Guests: Dr. Joe Pagan, President and Founder, Kentucky Equine Research; Dr. Laurie Lawrence, University of Kentucky and Dr. Steve Jackson, Bluegrass Equine Nutrition Co-host: Dr. Kari Estes, Balchem Research Associate Gathering around the pubcast to discuss equine nutrition in the performance horse arena are Dr. Joe Pagan, Dr. Laurie Lawrence and Dr. Steve Jackson.
Gathering around the pubcast to discuss equine nutrition in the performance horse arena are Dr. Joe Pagan, Dr. Laurie Lawrence and Dr. Steve Jackson.
Expert in equine nutrition and founder of Kentucky Equine Research (KER), Dr. Pagan led the conversation by explaining the company's history, his academic background and KER’s innovative philosophy in looking ahead into equine nutrition. 7:27
Also joining in on the conversation was leading equine nutritionist Dr. Jackson who described his leadership at Bluegrass Equine Nutrition and his experience in one of the largest breed industries, the thoroughbreds. 10:28
He acknowledged that with his background and horsemanship experience, most of his clients are usually thoroughbred owners or trainers ranging from central Kentucky to Japan. 12:47
Dr. Jackson added he believes good horses often come by happenstance, mentioning most folks making feed or giving recommendations read from the same book giving management the upper hand in success. 13:45
Innovation and science, the driving force behind equine nutrition success.
Dr. Pagan mentioned when he first started, the industry was focused on sweet feed and straightforward programs. He added that it wasn’t until he was in graduate school the emphasis switched to the alternative energy source of feeding fat as a performance source. 18:16
However, he added that many in the industry are uncovering the consequences of feeding extremely high fat diets. Dr. Pagan then mentioned that current studies are taking place on polyunsaturated fats as a solution to help correct some of the diet concerns. 20:12
Professor at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Laurie Lawrence, also joined in on the discussion. She added that from her academic perspective, she believes a lot of nutritional horse practices have been modeled by those of other species. 27:52
What are some examples of low, moderate and high-performance horses? Dr. Estes, podcast co-host and Balchem Research Associate, then asked. 28:47
Giving a few examples, Dr. Pagan said racehorses are in the high category, while polo ponies would fit into the middle, and recreational horses would fit into the low level. He then added that he and his team are focused on utilizing technology to alert horse owners on their typical riding time and a nutritional program that would work for them. 30:20
While many factors fit into the nutritional space, Dr. Lawrence mentioned the importance of selecting long-stem and clean hay for the average horse rather than the suggested green, leafy and fresh hay quality. 31:15
Education is a large factor when it comes to accurate equine nutrition, she added. Suggesting the importance of university research, local agents and the potential that an educational pathway can have in this space. 36:20
Dr. Jackson mentioned that he believes the industry, in general, does a poor job of educating practitioners on nutritional needs and recommendations. He added the importance of continuing education for practitioners on various forage types, fat requirements and more. 43:29
Making sure the body condition is appropriate for the horse type and the condition is necessary, noted Dr. Jackson. He added the importance of communicating with your nutritionist about the horse's GI tract and forage types. 58:57
Dr. Lawrence rounded out the conversation by mentioning that as nutritionists, there is a lot of room for growth in educating horse owners, veterinarians and farriers. Additionally, she added that the industry has enough information to solve nearly 80% of the current nutritional concerns in the recreational horse industry. 1:02:42
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Scott Sorrell (00:00:04):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the podcast we're leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell, your host here tonight at The Real Science Exchange. Tonight we get to dive into the exciting world of performance horses. This arena has grown tremendously over the last decade, and our guests tonight have been leading the way. Joining us at the pub tonight, we have three of the experts in equine nutrition who are helping shape the future of nutrition management.
Speaker 2 (00:00:37):
Tonight's pub stories are brought to you by the Keisha line of chelated minerals, Keisha and Keisha plus deliver proven and consistent bioavailability to maximize performance and a no frills pricing approach for greater profitability. Visit alchem.com to learn more.
Scott Sorrell (00:00:57):
Dr. Pagan we'll start with you. Thanks for joining us here at the Exchange. You completed a webinar for us back in August and you shared some very interesting aspects of feeding for performance. So we're excited to be able to go into a deeper look at that tonight. But before we do can you tell us what's in your glass tonight? Well,
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:01:17):
Scott all three of us tonight live in the great state of Kentucky, horse capital of the world. Steve and I live in Woodford County, and Woodford County is kind of renowned for its ability to produce bourbon. So tonight I have Woodford Reserve, which is a fitting thing to, for I think, for us to drink being from Kentucky.
Scott Sorrell (00:01:40):
Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorites in one of my old standbys here, so I'm gonna assume it is made there in Woodford County. It is. All right, super. Joe would you mind introducing your guest tonight and telling us a little bit about how you got to know each other?
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:01:55):
Oh, geez, that's a tough one.
