories or not.

 

Katy Starr (29:28):

We know that feeding routines can change with the seasons and obviously workload. What are some best practices for adjusting a horse's energy intake throughout the year?

 

Dr. Cubitt (29:38):

And I think this is a good one, and this might fall into myths as well, or at least things that people do wrong. When we are doing less exercise with our horse, we, or they're on stall rest because of an injury, we immediately think, okay, we, we got to give them less energy because we don't want them to get fat or we don't want them to, also, their behavior because they've got excess energy, they're not using to create work. So, we cut back on the feed. But the amount of calories in a product are directly connected also to copper and zinc and selenium. Other nutrients that are, their requirement for change when you're doing less exercise does not change the same way that the calorie requirement does. So, if we are feeding the black bag at 10 pounds a day and the horse gets injured and we throw it in a stall and we feed him three pounds of that instead of the 10 pounds, then we might be really short changing him on vitamins and minerals. So, yes, we should not be afraid to alter the amount of calories we're providing to a horse depending on the workload they're doing, but we need to make sure that we're not short changing them on the nutrients that might be attached to that.

 

Katy Starr (30:52):

Yeah, that is such a great point. And as you always suggest, just kind of ease into those transitions as you're making those changes during different parts of the year. So, Dr. Cubitt, as we wrap this episode up, what are some of your key takeaways that you would like to leave listeners with about energy requirements for horses?

 

Dr. Cubitt (31:16):

I would actually say, before we get to that, there's one other thing that it wasn't in our questions, but it's probably a question that listeners might ask. And that is, why do commercial companies not list the digestible energy value on the guaranteed analysis right up there with crude protein, calcium, phosphorus, that kind of thing? And I wish we were able to, but the real reason is digestible energy is a calculated value. We don't take corn or alfalfa or whatever and burn it and put acid on it and do kind of some mad scientist work and tell you exactly how much digestible energy's in it. We take a bunch of other nutrients and we add and times and use coefficients, use different numbers. There's a whole, there's different formulas that people use to calculate digestible energy. There isn't one standardized calculation for digestible energy, like one plus one is two.

 

Dr. Cubitt (32:24):

It doesn't matter what language you're speaking, what country you're in. One plus one is always two. It is not the same with digestible energy. There are actually, if you go to Europe, I think there's like 13 or 14 different digestible energy calculations and a different feed company will use the one that makes their feed look better, I guess. So, being that it is not standardized and there's not one calculation, we will not put that on the guaranteed analysis here in the United States. That being said, when you use a forage testing lab, most forage testing labs will actually at the bottom tell you what calculation they've used or you can request which calculation they've used. When it comes to forages, we're a little bit luckier that the amount of calculations that we can use is much less as like one or two. But when we talk about cereal, grains and proteins and that kind of thing that make up your commercial concentrates, there's a whole slew of different values or calculations.

 

Dr. Cubitt (33:17):

So, back to wrapping up, I think that energy, we need to change the way we think about energy and we should think about energy as fuel. And there are so many different functions in the body that require fuel - breathing in and out, digestive function, heart function, immune function, all of these things require fuel, require energy. So, don't be afraid to supply your horse with energy, the appropriate amount of energy. I don't know whether we've done a podcast on it, but maybe we did a webinar on it that, for example, a horse that has had an injury has the energy requirements of a horse at light exercise because healing process, the recovery process takes fuel. It takes energy. So, I just understand that it's not just exercise and running fast and jumping jumps and dancing in a rectangle that defines work. Work is any kind of movement. So, the horse does a lot of work just on its own just to survive. So, we need to always be supplying energy to them. And then depending on the horse, the source of that energy may be different. Don't discount a glucose source of energy or a fat source of energy, like you said, because the internet said it was bad for that particular horse. It might be perfect for your horse. So, just like everything, what's best for your horse, let's focus on that.

 

Katy Starr (34:56):

Right. Well, and as you're talking about digestible energy and how it's not directly on the packaging and you got to work through equations and things like that. Just a reminder to our listeners too. If you feed Standlee products and you need some help with your horse's diet and figuring out added elements or anything like that, whatever their requirements are, reach out to us. Dr. Cubitt and Dr. Duren would be happy to help you work through some of those things and answer some of those questions you might have. So, that's a nice thing about being a part of us here at Standlee, is we want to be able to help you be successful with your horses and get those answers to those questions that you have so you feel confident in feeding your horses at the best way that you can for them. So, Dr. Cubitt, thank you so much for being with us today and to our listeners, we are so glad to have you here with us.

 

Katy Starr (35:50):

If you enjoyed this episode, if you've enjoyed other episodes, we would love to hear your feedback. You can talk to us, reach out to us at podcast@standlee.com. We'd also love to have your review. If you listen on Apple or Spotify, share what this podcast means to you, what you've enjoyed about listening to some of these episodes. If there's anything in particular that's really just resonated very well with you, share that so others know what it means to you and how it's impacted you and how you care for your horses and your other livestock. So, until next time, Dr. Cubitt, thanks so much for being here with us today.

 

Dr. Cubitt (36:29):

Thank you for having me.

 

Katy Starr (36:32):

Thanks for listening to the Beyond the Barn podcast by Standlee Forage. We'd love for you to share our podcast with your favorite people and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite listening platform. Until next time, keep your cinch tight and don't forget to turn off the water.