Nutrition for Breeding: The story of how feeding your horse alters your chances of successful foals

In this breeding themed episode, we visit with Dr. Nettie Liburt, of Liburt Nutritional Consulting, to discuss what we as nutritionists can do to help with reproductive success. While not as exciting as hormone manipulation, what you feed your mare or stallion can impact their success in producing a healthy full.  And even better, it is a crossover episode with Farm to Stable!

Farm to Stable

Transcript

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Kris Hiney: Welcome to extension horses, tack box talk series horse stories with a purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney. And today, in light of February and Valentine's Day and all things horse breeding. We're going to be talking about nutrition and how it impacts your success with breeding horses. So we have our returning guest, Dr. Nettie Libert, back with us from Libert nutritional, consulting. Welcome back, Nettie.

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hrsecrzyny: Thank you so much. I'm always happy to be here.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, and love it. And we're doing like a crossover episode today. Right?

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna post this on my farm to stable and equine nutrition podcast as well. So you know, we can jump on that crossover bandwagon that seems to be so popular with the kids these days.

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Kris Hiney: Scary what they do. We just call it beating all of the birds with the sticks. I think.

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hrsecrzyny: Spreading the information far and wide, doing what extensions supposed to do.

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Kris Hiney: That's right. That's right. Okay. So to get us on topic, we want to talk about nutrition as it relates to breeding. So I guess we probably need to break this down a little bit, because there's

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Kris Hiney: getting pregnant for the mare. And then there's lactation, and we kind of relatively, you know. Maybe it's brood mare nutrition, but we really need to separate it a bit into her phases of of being a mama. So let's start easy. Let's start with barren Mare. No, let's not do a barren mare. Let's do open mare. Barren's a bad word, so.

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hrsecrzyny: Those are really easy with stallions.

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Kris Hiney: Well, I was gonna do those things.

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hrsecrzyny: I will do those later. Okay, okay, we'll start.

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Kris Hiney: Because most of the time people think mares. That's why we're going to talk about the boys a little bit later on. Okay, so we're going to start with the open mare. She's not pregnant anything we need to do right at the beginning, in our hopes and dreams of making a baby.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah, a couple things to think about. Obviously, you're probably not going to be surprised that I'm going to say you got to make sure her diet is balanced.

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hrsecrzyny: and we want to make sure that she's not deficient in any nutrients, that she's getting proper calorie intake. And we've talked a lot about body condition, scoring in this podcast and in others and at extension horses. There's tons of information on body condition scoring. And we want mares who are going to be bred on the higher end of the ideal scale. So that's about a body condition score of a 6.

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hrsecrzyny: And the reason for that is that they tend to have research shows that they tend to have better conception rates when they have a little bit more, just a little bit more body fat. We're not talking overweight or obese, but that sort of higher end of ideal, because if they are too fat they can run into what's called Dystocia, or difficult birth, and we don't want that, and if they're too

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hrsecrzyny: thin, you know where you can see ribs and they don't have enough body fat stores. Then we can run into problems conceiving. And so, before we even start, we want her around a body condition of 6. Now, different breeds, different mares are going to have

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hrsecrzyny: different diets to achieve that. But if we keep that in mind, then we can at least design a diet plan around what that mare needs. So we're going to start there.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. Starting. Simply good. Balanced normal diet, good body condition. Score.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Are there any magic things that increase her conception? Rates.

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hrsecrzyny: You're gonna have to talk to the repro specialists on that one. You know what you can work with your veterinarian on things like blood testing and hormone testing to see where she is. I know that there are some practices, for, you know, getting using hormones, not all that different from

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hrsecrzyny: like a birth control pill in humans where they can, you know, sync her cycles so that they can track

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hrsecrzyny: when the optimum time for insemination could be.

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hrsecrzyny: So that is, you can always work with your veterinarian on doing some of those hormone tests. They don't take that long, and you can, you know, try to track where she is in her cycle, so that you get optimum.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. But there's a lot, nothing proven

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Kris Hiney: research base. That is a supplement or something that you should give or provide to a.