Scott Sorrell (00:01:58):
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:01:59):
I I have known Steve Jackson and Laurie Lawrence for well over 30 years, 35 maybe, is coming up on 40 years. And it's interesting because we're actually from the same generation of equine nutritionist. It's, it's interesting because equine nutrition research used to be a really big deal back in the 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, then after that the tractor was invented and they quit studying horses because it wasn't really important for animal traction. And the, the discipline really disappeared for several decades back in the sixties and the seventies there was sort of a resurgence of that, where there were more pleasure horses, performance horses, and so universities decided to start studying equine nutrition again, and they recruited scientists who hadn't been trained in equine nutrition to start to train equine nutritionist. And so I'm of that first generation, as is Laurie and Steve you might refer to us as the greatest generation, are more appropriately the gray beards and blue hairs now. So we're the first generation, and that's how I, I know both of them is because we kind of came up at a, at approximately the same time, and literally we're the first group that was actually trained to be equine nutritionist. There's two or three generations since then. And in fact, I just hired one of Laurie's recent PhD graduates, so that would be a second generation. And there's even third generation researchers. So we go way, way back.
Scott Sorrell (00:03:46):
Well, that's, that's very interesting. Laurie, let's start with you now. How did you do you remember when you first met Joe?
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:03:55):
I do. We were at a research meeting, I think it might have been in Las Vegas. It was a sports medicine conference, and he was giving a paper there, and I was there to learn. And he was a graduate student at the time, and I remember after he was having a discussion with one of the other people who were there, who was there, followed by the name of David Lambert David Lambert turned to me and he said, that guy's really sharp, isn't he? So that was where I met Joe.
Scott Sorrell (00:04:26):
Okay. Now I understand you're both cornelian and I thought perhaps you had met there.
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:04:31):
No, I I predated him by a bit.
Scott Sorrell (00:04:33):
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:04:36):
Well, I've got some ale in my glass, and I'm bring using a glass that I got from the Red Mile when they had their hundred and 40th year celebration. And so we as forest owners have both thoroughbreds and standard breads. And so I thought it was appropriate to have my glass from the Red Mile.
Scott Sorrell (00:05:00):
Yeah. Excellent. And Steve, how did you first meet Joe?
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:05:05):
Same way. E nps, it was called at that point, the Equine Nutrition Physiology Society. And Joe and I are actually probably exactly the same in terms of our graduate work. I was at University Kentucky and had a major professor, John Baker, who like Joe's major professor Dr. Hence was kind of the, the ones that they identified to kind of create a resurgence in equine nutrition. So Joe and I were at numerous meetings together, and I taught at the University of Kentucky and left there in September of 90 to join Joe in developing Contec I, I I Kentucky Quae Nutrition. I started to say bluegrass equine nutrition, but, and then one of the things that I, I think is one of the best achievements of my life is before I left ensuring that they were gonna hire Laurie Lawrence to take my position. So I've got a tremendous amount of respect for both Joe and Laurie and you know, they, they tend to be the scientific leaders. And since I left K e R and started bluegrass equine nutrition, I, I do more consulting on-farm work management, actual involvement in all aspects of, of mainly thoroughbred farms
Scott Sorrell (00:06:43):
Very well. So we've certainly assembled a star study team, and I'm really looking forward to the conversation. But before we do, I'd like to introduce my co-host for tonight's conversation. Carrie Estes. Carrie has joined us for a few special segments, and I'm excited to have her back here at the pub once again. So, welcome back, Carrie. And what's in your glass tonight? Any bourbon?
Dr. Kari Estes (00:07:06):
No,
Scott Sorrell (00:07:17):
All right. Very well understand
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:07:27):
Sure. Well, Kentucky Equine Research is a private company, number one, which is often we are confused as being part of a university. K e r again, started in 1988, and it's, it is kind of interesting how it started because I, as we've already discussed, I went to Cornell for my graduate studies. And it was at a time at Cornell when there was a great group of people there, Peter Van and Dale Bowman, and lots of these guys were churning out all sorts of great science. And Skip, hence, was my major professor, was kind of the, the one of the leaders in this new resurgent equine nutritionist. And I was, I was trained there and assumed that what you did for a living was you went to a university. So when I graduated from Cornell, I did not have a commercial bone in my body.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:08:24):
That was not something that I would've even contemplated, but as, as fate would have it, there weren't academic positions when I graduated and I ended up in the feed industry. And it was serendipity really, because I, it kind of opened my eyes to the, the great new world of what was happening in equine nutrition. And so the application of research became a lot more important to me. It was it was how can you find new things, but also how can you, you apply 'em? So after a few years in the American feed industry I started K E R, but its mission was increase the knowledge of the, the horse industry, but also apply that knowledge. And so really k e r was hat do research. So we have quite a, a large research facility both in Kentucky and in Florida, but also always be thinking about the application of that information.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:09:23):
So we really refer to K e r as an innovation company. We're trying to find new and improved. Sure we have to, to take care of what's going on right now, but really what we're looking for is what is is next in line. And I think, you know Steve and I obviously have known each other very well for a long time. And I think really our philosophies about what we're wanting to do is a little different in that he has to take care of business every day. There are horses out there that are being raised today and race horses that are being trained today. And so, Steve, I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your focus is, is a little more on what is happening now and how to make it done correctly and have the best result where we do that at k e r, but we also kind of have the luxury of looking ahead. It's like, what new things can we try to develop?
