[Doc-t]

Please send me some topics that YOU are interested in discussing – Doc T

[KrissyHumptyDooNT]

Hi Dr T,

I’ve had my 3 horses on the no grain diet for some time now and am happy with the results. My horse with ‘Sweet Itch’ no longer requires 24 hour rugging, spraying and is a much happier horse and my horse with anhidrosis – sweats. Recently I’ve leased out my anhidrosis horse to my good friend who has asked if she can replace the SBM with microlupins. I’ve declined and she’s agreed to it but has asked if I can find out whether microplupins is acceptable on the diet. I’ve had no experience with microplupins and on googling this feed, some websites advise microlupins are legume seeds where other research indicate it is a grain. Checking the alfalfa pellets bag I discovered there is lupins in the alfalfa pellets. Are lupins an alternative to soy bean meal which here in the Northern Territory (Australia) we sometimes find SBM hard to get?

[Doc-t]

@KrissyHumptyDooNT – We have little experience feeding lupins to horses here in America. In AU, its’ use is only for 30 to 40 years. In addition, little research has been done on the bioavailability of the protein in horses making its dosing unclear.

Lupins are a legume like alfalfa, peanut, and soybean. I can tell that feeding sweet lupin seems OK for horses, while other species of lupins may not be healthy. The same goes for raw soybeans, though I saw one report where horses turned out in a soybean field in South America seemed OK. SBM is a processed soybean denaturing an enzyme (trypsin inhibitor) in the raw bean that prevents the horse’s use of amino acids. I wonder if this may also occur in lupins.

From Hygain’s website, I understand that their “micro” processing of lupins makes it “more digestible,” causing the release of any sugar (starch) to occur earlier in the process. This keeps the sugar away from the hindgut, which, they theorize, decreases hindgut inflammation. However, releasing sugar in the small intestine should be avoided in horses with insulin resistance, metabolic disease and laminitis.

The protein content of lupins is less (in %) than SBM, so more needs to be fed. I do not know the economics of this. In addition, the amino acid profile is different, specifically lower in methionine, which is needed to make good keratin (hooves and hair).

In light of the SBM working, why change to an unknown protein source? If SBM is unavailable, maybe try lupins, but keep good records and report back to us.

Here is a link to what I thought was a good article on lupins: https://ker.com/equinews/lupins-horse-feeds/