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hrsecrzyny: To my knowledge. No.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, okay? All right. So we've gotten

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Kris Hiney: taking care of our open mare.

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Kris Hiney: All right. She's now pregnant. We inseminated her, bred her, whatever we magically did. She's been confirmed pregnant. We're 14 days in. Okay, where do we got to start getting different? Okay.

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hrsecrzyny: So for the 1st few months. The first, so mares are pregnant for a little over 11 months right, but they oftentimes are still referred to as trimesters, right? But for the 1st 5 months, 5 to 6 months you.

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hrsecrzyny: Her requirements don't change a whole lot, so she's not really eating for 2 for that beginning stage of pregnancy. So if she's on a really good balanced maintenance diet for the 1st few months, we can just

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hrsecrzyny: let her be let her B, there's very little increase over maintenance. Now, once we get to about 6 months, we start to gradually increase what she needs, and we'll get into the nitty gritty of what I mean by what she needs.

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hrsecrzyny: But each month, going forward on the average, it's about a 3 to 4% increase, which is not a lot

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hrsecrzyny: in in calories, in nutrients. And obviously, as the foal starts to grow, there's going to be a greater demand on the nutrient needs of the mare, so that you know she can pass those on to the to developing

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hrsecrzyny: foal. But by the time you're in, you know 10 to 11 months. You're already at about an 18% increase over maintenance. And then in that last month, about a 23% increase in her needs over maintenance.

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Kris Hiney: And to put that in perspective with other horses that would be our equivalent of like a lightly worked horse.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah,

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Kris Hiney: Okay, so not that hard to feed her. So essentially. Still, same good balanced diet. But we just kind of inch it up a bit.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah, just inch it up a little bit and 3 to 4%. Is not that much? I mean it. It sometimes is maybe

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hrsecrzyny: as little as a depending on the Mare. Right? It could be as little as maybe a quarter of a pound of whatever

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hrsecrzyny: concentrate she's getting, or a little bit of an extra ration bouncer depending on, you know, on her. But it's not. It's not a huge increase. But you do have to make that increase a little bit every month.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, okay, so should be pretty easy to do all right. Now here comes the big whammy. She has made the baby. It is outside of her. Now, things really get different, right?

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hrsecrzyny: Now things get different. So when a mare is lactating, it is the most nutritionally demanding time for that mare.

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hrsecrzyny: so not only does she need nutrients to meet her own needs. But now she needs all of the nutrients that that foal needs to grow and develop, especially in the 1st 3 months of life, so if she is not fed appropriately, her body will deplete itself of nutrients in order to pass those on to the foal. So we don't want to create a deficiency in the mare by not

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hrsecrzyny: feeding her enough to support to support the foal. So I'm just going to put this a little bit into perspective here. So for the 1st 3 months that mare is lactating her, calorie needs

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hrsecrzyny: practically double. It's almost double. That's a lot.

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hrsecrzyny: Now I do want to backtrack to month 11. Sometimes right when her needs increase in calorie needs and nutrient needs increase. Sometimes I don't have children, but I can. I have friends that obviously have had children, and when they're ready to give birth, the last thing they want to do is stuff themselves full of food.

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Kris Hiney: So.

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hrsecrzyny: There is that little caveat there, but sometimes you know, that ration balancer can come into play. But now that the baby's on the ground that 1st 3 months her calorie needs are about double. Her crude protein needs almost triple. It's about 2 and a half times, Lysine, which is, in a sense what we call the 1st limiting amino acid, one of the building blocks of protein

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hrsecrzyny: more than triple

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hrsecrzyny: calcium and phosphorus. Again, we're getting close to that triple range. Things like zinc and copper actually don't increase that much, maybe 25%. So

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hrsecrzyny: if you are feeding a product made for growth or a balancer. It

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hrsecrzyny: should be formulated appropriately to take care of this. You shouldn't be sitting in your tack room or your feed room, you know, doing calculations for every single mineral. But I go into those numbers just to kind of give you a little bit of perspective on how much that mare needs, on the average to support not only herself, but for her foal. And it makes sense right. She's providing her own 

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hrsecrzyny: needs, and she's providing these for the for the foal, so it is quite a jump that will start to taper down around month 4, when the foal starts to creep, feed.