Scott Sorrell (00:10:23):
Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:10:28):
Okay. you know, we live right in the center of, of the third bread industry. It's kind of the mecca for thoroughbreds. And prior to the time that I left k e r I was doing a lot of on-farm consultation. And it, it's not only what to feed, but how to feed it. And a lot of times when we get into Rex it's not the feed, it's the feeding management that we need to look at. So I, I had lots and lots more clients in the thoroughbred industry. And, and so I decided that, you know, I, I grew up around horses. I showed horses rodeoed as a, as a teenager and up through college. And so I, I'm intensely involved with grassroots horses. And I think that's one of the things that maybe has made my business somewhat successful is that horsemanship, because I raise horses myself, I sell horses.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:11:33):
I raise race horses. And so I'm very involved in the industry. And what I found was that a lot of times the information that, that, that consumers receive is maybe correct commercially, but when you put it on a farm basis, it really doesn't get the job done in terms of, of raising a racehorse or a performance horse of any kind or a halter horse as far as that's concerned. So I'm busy, busy internationally in Japan and Ireland and England and France and Australia with clients as well as clients in central Kentucky trying to interpret, apply the things that Joe and Laurie work at every day, you know, is to, to take the research to, to the farm. And it's a good, it's a, it, it's kind of one of those deals that if I won the lottery, I'd probably do this for free.
Scott Sorrell (00:12:37):
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:12:47):
Most of my clients tend to be upper end thoroughbred owners, either trainers or farm owners all of them. And, and interestingly most of 'em have become good friends the, the actual owner of the farm, as well as the management of the farm. So, you know, we're talking about larger farms in central Kentucky and a couple of farms in Japan and, and Ireland. And, you know, it, it's it's really been a, a fun deal because you feel very connected to horses and what they're achieving right now. For instance, this year, the, the, the odds on favorite for the Breeders Cup classic is flight line. And he was bred by one of my clients that retained 25%. So I've been watching, going to most of his races. And so you feel a, a closer relationship to thinking that you had something to do with these horses, a achieving what they do, although maybe sometimes that's false. I, I, I think good horses sometimes are just a freak of nature, and we're all, all doing things, all reading from the same book. You know, it, any of us that are making feed or are making recommendations to people we're reading from the same book. So there's not that much difference in what people do. So it's the management in general. And matings, I do a lot with matings of stallions to mayors and just the total involvement in the thoroughbred business mainly.
Scott Sorrell (00:14:31):
All right. Very good. Laurie, why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the work that you're doing there at the University of Kentucky?
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:14:38):
Sure. I'm a professor in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences, which is a great place for an equine nutritionist because we have a number of other nutritionists who work with other species. So I often think, as Joe said a lot of us were trained sort of cross-trained, our, our, most of our lectures probably didn't have a lot to do with horse nutrition, but we learned a lot about the basics of nutrition. And so that's always a principle that I've tried to pass on to my graduate students, that they need to be nutritionist first if they want to perhaps go into research or academia. And that there's lots of really wonderful stuff that happens with other species because there's a little bit further ahead of us. And they have oftentimes a lot more animals to work with, so they can do a lot of different types of experiments.
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:15:32):
So so I collaborate with a lot of folks here that are not just horse nutritionists, but we're really interested right now in factors that affect mere milk composition and how that then affects the growing fo. But we've done a lot of work looking at forage digestibility and also mineral digestibility and those sorts of things. So my, my job really is to train graduate students, which I guess become the second or third generation so that they can go out and train other graduate students so that we keep those young scientists coming along, whether they end up going into academia or they end up going into the, the feed industry, we need to keep that pipeline open.
Scott Sorrell (00:16:13):
Hmm. Very well. So give us an idea of what state-of-the-art nutrition was when you first began practicing and and, and what are some of the key advancements you've seen over the years?
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:16:25):
Yeah, so I think when I first started, there was a lot of at least the folks that I was involved with, there was a lot of interest in protein nutrition in horses. And there were a lot of studies that had been done there, possibly reflecting the fact that some of the nutritionist that transferred over into equine had been swine nutritionist. And that was kind of a hot topic. And so protein was a very popular topic and also amino acids and a little bit on non-protein nitrogen. And there was just a little tiny bit of work with the horses microbial community in the large intestine. And really that was sort of a jump off from what they had learned in ruminants. And after that protein for was popular for a while, and then we sort of moved on to energy sources and looking at fat and carbohydrates.
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:17:19):
And I think that that's really changed the feeding practices across the world. The diets that horses get now, the commercial feeds that are manufactured now are much different than the ones that were available back in the 1970s and the early eighties. And now today, I think we've, we've moved on and in many ways from just thinking about energy sources, and now I think there's a lot more interest in sort of functional foods and also in thinking about how the diet affects the microbial community, and then other things like the sustainability of feeding horses and some of those other types of areas.
Scott Sorrell (00:18:03):
Joe, you're in the innovation business. I'm gonna ask you the same question. What was some of the things that you've seen change over the, over the years and, and what role perhaps have you played in some of those new innovations?
