Alfalfa and Excessive Flatulence

[Doc-t]

What makes a horse or human “gassy” is the production of gas by inappropriate bacteria in the gut being fed food that causes their overgrowth. This occurs in humans and horses when there is no a broad diversity of gut bacteria.

The best way to correct this is to remove all inflammatory ingredients (grain, grain by-products, treats, supplements and anything else other than forage). But it isn’t always as simple as this because of age, stress (physical, environmental, emotional) and season.

Age is another way of saying the gut microbes have been inflamed for longer than in a young horse. It is the chronicity that needs patience to correct. However this may be harder to do when the heat of summer, the increased sugar of growing summer grass plus any other stress such as over crowding (4 horses on 1 acre) or a new horse or even new barn help.

If all other stresses are improved to the best of your ability then just offer a little of the alfalfa such as a few cubes or part of a flake, increasing slowly over time. The other option is to stop feeding alfalfa. There is no real benefit especially if you are feeding a high quality protein such as soybean meal.

[Rosie]

My horse does great on O and A. She gets 1/4 scoop of alfalfa pellets with her soybean meal. In the summer she gets 1/4 scoop of soybean and winter she gets 1/3-1/2 depending on her weight. She’s definitely a healthy weight right now with the abundance of good grass.

[Doc-t]

@Rosie What is a “scoop?” This denotes a volume and there are an infinite number of sizes or volumes for scoops. For example, there is a small scoop in my coffee jar and there is a very large scoop on the excavator outside.

It is always important to measure food intake by weight and not volume. This will take into account density. For example, using the same scoop you would measure the weight of corn and of oats. The corn would be double the weight. This is why corn got the misunderstanding that it was a “hotter” food because owners added this by scoop – in effect doubling the amount of calories released.

I make it a point in saying feed 1 pound of soybean meal per 1200 pound horse, not a scoop or a cup. Many people in the FB group measured their SBM by weight and then transferred theirs into a cup measure. The result was that 1 pound of one person’s SBM was 2 ½ cups while another’s was almost 4 cups.

It is also interesting that you change the amount of SBM for the season to adjust what SBM does to body fat. Do you also adjust the amount of hay fed? This is where the starch is and it is starch (glucose) that triggers insulin. Excess glucose is converted into body fat (free fatty acids or FFA’s) and insulin blocks the release of this fat. The only time SBM (protein) would be converted into glucose (gluconeogenesis) is if the horse is fed excess starch. And if SBM is being converted into glucose then ALL the horse’s protein is being converted (hooves, top line, immune system, neurotransmitters, etc).

You mention “healthy weight.” All body fat cells release inflammatory cells called cytokines but the more FFA’s and triglycerides are stuffed into a body fat cell the more cytokines released. Winter (lack of food) allows the horse to dip into the body fat reserves because there is little glucose available, the insulin is reduced or eliminated, the muscles use the clean burning FFA’s now available and the protein is preserved. A horse that loses body fat in the winter is healthier than a horse that maintains or gains body fat.

The problem in modern horse care is the abundance of hay year round. This is the “other hidden glucose source” that we need to pay attention to, not the added SBM. The SBM is replacing the reduced availability of amino acids in the limited paddock plants.

I am glad you posted this because it gives me a chance to review what has been discussed in the monthly rounds. While it appears complicated, it is not. More importantly, the information in the rounds will really help all horses. For all reading this reply, go to the menu above > Resources > Webinars which will take you to the forum listing all the rounds. Grab your favorite beverage and take notes. Then get back to me with your questions. Thanks again Rosie for this opportunity for all of us to break away from the old rhetoric and dogma that is hurting our horses and helping us ALL help horses to thrive in a human world. Doc T

[Rosie]

Thank you Doc T for clarifying that for me. I will definitely weigh the soybean and see what it comes out to be. I always give her (2) 2 tie hay flakes daily. So maybe 10 lbs of hay? But she gets 16-18 hours of turnout average per day. She is out most of the time.

[Doc-t]

A 2 string bale is about 40 pounds so 50 bales to the ton (2000 pounds). At least that was the way when they started baling hay regularly back in the 1960’s. This is because hay was sold by weight and usually by the ton. Now the weight of a bale can vary considerably and are sold by the bale. As late as the 1990’s I bought hay out of the field in a wagon that was weighed filled and then empty giving me the net weight. I paid the going ton rate and had it stacked in my barn. It was about $3.00 per 40 pound bale but the actual weight of the bale didn’t matter because I had bought the load.

One day the farmer and the distributor realized they could start charging by the bale. They would just tell you the bale was heavier. Now when you and I compare the cost of our hay, there is no standardization. We say it is a 2 string or a 3 wire bale but we can never really compare it accurately and determine how much hay we are feeding per pound nor can we tell who is getting the better deal on the cost of our hay.

Just a little side trip on the discussion about hay 🙃

However the idea that adding hay during the summer pasture is still an additional source of glucose (starch). Owners have been told that their horses need something to eat in front of them every moment of the day or else “ulcers” would develop. Where is the evidence for this? I, for years, told owners that because horses don’t have gall bladders that they continuously produced bile and secreted it into the intestines. Therefore that was evidence for me that food had to be available at all hours. Now I believe this is wrong.

If horses chew a maximum of 40,000 chews in a day and there are 86,400 seconds in a day then they are chewing for about half a day. The conclusion is that there are times when they do not eat. Even if they sleep for 8 hours, there are still 4 hours unaccounted for.

Based on chews per day, I now recommend that only a flake of hay be available (about 5 pounds) for 12 hours while in a stall. Or, if the horse is metabolic (obese, laminitis, etc) that there be no hay at all for 12 hours. If this is too much for the owner then soak the hay for a minimum of 1 hour and rinse it off before feeding to reduce the glucose and lower their insulin. The other thing to do is reduce or eliminate pasture time and use hay strategically soaking it so the insulin drops in metabolic horses.

The bottom line is hay is a man-made idea and I believe is needed where pasture is lacking. But when there is enough pasture to support a horse then why feed hay at all? It was developed to help farm animals survive winters when snow covered the fields and animals were fenced in preventing migration to available winter pastures. I still believe that adding grain and grain by-products is at the root of many problems seen in horses today, but feeding hay in excess of needs is probably an equal culprit in many susceptible horses.

Thanks again Rosie for this opportunity to talk about hay. I think this will make a great podcast or even a great discussion for a monthly “Rounds With Doc T.”

[Rosie]

Well my mind is blown. Haha! Please make a blog or podcast about this. I have commentary to add about the man made idea that horses need 500lb blocks of hay in front of them at all times.