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hrsecrzyny: and then, after

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hrsecrzyny: she's through the 6 months of lactation and weaning happens. I know I'm jumping the gun into weaning a little bit. She can taper down now. There is no evidence that pulling all of her feed will dry her up.

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Kris Hiney: That was you read my mind. I was just like we need to talk about that myth.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah, we.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, like, let's starve the mares to dry them up.

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hrsecrzyny: Not starve the mare to dry, to dry her up. What stimulates her to produce milk is the foal suckling? Not how much she's eating, so you do not want to starve her just to dry her up. That that will happen. It's not going to happen overnight, but it will. It will happen as the foal is weaned. And again, naturally, you'll just sort of taper down what she needs when we get to like month

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hrsecrzyny: 4, just a little bit month, 5 a little bit more and month 6 a little bit more. But even at month 6 she's still a good

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hrsecrzyny: yeah, maybe 70% over her maintenance needs. But again the foal will start to creep, feed a little bit more, so.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, and that would, I guess, depend a little bit about how much feed, you know is the full consuming, you know, fresh green. All those things. You know.

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hrsecrzyny: And the quality of the milk is going to start to decline, too, and it's supposed to.

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Kris Hiney: Right cause the little guy's gotten to get like, Hey, you're gonna have to survive on your own here. So.

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hrsecrzyny: Not doing this forever. Bud, okay.

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Kris Hiney: So you said in general, the you know, everything goes up pretty dramatically, right? So I don't think people ever well, they may just really not realize how much it goes up. So let's talk. You've talked about ration balancers. I know a lot of people ask me like, what should I be feeding my horse, and there's so many different things that you can feed her right? So let's start, I mean, why don't we go with the base, always good. The base forage.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Let's talk about broodmare forage.

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hrsecrzyny: Yup. Now

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hrsecrzyny: the good quality forage. And when we say that you know it's free of weeds, it's maybe not so, Stemmy. Now the asterisk to that is, let's say you have a pony, Mare. She probably doesn't need alfalfa, because even as a pony we know they tend to be very efficient. So

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hrsecrzyny: whatever forage she is used to, and what she can maintain her weight on, you know that counts the nutrients we can fill in. Some mares honestly do just fine on a good balancer. Other mares need the concentrate to get those calories, and my number one recommendation for that is a concentrate that is specifically formulated

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hrsecrzyny: for growth. And they're usually labeled as Growth or Mare and foal, or some kind of moniker like that. And they're typically higher in protein and amino acids a little more moderate in fat.

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hrsecrzyny: and they have that calorie content formulated into them to support all of these things that we're talking about, and they will give you a recommendation. How far along is your mare? Is she lactating? And they'll make recommendations based on body weight? You know on how much to feed her. Now.

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hrsecrzyny: I've also worked with some farms that do not feed growth feeds. They feed, you know, something

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hrsecrzyny: I don't know. They might feed a 14% protein concentrate, which is fine. You can do that, but you probably need to add a balancer on top of it to add a little bit of extra protein and nutrients, just to make up the difference.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. So most Hays, pretty pretty. Okay. If if it meets the quality. And obviously, I mean, this is a little common sense, the higher quality, the hay? The more nutrients in it, the easier it is to meet her demands than if we're starting on the other end. Right? So if you had to choose, you would choose the higher quality end of hay for the girls.

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hrsecrzyny: Yep

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hrsecrzyny: again. There are plenty of mares that do fine on just the forage, and a balancer, and a lot of this is breed dependent.

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hrsecrzyny: Us.