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:18:16):
All three of us, I think again, are coming through the same time. And so we've all sort of experienced the same changes that we've seen. When I started, it was kind of a, a sweet feed sort of mentality of feeding. They were pretty plain straightforward sort of feeding programs about this. The time that I was a graduate student, Steve and, and Laurie, there was this big emphasis put on alternative energy sources, particularly fat. So we went through that phase of feeding fat for performance sources, and that has sort of melded into feeding fat to anything that you can catch. And I think part of the problems that we've got is in, in equine nutrition as is probably in all, all other sectors sometimes a good idea can be taken to extremes. And we realize that actually we're kind of in the the phase right now of discovering unintended consequences of things that everyone started to apply without giving a whole lot of thought to where they were going.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:19:33):
So one of the main things we're studying right now, in fact, is are there some unintended consequences of feeding real high fat diets and the types of fats we're feeding? And if there is, which I would argue there are some problems with that, can we fix it? And so that's one of the things we're trying to do by selectively giving different types of polyunsaturated facts to correct some of the imbalances that, that have started about the time that I started also, or a little, oh, well, about the time that I got into the commercial industry on the growing horse side, there was a real emphasis on skeletal disorders, osteochondrosis, that sort of thing. And some work at Ohio State suggested that there were some trace minerals that were important, and everybody in the industry set their hair on fire about that, that that was suddenly what caused every problem that there, there was.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:20:36):
And so everybody went down that rabbit hole for a long time. I think to a certain degree that's kind of, has been litigated and resolved to a certain degree, but we're still looking at, well, what are causing some of these issues? And we're currently trying to do some large field studies looking at how horses how their body weight and growth rates may play a role in some of these disorders that are unrelated to those specific mineral intakes. So tho those are two of the areas that we're interested in. One of the things that I, I think I'm sad about, and I think in conversations with Laurie and Steve that we're all sad about is that when we first got into this, and Laurie, I remember that was Reno actually in 1985 that you're talking about. We were all interested in performance horses and high performance horses and how to increase performance.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:21:35):
I still am, Steve still is, Laurie still is cuz they're both racehorse readers and owners, and so am I. But the, the industry has, has gone away from that towards what do we do about the fat horse, the, the under exercised horse, the hor, I mean, it's a lot like human society. Horses are getting more obese than they're having all these metabolic disorders related to that. And I, I just think that's kind of sad when I go to a lot of the scientific meetings now and I see most of the the researches on those horses as opposed to the horses that we really are interested in that we started with. And that was the, the equine athlete.
Dr. Kari Estes (00:22:21):
It's funny that you mentioned that because I, I show hunters and I feel like most of the horses in the, in the Hunter Show world are grossly overweight. But it seems like that's what what these horse owners want a little bit, a little bit more fat on their horses. So
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:22:43):
Yeah, I mean, sure. I, I was a judge for years and the classic classes of horses that are always too fat are halter horses and show hunters mm-hmm.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:23:22):
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:23:25):
It the thing that that bothers me the most is that instead of, of educating owners about what we're talking about and insulin resistance and so on, is that we've, we've said oats are poison. We haven't, cuz we're nutritionist, but people look for quick fixes and drugs to fix this. And so I, you know, I'm, I'm 69, I'm close to retirement, I don't have anything to lose. So I'm fairly direct with them and say, look, it's, it's just like you, you need to take ownership of the condition of the horse. You know, people are fat. You know, obesity is the biggest problem we face in the US and humans, and it is in horses. But instead of people teaching consumers, horse owners how to take control of that, they put 'em on 18 different drugs and, you know, you, it, it's, it's easy.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:24:37):
You know, Joe and I both kind of worked a lot on energy metabolism when, when we were graduate students, and even when Joe and I were working at K E R together, that was one of the things that we really worked on because of our, the proximity to the racehorse business. And it, it's really simple mathematics for humans and horses, if you eat too much, you get fat. If you don't eat enough, you get thin. If you the appropriate amount of feed food you're in at maintenance. And, and, and there's no quick fix other than to take control of intake on, on, on horses. And, and we cause a lot of the problems humans cause many of the problems that modern horses have because we treat 'em like a Labrador instead of a an athlete. Sorry, I'm, I,
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:25:32):
I'm, well, I, I think to, to me, what what illustrates this better than anything is there, there was a, a organization that was formed in 1982 called iet. It's the International Conference on Equine Exercise Physiology. And it's when all the, the great thinkers in exercise physiology got together and every four years they had a conference on advances in equine exercise physiology. This year they had the, the latest one and one of the titles, one of the only nutrition talks at that was the, I may get the title not quite right, but it's something along the lines of judges prefer adiposity in athletic ponies. Now, that was a frigging
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:26:23):
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:26:24):
At Icy. Is that even an oxymoron? That's an oxymoron to at tab boot. Yeah. But it's like, whoa, things have really changed. If that's the science that we're, that we have in the, our, our premier Exercise physiology conference is to discover what Steve said he knew a long time ago, judges prefer fat ponies and and hunters. But it, it, it's really a sad statement on kind of the priorities right now. And it's, it's trying to fix this problem of, of fatness, but not by going about the way, the sensible way that Steve suggested how, how to make 'em thin.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:27:09):
But it, but at any rate, you know, we use like ration balancers and, and we've been doing this Joe's for 30 years. I left in 90, and this is 20, 30 years we've been using concentrates or, or ration balancers in addition to good quality forage for a lot of horses or, or even in young growing horses, where we consider that the, the condition of the horse is excessive. I'll put 'em on a kilo a day of a ration balancer are 500 grams. So that people satisfied their need to feed without increased caloric intake.
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:27:52):
No, I think from my perspective, so I'm, I'm an academician and I work with a lot of other academicians and I think feeding practices and horses have been heavily influenced by feeding practices with other species. And so one of the, the things that I, you know, we all have rep pet peeves. This is one of mine. And I think that the, the forage specialist in our plant soil scientist in our university think I'm a heretic because the typical recommendations for pasture management, both the varieties that are selected as well as the management practices have been developed to promote rapid gain in cows and sheep and other grazing animals. And that's not what we want. And it's certainly not what horses that are 15 years old need.
Dr. Kari Estes (00:28:47):
So maybe for our listeners, do you think you could give us some examples of a low, moderate and high performance horse? Yeah. Or horse and work.
