Oil Feeding Rate for EPSM Dales

[harleydales]

I've been in touch with an EPSM guru in the States who has helped a lot with Harley over the last year, about his lack of oomph (this weekend was dire, really felt like flogging a dead horse).

I told her what I was feeding - 1lb Winergy Low, 1/2lb Alfa A Oil, 120ml oil plus supplements, and she said reduce the hard feed a bit and go up to 250ml oil! She said he might gain weight but the energy levels should be better. I really should be aiming for 500ml oil (1ml/kg of horse) but with a native that's pushing it a bit far, so she said to try the lowere rate.

I'm not sure how much less I can feed to soak up the oil and him still eat it, I'll just have to try it and see what he can cope with. Hope he doesn't boil over!! I suppose I could swap it so he's getting more of the Alfa A Oil and less Winergy, but the Alfa is 12MJ/kg energy, whereas the Winergy is only 8.3MJ/kg so a much lower energy level feed. Does that energy get converted to fat if not used? My biology lessons have gone right out of my head!

I'll start to build it up tonight and see how he performs at the ride at the weekend - 14 miles including 2 walloping great hills, so it'll be a good test of how we're doing.

[harveydales]

Interesting, Jane. It's those huge quantities of oil that scare me too. Yes, excess calories not burnt up will go to fat. I do understand the principle that EPSM horses can't metabolise starches in the way other horses can so leading to muscle damage under exertion and therefore feeding calories in the form of fat/oil helps but not sure how I'd get harvey to take on board that much oil (obviously gradual increases).

Actually I try not to get too hung up on MJ/Kg because I rarely feed more than 1 Kg of anything anyway so small diferences are insignificant compared to the energy in the hay and grass Harvey gets - or am I wrong? I do look at the total starch/sugar content (legacy of my laminitis experiences) and now am looking at oil content of feeds.

I have looked at feeds like re-leave which have a high oil content and are designed for EPSM horses but even feeding this scares me. I'm feeding Harvey very little at the moment, just a bit of Winergy senior, linseed, balancer and hay. I think if/when I get him back into real work, i will have to look into ways of uping his oil.

14 miles with some decent hillwork is pretty strenuous. Harley must be doing well to be up to that. I'm quite sure Harvey wouldn't be but you are a lot further down the road than me. Reading this gives me hope. Do keep us posted with Harley's progress.

[harveydales]

What about using something like Fast Fibre as a carrier for the oil? I fed Winnie oil (for fattening reasons, not EPSM) in his Fast Fibre soup last winter and it worked well. I might try the same for Harvey.

I worked out that in the winter I was feeding Harvey a maximum of 2Kg Winergy Senior. It contains 5% oil so in effect I was only feeding 100ml oil. The specialist feeds are 10% oil and some 20% so looks like the best way for me to intrdduce more oil into Harvey's diet would be to go down the fast fibre/oil route.

I will be very interested to hear how you get on introducing more oil to Harley's diet.

[harleydales]

Harley HATES fast fibre with a passion! Simply won't touch it, cowps the bowl and stomps off! And I did persevere for a while but not a hope!

Well he took 150ml last night no problem; that was in about 1lb of Alfa A with a handful of Winergy Low for variety!

There is a theory that EPSM horses don't go to fat because of the condition, but I'm not convinced as Harley was pretty cresty earlier in the year. There's also the concern about insulin resistance with that level of oil, which is why some folk went over to Alcar (there's a post ion that somewhere too) but it was SOOOO expensive and you can't feed it constantly, so I went back to oil.

We are futher on than you and Harvey, but it has taken a year to get to this point. This time last year Harley struggled to do 8 miles, and was then down in Glasgow at the vet school, so it'e been a while!

The plan at the moment for the weekend is to take it easy on the hills and power along the flat! He's done the same ride at various levels of fitness - from 4 year old idiot to 40 mile fit speed machine and all stages in between, so I know how he has managed it before and am interested to see how we go. At the same ride last year he was fizzing out of his mind, but I think he was actually sore and 'running away' from the pain . He went down with the tremors afterwards (as he did for other rides at that time)....we haven't had any 20 hour tremors for a long time now.

[harveydales]

Harvey loves fast fibre so that might be the way to go for me.

Like you, I don't really understand why this should have suddenly happened after 10 years of no problems at all. I've had Harvey go from fat/unfit to super fit, lean, well muscled and doing loads of dressage, jumping fast hacking etc (admittedly not the distances you do). I can only think stress hormones come into it somehow - Harvey has found the Frankie thing stressful and also mounting Dolly could have stressed him physically and hormonally.

What oil are you feeding? I'm sure you've told me but I've forgotten.

Fingers crossed for your ride.