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hrsecrzyny: you know the nitty gritty of it. We just don't really know yet, but again your warm blood breeds, your pony breeds. They tend to be easier keepers, anyway. So those typically do better on the balancers. Your thoroughbred mares

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hrsecrzyny: may need more of like a traditional commercial concentrate, or another concentrate, and a balance or something like that. It just depends. It just depends. So just there are options. Keep that in mind.

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Kris Hiney: And I guess we're a little remiss, because maybe it's easier for us to talk about hay. But in all reality a lot of brood mares are grazing pasture.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Also, we think of being pretty nutrient, dense. And so, yeah.

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Kris Hiney: nature works out pretty well that when she's lactating there theoretically should be grass.

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hrsecrzyny: Yes, but the catch to that, as we found out, is you want to avoid endophyte infected fescue because we know that that can lead to problems with milk production. For example.

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hrsecrzyny: an endophyte. Normally, you know, geldings, it's not poisonous. It's not gonna if you have a normal, non-pregnant horse out on fescue. If it has endophytes in it, it's fine. It's when you have a pregnant mare. For some reason these endophytes, which are it's sort of like a

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hrsecrzyny: symbiotic type of relationship between a fungus and a plant. But for some reason we know that these endophytes negatively affect milk production in pregnant mares. So how do you know if your pasture is endophyte infected? Well, you can have it tested the local extension office. They can help you determine that. And if you find that you do have that, then you're probably going to need to move her to another pasture.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, but that's 1 where you check with your county person, because fescue is not gonna be found everywhere. Right.

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hrsecrzyny: Right.

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Kris Hiney: So everybody needs to know what type of grass grows in your area right?

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Kris Hiney: Right up to date.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah, I mean, we like it in colder climates. And it's hardy. I mean, you can stomp all over it. It grows. And I'm gonna leave the plant stuff to plant experts.

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hrsecrzyny: Are you listening, Laura Kenny, out on extension horses? But yeah, so it's it's a hardy pasture, which is why we like it for horses.

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hrsecrzyny: But yes, definitely work with your county agent. If you have any questions about that.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah. And I think it's maybe worth noting, too. Like, just like people, if you like. Just think about, you've spent a day like really working out or or doing stuff

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Kris Hiney: heavy work. You're hungrier, right? And so, yes.

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Kris Hiney: will also eat more like. At least that's a good thing on our side that they're willing to eat more when they're lactating as well.

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hrsecrzyny: Yes, yes, and as with any pregnancy she should gain weight in that second half of her pregnancy, she absolutely should.

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hrsecrzyny: But it doesn't mean that you shouldn't

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hrsecrzyny: monitor her again. You want to make sure that she's not gaining so much weight that we're going to get into that difficult birth scenario, and you know, if you get familiar with body condition scoring and fat pads, and where that is, if you're starting to see a lot of fat pads, you know that could be a red flag, and if you're not sure again, you can always reach out to your to your veterinarian to help you.

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Kris Hiney: Oh, this brings up a good point. Actually, did this live with some students yesterday. So probably it's good to talk about. We were doing some body condition score, and we had some heavy, pregnant mares, and they had a hard time. They're like, oh, they're all really high body condition score, but they were just looking at her abdomen and not doing what we're supposed to do right, and put your hands on them and feel

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Kris Hiney: the mare because visually. You may look at her and be like, oh, she's fat.

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hrsecrzyny: Right? No, no, no, that is so.

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Kris Hiney: Got to touch him.

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hrsecrzyny: That's kind of right. And that belly is gonna feel firm.

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Kris Hiney: There's a thing in there.

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hrsecrzyny: Yes.

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hrsecrzyny: because there's a baby horse in there. But, like, if you're looking at, if you start to see a crusty neck developing, or you start to see around her, Withers. She's getting really padded, you know. Tail head, other places you're supposed to be looking with

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hrsecrzyny: with body condition scoring. Just keep an eye on. Just keep an eye on it. Take pictures, take measurements. Yeah, and your chances are your vet is going to be checking her on a fairly regular basis. So it's a question that you can ask them if you need guidance with too.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, okay, I'm gonna go back to the other thing. So are there any supplements? Things, you know, because Progesterone is a big part of of pregnancy. Is there any food

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Kris Hiney: thingy that's out there that is recommended for?

