Are You Comparing Apples to Apples?

Do you have one of the following horses?

• A horse in intense work who struggles to maintain weight and appetite?
• Performance horses requiring slow release energy such as an endurance horse? Pregnant or lactating mares requiring large amounts of dietary energy?
• Horses sensitive to high grain diets?
• Underweight horses or poor doers?
• Ponies requiring a slight increase in energy in a safe way using a small amount of feed?
• Horses prone to tying up?
• Horses with gastric ulcers or Cushing’s disease?
• Horses requiring a low starch diet?
• Show horses for conditioning and muscle building?
• Horses with lack of appetite?
• Yearling or show preparation?

Each of these horses would benefit significantly from the addition of fat in their diets for a low glycemic energy source that is a safer alternative to grain.  Rice bran is a valuable fat source that has multiple benefits. However, care must be taken when selecting the type of rice bran for your horse.  

All rice bran products are NOT the same.  Did you know that there is only ONE stabilised rice bran product on the market in Australia?  This means that this product is head and shoulders above the imitation products and means that you are comparing apples and prunes!

What does this actually mean and are the products really that different?

• Stabilised rice bran is highly digestible and palatable– you pay for what you get!  Don’t waste your money on non stabilised products where the fat has oxidised and tastes ‘soapy’.

• Stabilised rice bran is more palatable and usable for the horse, and stabilised fats have a longer shelf life.  With rice bran processing, timing is everything, and all rice bran requires stabilizing within 12 hours. After 24 hours, much of the valuable fat has gone rancid, especially if the weather is warm and humid. 

• Stabilised rice bran preserves fat levels to between 16-20% and is a good source of essential fatty acids.  These contribute to a healthy skin and shiny coat.
• Rice bran oil is not the same as stabilised rice bran.  Stabilised rice bran has the added benefit of fibre as well as balanced nutrients.
• Imitation products are not necessarily balanced in their calcium and phosphorus ratio.  Raw rice bran and wheat bran (pollard) contains more phosphorus than calcium naturally which, if not balanced correctly can lead to problems with calcium being absorbed.  This may mean that you need to add a calcium supplement, so make sure you take this into consideration when calculating the cost per day for your ration!
• Stabilised rice bran is a good source of B vitamins including thiamine, niacin and riboflavin, as well as magnesium, potassium and fibre.  These B group vitamins are responsible for many metabolic reactions to provide energy for work and maintenance.
• Low GI – when you decrease the feed intake with a low GI feed such as stabilized rice bran you can decrease blood insulin concentrations, which may be advantageous in helping minimize bone development problems and other metabolic syndromes.
• Economical when fed as part of the daily ration due to small volume fed.

The ONLY stabilized rice bran available in Australia is KER Equi-Jewel. With Equi-Jewel, any rice bran not extruded within 12 hours of processing is not accepted for inclusion, ensuring consistent quality and palatability, as well as each and every one of the benefits listed above. 

Ensuring your horse’s diet is meeting its nutrient requirements and receiving the correct balance of all vitamins and minerals is highly important and can significantly affect the health and performance of any horse. Equi-Jewel is an ideal additional energy supplement to any balanced ration for various reasons.

With summer upon us, certain feeds can be used that help keep our horses a little cooler.  On a kilo for kilo basis, Equi-Jewel contains more energy than most traditional grains and concentrates. This means that the addition of Equi-Jewel to a ration can actually decrease the amount of grain and therefore volume that needs to be fed.  Keeping the volume of the ration down and choosing feedstuffs wisely can help minimise the heat associated with digestion. 

All hard working performance horses should have some form of fat in their diet to ensure their daily caloric needs are met while ensuring a meal size that is achievable.  Yes, you could use oil as a supplement to increase calories, but this has its own problems including palatability and a negative omega 3: omega 6 ratio.  Just 500g of Equi-Jewel can be used in place of 250ml (a cup) of oil and in some cases works out cheaper than oil on a day by day basis. 

The glycemic index (GI) of a feed is the measure of blood glucose levels in response to feeding.  A low GI feed produces minimal spikes in blood glucose resulting in slow release energy which decreases the risk of disorders such as developmental orthopedic disease, laminitis, digestive problems and equine metabolic syndrome. Equi-Jewel has a GI below 50, compared to a GI of 100 for oats and over 100 for common sweet feeds.  For individual advice for individual conditions please contact our free nutrition consultation service.

Regular supplementation with fat as an energy source has a glycogen sparing effect and has been found to be beneficial for long distance exercise.  Scientific studies have shown that during strenuous exercise horses adapted to Equi-Jewel have lower lactic acid levels and lower heart rates than horses adapted to corn oil.  Lactic acid is produced in the working muscle. When lactate reaches high concentrations in the muscle, it is the primary cause of fatigue.  From these trials it appears that Equi Jewel helps working horses to maintain peak performance and delay the onset of fatigue.

KER has proudly promoted Equi-Jewel for over 10 years and its success and use by top riders and trainers prove its claims.  KER research, in combination with a number of reports from the field have indicated that young growing horses, poor doers and equine athletes have shown improved body condition after stabilised rice bran supplementation.  Sometimes this difference can be seen visually in as little as two weeks!

There are many products out there claiming to condition your horse in a similar way to Equi Jewel – but don’t be fooled – Equi-Jewel is the original, research proven rice bran and the ONLY stabilised rice bran in Australia that can guarantee stabilisation within 12 hours of grain separation leading to a guaranteed fat content and superior palatability. So choose the apple amongst the prunes!

Include Equi-Jewel in your horse’s ration for these reasons:

• Stabilised to ensure nutritional integrity and palatability
• Correctly balance to calcium and phosphorus
• Contains additional natural vitamin E and  organic selenium
• Low in starch and has a low glycemic response

Remember you should always discuss dietary changes with an equine nutritionist and/or your veterinarian if your horse has specific nutritional concerns.  For more information or help with formulating your horse’s ration contact Kentucky Equine Research’s FREE nutrition consultation service on 1800 772 1981800 772 198 or email [email protected]

KER Equi-Jewel Promotion

Save your Equi-Jewel barcodes from November 2014 until November 2015 and send them in to KER to receive some great gifts!  For more information visit http://promos.ker.com/loyalty/