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:28:59):
I'll let Joe take that and see if he has some guidelines that he gives to folks.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:29:04):
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:30:41):
I think the other thing is that we've been schooled or we've, we've schooled people that when they're selecting hay, that they should be selecting for high quality hay, which is green and leafy and fresh, and that's all well and good. And that would be great if you were feeding a calf to grow. And it's great if you really do have a high performance horse that needs every calorie they can find. But for the majority of the horses, they don't need that. They need stemi. And it needs to be clean. It just doesn't need to be that highly nutritious pay. And I think people have a hard time if they look at green and leafy versus kind of average grass hay that's a little bit stemmy and kind of grayish colored. They have a hard time making that choice. But that's, that's another thing where we've, we've, we've taught them something that sort of applies to another animal, but not really to the animal that they have.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:31:46):
Yeah, I, I agree. One of the things that Laurie is doing and, and the people in the agronomy department up there is, is emphasizing forage species that are appropriate not, not only as hay, but also as pasture. You know, people think about global warming and well, it doesn't affect us and so on. But in central Kentucky, I'm convinced that global warming warming has totally changed. What kind of plants are predominant in our pastures. When I came up here in 75, there were pure bluegrass pastures. I mean, that's all, maybe some white clover or something. Now it's more like we have weedy grasses, nimble will thing, warm season grasses that are, are, are not appropriate really for, for the horses and less and less cool season grasses. So it's like the cool, cool season grass country has moved up some.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:32:54):
And so a lot, a lot of the environmental things that we say see kind of change that. And when it, when you come to hay, if you go to California, it costs you a lot more money for a bale of Timothy hay than it does a bale of alfalfa hay. And, and I'm a huge alfalfa fan. I mean, on my own farming, on most of my clients, we feed mixed alfalfa orchard grass or straight alfalfa. You, you just can't feed it full of free choice because it is very cal And we've done a poor job actually of talking about forage to, to consumers you know, and there's a, a lot of wives tales out there in terms of forage species that are incorrect. And, and believe it or not, we just, in 45 years, we haven't really made a lot of progress in teaching consumers or veterinarians the appropriate things about different forages.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:34:00):
It make a huge difference. You know, I've got lots of mares in central Kentucky in hay and or pasture in a, in a, in a supplement pelvic and, and they're still too fat. So why do they do that? Well, one of the things is they know I can feed four pounds or four quarts. I mean, a lot of people won't even go to weight. They're still talking about volume and they know what they're feeding, but how do they determine how much forage that they're feeding? And because they don't know, then basically their approach is, we're gonna meet the requirements with concentrates and, and the grass is gravy, and that's bass wards from what it should be. But we just haven't been very effective in general of, of teaching people what expected forage intake would be. And, and, you know, there are a lot of horses that do hard work that are on forage alone, on the hail alone. And, and California, I have a lot of clients that have cutting horses or open horses hardworking horses, and they feed 'em alfalfa cubes and salt full stop. And they look magnificent. Magnificent. So forage ought to be our, our, the first thing we talk about to me.
Scott Sorrell (00:35:19):
Yeah. Steve, you mentioned that we haven't done a very good job of educating people on how to feed their horses. I'm wondering who is we, right? I mean, who's responsible for teaching specifically recreational people that own recreational horses? That seems like a huge task to me. Lori, is that, is that something universities ought to be doing feed companies? Where where does that responsibility lie?
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:35:42):
Well, everybody, and I think there's a couple things that are a little bit different about the horse world from the standpoint of universities than maybe is, is applies to other animals. But one of those is that horse owners tend to be pretty transient. So a lot of horse owners may get into the horse industry or become a horse owner when they have a child who wants to take lessons and then have a horse, something like that. And then, you know, they're in it for five or six or eight years and then they go out and so the parents get somewhat educated and then they move on. So it's not necessarily, you know, at, at Steve's level and, and at Joe's level where you've got, you know, high level competition you know, those are, those are more professional level. But here we've got a lot of folks that, you know, come in, they come and they go, they're not like your average b former or sheep farmer.
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:36:37):
They also don't have an agricultural background necessarily. So they may start owning a horse and not have any idea what the difference is between alfalfa and Timothy Hay. And they're usually not really attached to the cooperative extension service. And so in agriculture, people that come from an agricultural background are often familiar with their county agent and what those agents can do for them and what the cooperative extension service can do for them. But folks that come from a more suburban environment would never be aware of that. And so that educational pathway, that person that could help them on the ground, sample their hay and provide pasture management, that kind of stuff they don't even know exist. And so it's a different sort of thing. And so I think some of my extension colleagues would say that they are, they're teaching the same stuff now that they were teaching 15 years ago because it's different people. And so you start out teaching them about forage, and by the time they get it, they've left and a whole new crowd has come in. So so it's a, it's a little bit, it's certainly important. And I think at the undergraduate level many programs do the best they can to teach that kind of information. But again, nutrition might be a class that they take as opposed to something that they would spend a lot of time actually delving into.
Scott Sorrell (00:38:07):
Laurie, while you have the floor, I kind of wanted to dig into another topic, and that's the nrc understand that you are the, the chair of the, the N R C that's looking into updating it. When's the last time that the the, the equine n r rrc was updated?