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hrsecrzyny: Pregnancy or magic Pixie dust out there.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, magic. Does. Yeah.

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hrsecrzyny: Again. If if the diet is balanced, chances are no, when it comes to the hormones, I'm not going to get too far into that because I'm not a veterinarian. And again, once she's pregnant that

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hrsecrzyny: you know, she probably shouldn't be getting supplemental hormones. But again, I'm going to leave that to the, to the veterinary reproductive professionals there, there is nothing wrong. If you are giving. There are people who have

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hrsecrzyny: supplement programs that offer them insurance for colic, and most of those are most of those, not all of them, the more reputable ones are, are pretty

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hrsecrzyny: generally regarded as safe. They contain usually probiotics, maybe some prebiotic fibers. Things like that, you know, that stuff

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hrsecrzyny: is generally regarded as safe by American association of feed control officials. So that kind of thing depending on whatever whatever else you're supplementing, just be cautious, and a lot of them will be labeled, you know, not studied in pregnant mares. So make sure you are reading that label, because most supplements

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hrsecrzyny: produced by reputable manufacturers will have it, you know, not studied in pregnant mares doesn't mean it isn't safe. It means we don't know, and it might not be worth taking the chance.

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Kris Hiney: Right. But but again, maybe we should. If your mare is having trouble maintaining pregnancy, there's probably other things that.

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hrsecrzyny: There's yes.

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Kris Hiney: Right. So we need to pay attention to the

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Kris Hiney: the uterine health and maybe dig into that a little bit.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah. Yes.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, are we missing anything on the on the mama side? Okay, so we're taking care of her, do we? Do you want to talk about throwing the foal in, or.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah, we can.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. So let's let's talk about the baby horse, right? So he's there drinking off the mama, making her like work really hard. Lots of milk, and then maybe he wants to eat something else.

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hrsecrzyny: Cutest things ever. My God! I love baby horses because they just they just want to bite everything, and they when they don't have teeth. Well, you know it's adorable, but I digress so right. For the 1st 3 months of their life

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hrsecrzyny: they are totally reliant on their mother's milk. Now, you may say, oh, but you know I've had foals, and they eat things well, sure they do, because they're curious, but their bodies can't digest it. Their digestive systems are not mature enough to handle things like grain, and by grain I mean oats, barley, corn. They can't digest it, so it doesn't mean that they won't try to eat it, and they won't nibble at it and play with it.

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hrsecrzyny: But they don't have the enzyme activity to digest grains. They don't have the. They don't yet have the bacterial population to ferment some of those harder fibers that you would get from forage or something like that. So it's something to keep an eye on. If you notice them eating a lot of that stuff, and subsequently, maybe having some digestive upset or loose stool, it's just something to keep an eye on. But for the 1st 3 months

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hrsecrzyny: milk is where it's at. That's why the mare’s requirements stay so high for those 1st 3 months, and then they grow fun. Fact, you didn't know. Foals grow to approximately 30% of their mature body weight by the time they are 3 months old, so they are eaten.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah.

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hrsecrzyny: Crazy, right? Oh, so in the 1st week,

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hrsecrzyny: and their 1st week of life on the average, they can ingest up to about 25% of their body weight in milk.

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hrsecrzyny: That's a lot.

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Kris Hiney: It is.

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Kris Hiney: So that's it.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah. So I mean, again, it puts into perspective why the mare’s requirements are so high, and why it just kind of.

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hrsecrzyny: you know, jumps up. Which

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hrsecrzyny: again, one thing that I didn't mention earlier, we talked about how her requirements double. Don't all of a sudden double her feed. You do need to ramp it up over a few days, so she's getting 4 pounds of a concentrate. Don't just all of a sudden give her 8. Make sure you work her up a few days, you know. Give her a chance to get used to all that. But yes, so those those babies will.

