Nutrition Analysis - Understanding equine feed labelling

By Dr Catherine Dunnett, BSc, PhD, R.Nutr

Understanding a bit about feed labelling and feed manufacturing is worth the drudge, as it can help you make better choices for your horses in training and maybe even save a few pounds or dollars. Whilst the information that a feed manufacturer must legally provide can vary from country to country, it is broadly similar. The purpose of feed labelling is primarily to give information about the feed to a potential customer, allowing informed choices to be made. However, it also provides a measure against which legislators and their gatekeepers can ensure feed manufacturing is consistent and that the feed is not being misrepresented or miss-sold.

The on-bag information is most often separated into what’s known as the statutory statement (or the legally required information) and then other useful information which features outside of the statutory statement. The statutory information can be found in a discrete section of the printed bag, or it could be located on a separate ticket, stitched into the bag closure. Whichever is the case, this is the information legally required by the country’s legislators and which the feed manufacturer is legally bound to adhere to.  Typically, the information required within the statutory statement includes for example:

• Name, address and contact details of the company responsible for marketing and sale of the feed.

• The purpose of the feed, for example for pre-training or racing.

• Reference to where the feed has been manufactured. Some companies do not have their own manufacturing facility and will use a contract manufacturer. In the UK, a feed mill manufacturing feed must be registered and on the UK list of approved feed business establishments and there is a number, colloquially known as a GB number, which refers to the feed mill’s registration. A useful snippet is that if this GB number changes on pack, this may mean that the manufacturer has switched to a different mill.  

• A list of ingredients in the feed in order of inclusion. The first ingredient will have the highest level of inclusion and the last being the least level.

• A declaration of analysis, which is used to describe the nutritional characteristics of the feed is quite limited in what can legally be declared. There is a predefined legally binding list of analytes that must be declared in this section, which depends on the type of feed. For example, this might include percentage protein, oil, crude fibre, ash, as well as the level of added additives such as copper, vitamins A, D and E, as well as any live microbiological ingredients, or preservatives, binders etc. In addition, the analysis must be carried out using specific laboratory methodologies set out in the legislation. Feed manufacturers are allowed some tolerance on analysis, or limits of variation around their declaration to account for variation in sampling and manufacturing as well as the analytical variation itself and this can be as high as 10-20% in some instances for example.   

• The level and source of additives. For example, added copper must be declared and the level (mg/kg) and source (copper sulphate or if as a chelate, copper chelate of amino acid hydrate) stated. 

• Any additives (i.e., ingredients that don’t contribute to the nutritional value of the feed) can only be used if they appear on an authorised list of additives—meaning they have passed scrutiny for safety and efficacy. This list of additives pre-Brexit was maintained by the EU and since Brexit, whilst we can theoretically modify on our own terms, the reality is that we have largely adopted the EU list.  

There is a lot of useful information that is not legally allowed within the statutory statement that you will often find on a separate section of the bag, or indeed on a company website. For example, other analyses such as percentage of starch and sugar are often useful when choosing an appropriate feed and an estimate of the level of digestible energy (DE MJ/kg) is also helpful. Feeding guides also generally appear outside the statutory statement and can be quite useful. Whilst I am a firm believer in looking at the horse to help set the required amount of feed, feeding guides do give vital information, particularly about the likely minimum amount of this feed required to deliver a suitable level of vitamins and minerals.  

When being first really counts…

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The Positive and Negative Effects of Oil in Equine Nutrition

Published in European Trainer, January - March 2018, issue 60.

Oil is a regular addition to modern racing diets, either by feeding a high oil-containing racing feed or through extra addition of liquid vegetable oil. Research over the years has shown that oil is palatable to horses and digested very well, and that there is little difference in digestibility between the main types of vegetable-based oils used.

Oil that is integral to feed ingredients, such as that found in rice bran, linseed, naked oats, soya, etc., may have a marginally lower digestibility, as this will depend on how digestible the encapsulating matrix is to the horse. However, in the main both free oil and integral oil is well tolerated and digested in horses.  

In a natural environment, horses can easily consume between 2-3% of their body weight as dry matter from pasture. Oil has always been a natural part of the horse's diet, as grass contains about 2-3%, which may seem low but can provide the equivalent of 200-400mls of oil per day. Other forages, such as hay, haylage, and chaff, will also contain oil at a similar level on a dry matter basis.  

Horses can tolerate up to 20-25% of their total energy intake coming from oil, and this has been exploited successfully....

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Is EIPH beyond the scope of dietary change?

Published in European Trainer - October - December 2017, issue 59.

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Exercise induced pulmonary haemorrhage has been a concern to trainers for a very long time. The historic record of EIPH in horses such as ‘Bleeding Childers’, a son of the Darley Arabian, a founder of the modern thoroughbred, shows that ‘bleeding’ as it is commonly known is an age-old problem.

The prevalence of EIPH during high intensity exercise,  such as racing, is relatively high, but influenced greatly by how it is diagnosed. For example, the prevalence of EIPH is quite low when the appearance of blood from the nostrils (epistaxis) is used as the diagnostic criteria. Unsurprisingly, it is much higher when more rigorous investigative techniques such as endoscopy or bronchioalveolar lavage are used.  Additionally, the prevalence increases when horses are repeatedly examined. In clinical terms, it has been suggested that if you look hard enough diagnostically, and often enough, almost all horses will show a degree of EIPH with racing at some time.  A large Australian study has also reported that there is a proven heritability or genetic element to this condition.

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Notwithstanding this, EIPH presents a major concern for horses in training, as it often leads to loss in training days and may impact on race performance, although this seems to be dependent on the degree or grade of EIPH involved. A period of absence from the racecourse can also be a requirement of some racing jurisdictions, e.g. the British Horseracing Authority in the UK, following epistaxis, where blood is seen visually from one or both nostrils. Public perception is also relevant, especially when the public mood puts racing under tighter scrutiny in terms of animal welfare.

There is also a mood for change with regards to the previously widespread use of pre-race medications such as furosemide (which has been widely used to treat EIPH) in countries such as the USA.  The HH Sheikh Mansoor Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Global Arabian Horse Flat Racing Festival had recently announced that its races in the US will be ‘lasix-free’, which has been widely welcomed by trainers worldwide.

In some racing jurisdictions, nasal strips can be used which support the tissues of the nasal cavity helping to keep the upper airway fully open during exercise.

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Does nutrition factor in injury, repair and recovery?

First published in European Trainer issue 58 - July - September 2017

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Lost training days through injury or infection are problematic for trainers, both practically and commercially. It is a stark fact that 50% of thoroughbred foals, bred to race, may never reach the racecourse.

Lost training days through injury or infection are problematic for trainers, both practically and commercially. It is a stark fact that 50% of thoroughbred foals, bred to race, may never reach the racecourse.  In young thoroughbreds, musculoskeletal problems have been cited as the most common reason for failure to race and this appears to continue to be a major issue for horses in training.  

An early study carried out in 1985 in the UK reported that lameness was the single biggest contributor to lost days of training, and subsequent research 20 years later found that this was still the case, with stress fractures, which involve normal bone being exposed to abnormal stress, being cited as a significant underlying cause.  Perhaps not surprisingly, two-year-olds were more susceptible to injury than three-year-olds.  Whilst there are of course many other reasons – including muscular issues such as tying up, respiratory problems, and viral infection – why horses may fail to train, in this survey medical issues accounted for only 5% of the total training days lost.

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Marginal Gains - can the philosophy apply to horseracing?

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Sports nutrition - Horses and humans. What parallels can we draw?

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European Trainer - issue 33 - Spring 2011)