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:38:21):
Well, the last edition was published in 2007. I was chair of that committee that did those updates. Once the, once the new edition is published, the committee is disbanded. And so since that time I haven't had any communications with the NRC about that. I did have an inquiry from a person in the feed industry a couple months ago and gave them the name of someone that I thought might have information. But one of the, the stumbling blocks for that is that today there's very little internal funding from the National Research Council to update those publications. And so you usually have to raise money from the industry. And so that is a fairly sizable amount of money cuz it has to help pay for the staff and the editing and the technical editing and all that kind of stuff.
Scott Sorrell (00:39:12):
Okay. So it's been a few years. Does it, does it need to be updated? That's that kind of the group?
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:39:19):
Yeah, I would say there are certainly sections of it that need to be updated.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:39:22):
I, you know, I think that there are places in the NRC that probably are need revision. There's some mistakes to be real honest in the NRC that need to be corrected. I think it's still a very useful document. I'm not sure you know, one of the things that I've told people is that from, from the beginning when I started reading and trying to absorb the nrc requirements every single change that has been made in each of the additions is to increase the horse's requirement for, for nutrients. There has not been a single case where they have said, no, you know, we got this wrong, this is too much. The requirement should be less, and I think it's human nature both in human nutrition and horse nutrition to always look for deficiencies or things that we are not doing enough of.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:40:25):
In reality, I I don't think that there is a single place in the NRC that says we need to increase this some because it's deficient. And, and I mean, I study the, the, the, the document a a lot, don't I, Laurie, I mean, I'll, I'll call Laurie and say, well, how about the lasting requirement for lactating mayors or, or whatever. And, and to be real honest, I mean, I'd love to see it revised, but I can't, from a practical standpoint, read that document and say, I know this is deficient, we need to increase it. But that's been the nature of the beast is to always increase requirements. And then if we take increased requirements and then make commercial increase as well so that the feed tag mine's bigger than yours then we're I in, in the last hundred evaluations I've done, I can't remember every ever seeing a nutrient that I thought was deficient.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:41:32):
On the other hand, I don't remember doing one where I thought, where I didn't think, man, I, you know, this is way too much of X, y, z no nutrient, you know, wh wh why do we need this much of trace minerals or vitamins and so on? So you know, I from, and, and, and I'm an, I'm a dinosaur. There's no doubt I'm conservative. I'm like, Laurie, I learned basic nutrition from John Baker and applied it. I, I just don't think that if we, if all we're gonna do is increase the numbers than a new nrc, we don't need it.
Scott Sorrell (00:42:11):
My, is there a better, is there a better way to establish requirements other than the nrc?
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:42:18):
I don't know. I think, no. I mean, the, the the, there, there's nothing in the NRC that is toxic. But there, I don't know of anything in the NRC that is is out out of blind. So, you know, and that's what makes you angry sometimes is the NRC is the product of a lot of pretty smart people getting together, getting assigned sections to try to make sure that we have the most current research represented in that document. And then from a commercial standpoint, oh, that's just the minimum, boy, it's not the minimum for me. It's a, a lot of it's the maximum. So a lot of it is input from consumers and, and veterinarians and, you know, talking about education that anything about a horse, anything, the first source of information as people go for is veterinarian ex except for close clients of Joe's or Laurie's or mine that know that, you know, we're gonna give them.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:43:29):
And, and I think that we do a generally a poor job of educating practitioners on, on nutrition. And there's a, a lot of, you know, knee jerk reaction in terms of recommendations. And, and so the last year or two, I've, I've tried to make it a point to really get involved in continuing education for practitioners so that, that they have, you know, accurate things to, to say about forage types and about how much feed and about fat and so on, because it's just like doctors, you know, where do you go to doc for information on anything that associated with health other than your, your doctor? Now he hates to see me come because I'm ask him pretty pointed questions. But if the doctor and the vet are the place that people go for information, then we need to, and I know Joe has done this for a long time, get involved with getting information to practitioners that's accurate. And, and actually commercially viable.
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:44:38):
I can kind of jump in there with an example. I was doing a nutrition evaluation for a farm here in town about three years ago. And the two practicing vet, two veterinarians that did the the work on the farm were in the meeting along with the the farm owner and their managers. And one of the veterinarians was talking about her practice of normally giving all the fos that were born a shot of selenium. And the farm owner asked, asked her why she did that. She said, well, because I think that the, the forage here, the grass here is selenium deficient. And he said to me, he said, is that true? I said, well, it is true that our ground here tends to be selenium marginal or selenium deficient. He said, but don't the mayors get selenium in their concentrate? And I said, well, yes they do. But I don't think she knew that. I don't think, you know, that wasn't part of, she didn't put those parts together, you know? So I do think that that, and Joe's always really focused on that. I think we need to continue to do that. Although I do think that veterinarians are becoming much more interested in nutrition. I get a lot more questions from them than I used to.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:46:00):
Yeah. The big the biggest thing I can see in wanting to get involved too right now is not on even know if I use this the correct terminology, is the, the microbiome or the microbial content of the secom and large colon in its effect on health. And, you know, we've always said, I think all three of us have always said that the more we learn about feeding horses, the more important we consider the hen gut to be. And, you know, a healthy hen gut is a result of feed into of forage intake and microbial fermentation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it's like the, the things that are being done now, I think this is the first time ever by anybody has ever known that we have, have microbiome to consider. And, and when, when I came to Kentucky in 75, Dr.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:46:58):