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hrsecrzyny: They require quite a lot, and that's normal. And of course they need their colostrum, their 1st milk, and that allows passive transfer of antibodies, because that digestive system is not so mature yet

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hrsecrzyny: larger antibody molecules can pass through it, and that's a good thing. But once we get to about 24 h, you start to lose that window. So again, if your foal Misses Colostrum, you probably need to get a veterinarian involved, and see about how you can get that foal some antibodies

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hrsecrzyny: in general before they're able to get their vaccines.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah. And we should probably mention that mares, you know, you could have good milkers and poor milkers. And that's that's right. You can't feed a good milker down, nor can you go the other I mean, you can deprive them, but you're not going to turn them into a Holstein by just feeding them.

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hrsecrzyny: Can you imagine? No, that's correct. Good point.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. So we kind of did the the mirrors. And I know you wanted to talk about stallions. So stallions. This is where maybe we can maybe help them out a little bit by

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Kris Hiney: you. Can't them nutritionally. So let's talk about the boys.

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hrsecrzyny: I'm going to backtrack one second, if you don't mind.

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Kris Hiney: No go for it.

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hrsecrzyny: So we like when you get to

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hrsecrzyny: past those 3 months for the fall.

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hrsecrzyny: Now you're in month 4. That's when you can start to creep, feed a little bit.

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hrsecrzyny: And one of the benefits of creep feeding

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hrsecrzyny: well prior to weaning time is, it is less than weaning, becomes less stressful on the foal because they're already used to eating a little something else that isn't Mom's milk. And so that's 1 less stressor that they have to deal with, because weaning is one of the most stressful times for foals, they can become very prone to equine gastric, ulcer, syndrome, and if if they're sort of already used to this

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hrsecrzyny: other diet that can help. So again, a growth formula or balancer depending on you know on what your feeding program is can be, you know, appropriate for them to kind of

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hrsecrzyny: to nibble at, and they will.

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hrsecrzyny: Okay. Now, stallions.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, yeah, let's let's talk about the the boys, because I mean, they they already have an important job. Right?

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hrsecrzyny: We do?

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Kris Hiney: This puzzle. And so we're kind of trying to think about feeding to what keep the spermatozoa healthy.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah. Well, yes. And I mean again, you need to start with a healthy horse, a healthy, balanced diet, and a lot of times. The stallions are not

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hrsecrzyny: just breeding, they may still be in training, they may still be in competition during breeding season, and

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hrsecrzyny: how they may be recovering a number of mayors or not. So much so with the stallions. A couple of the considerations include, what other athletic activity or work demands do they have? What is their temperament. Some stallions are pretty chill, others not so much are they getting turned out? Are they in stalls? What are they doing every day? What is their activity level.

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hrsecrzyny: So if they're not doing anything else, you know, it makes sense to feed them as if they were in what we would call light work because they are putting forth.

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hrsecrzyny: you know, some physical effort, and they they do need.

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hrsecrzyny: you know, all nutrients to to do what they're supposed to do now you can, if if they are training and they are competing, and they are active and being exercised in work that may need to be bumped up a little bit to more of like a moderate, a moderate type of work. Level.

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hrsecrzyny: We don't have magic pixie dust, but we we do have

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hrsecrzyny: some supplements that are known to support sound.

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Kris Hiney: There you go alright. I knew we were gonna get to some data that actually.

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Kris Hiney: he says that maybe we can help him out a little bit.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah. And one of the big ones are Omega. 3 fatty acid supplements have been shown to promote health of the spermatozoa.

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hrsecrzyny: and if you have. It's not going to make an infertile stallion fertile. It's not going to do that. But if some stallions, with maybe lower or less than ideal fertility. It can support those guys. It can keep the healthy stallions healthy. But there is data on Omega. 3 fatty acids

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hrsecrzyny: and and sperm health and an omega. Fatty acid is not just an omega fatty acid right? Of course, as nutritionists, we have to make this a little bit more complicated. But we want specifically.