Baker already had my pro professor already had like four or five sequel fist related horses where they were doing research on the effective feed intake or type of feeds on, on the microbial enumeration of, of the he gut. And that was in 75. So it's, it's not, you mean horses have always had a he gut and there've always been bacteria there and, and it's like, oh, this is a new deal. You need to get this, this probiotic or prebiotic and feed it. And you know, it, it, it's as we go in cycles, don't we, Joe? We'll, we'll go back 30 years and, and really there's nothing that's new. We do have a hell of a lot better analytical techniques that we can use, but it's not like nobody in the past has considered these questions that we continue to ask.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:47:52):
Yeah, I thought it was kind of amusing. There was a conference an animal science conference when they were talking about the equine microbiome and what a discovery it was. And I was thinking, none of these people have drunk very much beer with Peter Van Seus back in the, in the eighties or the seventies
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:49:06):
So I, I think the people that were on the N R C had their hands tied to a certain degree by what evidence they could use and how they could interpret the EV evidence. I would say maybe something that's a little more useful right now that might get a little more funding activity actually, rather than a full-blown NRC, would be some way that consensus statements could be produced about important topics. And if you could get a blue ribbon panel of experts, whether they're academic, academic or commercial, you need a ma mixture of both that can review the the available evidence and put it in the context of what happens in practicality and speak with the United Voice about how a specific topic, part of the problem. Now, when when Steve and I were going early in k e r, there was no internet that's not how information was tr was transmitted.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:50:12):
Now, you can't get away from the internet, and there's such a, a fire hose of opinions and, and misinformation that people have access to. It's kind of hard to, to separate that out from what is really true. So I, I mean, I would wholeheartedly endorse and probably help fund a way that we could create some consensus statements about important topics that aren't even really covered in the NRC except peripherally that people think a lot about. I mean, there's, we are obsessed with fat and, and whatnot, but there's not a fat requirement in a, in the nrc I mean, in grams per day or grams per day of neutral detergent fiber for that that matter, you know, things that we have to deal with kind of on an everyday basis. So I, I mean, I think there needs to be a, a way for that information to be interpreted and disseminated, but I'm not sure that the nrcs the way these days, the way that we're looking at nutrients and from a commercial viewpoint, a lot of, well, all, almost always, more is better.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:51:23):
And that's how you show the, the value of your product is by having more mm-hmm.
Dr. Joe Pagan (00:52:24):
It's not enough to kill a horse, but Lori, when you're given a gram and a half a zinc a day to a horse, is that doing anything to its hin gut? You know, what is it doing to the, the bugs that are back there? These are, I think, important things that we need to contemplate and look at the idea not of black and white binary deficient or excess, but what are acceptable ranges and at what point are there some unintended consequences that we really haven't got our, our hands on yet? So I think that would be a, a better way to approach some of this in the future.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:53:00):
Yeah, and I think if in my, in my own, I, I think one of the things that's happened through the pandemic, it, it, at least from my standpoint, is that cause of ingredient cost and diversion of ingredients to making biofuels and so on, that, that some of the ingredients that we've depended on for a long time are, are in less supply. And we always, you know, Joe and I both came through the fat era. I had graduate students that did work on, on fat for performance horses and so on, Dr. Steve Du. And we thought it was a great idea because it's energy dense, you know, you don't add any starch, et cetera, et cetera. But when fat a percent fat added 25 to $30 a ton to horse feed Joe and I had a discussion of two months ago, Joe that maybe we don't need the fat in a lot of diets.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:54:13):
You know, they're types of fats that are effective in performance horses. But, you know, with, with horses getting too fat. Anyway, I, I took fat outta most of my rations in the last 30 days. Cause I really couldn't justify the cost of it. And it used to be cheap, you know, so oats for instance, you know, they're making oat replacement feeds now that have the same nutrient composition as oats that are not oats made outta oat feed and so on in the, the market. You know, we went 30 days ago where most of the sweet feed in, in central Kentucky went up $6 a bag in one fell swoop after having already been increased in March. So you take these big deals, every single one of my clients called every one of them call me, do I need to do something different?
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:55:09):
And some of 'em decided, yeah, you know, it went up, but I'm confident in feeding this way and so on. And they stayed the same, but we went to a lot of farms, went to cubes because we're using co-products of the human nutrition things to, to make these feeds. So the, the phosphor thing, if phosphorous thing, Scott, I think we talked about the other day, in some countries it's already legislated because of environmental and algae bloom and so on. And, and in Europe, they're very, very particular about runoff of nutrients from, from farms. And a lot of the big places have places that they can put waste and let it, and not run off into the, the creeks and streams. So all of these things are, you know, the, it, it kind of goes along with the, the, there a lot of people, a lot of my friends from Texas that say global warming is. You know, it, you know, it's just a political thing. And then all of a sudden, 30 years later, we, you find out that a lot of these things that we're doing environmentally are very, very negative. And that includes overfeeding animals, our inappropriate nutrient concentrations in animal feed that we just, we really need to consider. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (00:56:33):
You know, we're getting pretty close to done here, but there's one area I wanted to kind of dig into before we depart, and, and that is you know, Steve, before you said there's not a lot new, there is one thing that is new and that's epigenetics. Some recent research about sponsored at couple of your alma maters Cornell, and this was done with humans. They actually supplemented Cho to, to mothers during gestation. And then with, with the, with the objective of improving cognitive function and development. And then they measured the, the mental acuity or focus of those children as infants. And they came back seven years later and measured their ability to focus then at seven years old. And they found that the children whose mothers were supplemented with additional colon ha had a significant amount of better focus than, than the children whose mothers did not. And, and I'm wondering is there a role for something like that or research, Lori looking at that in, in equine, right, improving the ability, the train ability of, of horses, and just kind of curious if you guys have given anything like that, any thought?