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hrsecrzyny: I'll just abbreviate it. EPA and dha, so those are the bioactive forms of Omega. 3 fatty acids, and the body doesn't have to convert them. But those are the forms that you want to supplement to support that

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hrsecrzyny: stallions health overall. Now, it's not that the mares can't have an omega, 3 fatty acid supplement they absolutely can. But

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hrsecrzyny: to my knowledge, it's not just gonna make them get pregnant.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah.

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hrsecrzyny: That it's more of like a general

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hrsecrzyny: anti-inflammatory type of supplement. But there's some work with, I think, Nano, Coq. 10. I'm not as familiar with that which is another one. But but we know Omega 3 s. Can be supportive of stallion fertility. So that's something.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. So maybe give a shout out to, because EPA and Dha don't just show up in your grass and sufficient quantities. Where do you gotta go to get those guys on board.

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hrsecrzyny: Well, there! There are a couple of

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hrsecrzyny: manufacturers out. Am I allowed to say manufacturer names? I don't know.

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Kris Hiney: No.

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hrsecrzyny: There is an excellent one. By Kentucky equine research, called Eo. 3. There is another one by Kentucky performance products called Contribute. I think mad barn makes one as well. There's an omega. They have a good omega, 3 fatty acids

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hrsecrzyny: oil, and usually it's just, you know, it's not a cup of oil. We're talking about ounces here, maybe one to 2 ounces, depending on the horse. You can just top, dress it on their feet or mix it in with.

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hrsecrzyny: you know, whatever balance or something they're getting. So it's not gobs and gobs of oil. And it's

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hrsecrzyny: it's not cheap, but it's not expensive. It's sort of usually they're they're sort of midway. So it it isn't gonna

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hrsecrzyny: bankrupt you to do an omega a good mega, 3 fatty acid supplement. You might see things for flaxseed as an omega, 3 fatty acid source, and it is, but it's not as good a source of EPA and DHA. Flaxseed is really great for skin and coat health, but it's not as

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hrsecrzyny: good for EPA and DHA.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah. And and why? Maybe that costs a little bit more is because it comes from fish folks, and they have to do some processing to make it a little bit more yummier.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah, and there are some. There are some algae based ones, too. But again requires processing and

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hrsecrzyny: growing and.

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Kris Hiney: Yummification.

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hrsecrzyny: Yummification. Yes, yumification, and I have to say the brands out there have done a very good job.

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hrsecrzyny: I'm yummifying it. You still might get a fussy one here and there. Read my own horse, which we've talked about a lot on this pod he's like, and he's usually not fussy, but

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hrsecrzyny: but you might. You might get one here and so, but if if one doesn't work for you, you could try, you know, another one if they're fussy, but if they're not fussy you shouldn't have any problems. They've done a really good job deodorizing them and not make them fishy smell.

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Kris Hiney: Right? Okay? All right. So got some practical common sense things. Then to manage our breeding horses. Obviously, you know, as nutritionists, we always think like, well, we're the most important. But but you do, you have to have a good nutrition program. But then, obviously, there's a lot that goes into reproductive management, because there's all kinds of things that can go wrong

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Kris Hiney: beyond just the the plane nutrition that the animal is on. But.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah, I'm sticking to nutrition because I don't have the guts to do repro, and and those of you that do you have my ultimate respect.

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Kris Hiney: Absolutely. There's typically not any 3 Am. Alarm calls, though, for a nutritionist like I need this balance.

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hrsecrzyny: Right?

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hrsecrzyny: Typically, no, we joke amongst ourselves. Yeah, there's usually not in a nutrition emergency. And if there is, it probably requires a veterinarian. So.

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Kris Hiney: That's true. You've done something awry along.

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hrsecrzyny: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. Well, I appreciate you stopping by and visiting with us on our little crossover. Again, we'll try to link each other's podcasts back and forth. So you guys can check out Dr. Liebert's podcast as well for all things, horse nutrition. We're a little bit more random over here on the tack box talk. But.

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