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (00:57:54):
Well, actually the folks down at the University of Florida have done some experiments back looking at omega-3 fatty acids and then in feeding the mares and then looking at some of the trainability characteristics of the FOLs, I don't know that they had, were able to make a strong conclusion. Of course, one of the huge issues is having large enough populations that you can actually see differences, you know, because the differences are not likely to be or our ability to detect the differences in horses are not likely to be huge, right? So I don't know. I think it's a really interesting thing and certainly what Steve was just talking about, and Joe earlier, we've been probably over supplementing brood mirrors for a long time with many different types of trace minerals and whether those things have an effect on the fos over time. I don't know. I wonder, I look at all these forces that have insulin resistance, some of them not even apparently overweight, but they're insulin dysregulated. They're 10 years old or eight years old, and I think how can that even be, you know, and, and so I think maybe it's a multi-generational type thing that we just haven't really recognized.
Dr. Steve Jackson (00:59:22):
Yeah, it, it, it, it's a, it's a complex thing and it's difficult and unfortunately, I I I'm not as involved going to every scientific meeting, but, you know, most of my colleagues are my same age or, or very, very close. And I don't see a hell of a lot of new generation of Joe Pagans and Laurie Lawrence's. It's probably good. There's not another generation of Steve Jackson's, but you know, it it, where where is, where is the next group of like, gurus come for me. I don't know.
Scott Sorrell (01:00:05):
I, I think that's a, a great place to maybe stop for all those young students out there listening. There's a need in Equin nutrition. So I would I don't know who to call, call Lori. I guess there's, there's a need out there. Call
Dr. Steve Jackson (01:01:01):
All right. Don't overfeed you know, make sure that you know the body condition that is appropriate for the horse that you're using and feed him due to that, you know, is basic should be common sense. Nutrition is the body condition is first, and then you can fluctuate on how you get the trace minerals and so on. In there if it's nutritionist, you know, tell people the truth, you know, make sure that they understand the, the actual function of the horse's GI tract and how important forage is. I, you know, I'm, I have been for a long time, but particularly now, a Forage fan. And I think there are a lot of old wives tales that, that need to be dispelled in terms of what forage species are appropriate for horses.
Scott Sorrell (01:01:59):
Carrie, what comments do you have for us?
Dr. Kari Estes (01:02:01):
Well, I think as a a horse owner myself listening to this conversation you know, there's so much information on the internet, right? Good, bad, ugly, so do your research and seek help from somebody who knows what they're talking about, right? Not just another horse owner on the internet. You know, go to a nutritionist and, and I guess your vet too encourage them to learn or go to a nutritionist as well.
Scott Sorrell (01:02:38):
Yeah. Thank you, Carrie and Lori, what kind of final comments do you have for us?
Dr. Laurie Lawrence (01:02:42):
Yeah, I, I thought what Steve said was good. I think a as nutritionists, we all need to probably do a better job of educating the people who actually advise horse owners. So whether those are veterinarians or farriers or horse trainers people at the lesson barn, you know, that's the, that's where incoming horse owners get their information and recreational horse owners get their information. And I think we have a lot of, we have plenty of information to solve probably 80% of the problems in the recreational horse industry relative to nutrition. Maybe not the growing horse, maybe not the performance horse, but I think if we just apply what we know we could probably, and put it into practice, we could probably do a better job of feeding those horses.
Scott Sorrell (01:03:37):
All right. Thank you for that, Lori and Joe, we'll give you the final words.
Dr. Joe Pagan (01:03:41):
Well, I, I think it's an exciting time because there's a lot of new technologies that can be used to answer some questions that we've had for a long time. I, so, you know, full steam ahead on that. But also use, co use some caution in interpreting and applying some of this because there are unforeseen circumstances that we really need to pay attention to. So I think there, there we will make strides, but we need to be careful about how we use this technology.
Scott Sorrell (01:04:16):
Joe, Lori, Steve, Carrie, first let me thank you for the enlightening conversation tonight. The equine segment is new to me, and so I've really enjoyed getting to learn more about the intricacies of feeding these amazing athletes to our loyal listeners. And to those new to the exchange, I wanna thank you for coming along with us on this journey. We've covered a lot of ground over the last couple years, and I'd encourage you to go out to either our website or to your favorite podcast platform and, and take a look at some of the past episodes that we've had. There's a lot of good information out there. Also, if you've got any ideas for other topics that you'd like us to, to discuss, please reach out to us with those ideas anh.marketing@balchem.com. And we'd like to work with you to bring those to the pub. And you never know, maybe we'll invite you to join us as well. But for now, I want to thank everybody for joining us. We hope you learned something. We hope you had some fun, and we hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
We'd love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email to a h.marketing val chem.com with any suggestions, and we'll work hard to add them to the schedule. Don't forget to leave a five star rating on your way out. You can request your Real Science Exchange t-shirt in just a few easy steps, just like or subscribe to the Real Science Exchange. And send us a screenshot along with your address and t-shirt size to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Balchems Real Science lecture series of webinars continues with ruminant focused topics on the first Tuesday of every month. Monogastric focus topics on the second Tuesday of each month, and quarterly topics for the companion animal segment. Visit balchem.com/real science to see the latest schedule and to register for upcoming webinars.