(upbeat music) - Hi there listeners. Welcome back to the feed room, despite the bets, back in the chair, back sat in my lovely little feed room. And we, yeah, apologies. We've had a little bit of a gap on this, but we've got plenty of good episodes coming up. We'll keep you busy through the winter period when the event in season starts tailoring down. And I am delighted to say that I have the very, very wonderful, Nia O'Malley with me from Connolly's Red Mills. Nia is the technical support for USA and Europe, which sounds very, very fancy, very hard for the two. Nia, welcome back. You've been in my feed room before, has it changed? Is it a bit more sparkly and clean? I've been having a really good go at it this summer. - It's beautiful. You've done a great job. It's great to be back, thanks for having me. - I've been engaging my, you know, my, I didn't even know my inner something to get it really clean. Nia, welcome. I'm really excited about this. I've been planning a few shows, having a bit of a think about things that I think are really relevant, real hot topics, get me on my soapbox, so we love a bit of an opinion. And what we're gonna talk about on this episode is as we are, you know, listeners, we're recording this sort of in the, you know, coming into the autumn. And I thought it'd be really good to just have a bit of a think about what we do in our off season. Now that is more of an open hemisphere thing as we are at the moment up here. But as we go into autumn and go into our time when we give our horses a bit of a break, what we should be doing from the point of view of their nutritional support. 'Cause Nia, a bit of the old fashioned thing, would be to just lob 'em out in the field for a few weeks. Do we think that's a good idea? - Well, we probably should be, do a little bit of difference, so. (laughs) - I'm not doing anything, what are you talking about? (laughs) - There's a little bit more to us. So yeah, we could just throw them out in the field and bring them back in again when we need to. But not ideal. If we think about it the seasons, we've got quite a long season and we're working and we're probably competing them more, we're working them harder, we're traveling them more. So we're expecting a lot more out of them these days than maybe what we did back in the day. So yeah, it's great just to give them the bit of time off over the winter. But we would like to have them back and forth when we come back, when the season starts up again. And I think that's the end of our, that's the goal. It's not just a case of, okay, season's over, leave them out and then come spring time. Oh, season's back on, bring them in. So you kind of want to think you are preparing, during the winter season, you are preparing for the next season. I think that's really important to keep that in mind. Yes, they're having some time off. But nutritionally, we want to keep them on form over the winter so that when we do bring them back in the spring, we're not playing catch up for the first month, six weeks, where we're building them up nutritionally, we're feeding them up, we're trying to catch up, trying to build top line, trying to build condition and alongside fitness. So I think it's important to maintain that level of nutrition over the winter months so that when we do start in the spring, it's just a matter of up in their feeds, up in their training and they're back on form sooner and ready for when we need them. No, I'm a big believer in that. Sure, I always think that the off season is in some ways it's more important during the season. There's so many things that you can really get into with the horses strength and development, certain aspects in their training or in their gates, things like that that you can really work on in the winter. So we need to make sure that we're giving them the appropriate nutritional support. So we'll dig into a few of those details. If I jump on my soap box briefly, never show up in opinion, I think what I would be a massive fan of a sort of end of season checks and a bit of an end of season review with your support team guys. And that is, you know, I always talk about it, the support team to these horses is humongous. I mean, people should be very aware of it because you're probably getting plenty of bills. But, you know, your vets, your physio, your farrier, potentially your nutritionist, if you're forward thinking enough and including someone, you know, a nutritionist in that. Car tractor, coach, trainer, lucky enough to have owners. And there's a big area of support team. And you can, you know, end of the season, right, breathe, right. What we do, what we're planning, what's the next, how many months looking like. And I think checking in, particularly with vet, and the vet, and the physio about what the horse looks like, what have they found easy? Have they had any issues during the season? Have they had anything that we need to get to the bottom of the winter? Time to spend a bit more time, you know, looking into problems and therefore addressing things. So, I see it as a really important time. And, you know, in that plan of what the off season looks like, what are we based around the horses in front of you? You know, and how it's handled the workload that that, you know, the previous season has entailed. So, yeah, I've also, you know, I said, rather beginning, there's a bit for them to say, do we just love them out in the fields? But the field time's really good for them. Orthopedically, they rest, you know, then takes pressure off their legs, off their joints, off their tendons, lets their muscles relax, lets their brain relax. I'm also a huge believer that we need to be more aware of over-training in our horses. She's very, very well understood in humans. And I think generally a little bit, less well understood in horses. But, yeah, big believer that time off starts with a bit of chill, a bit of relax, but also what do we put into them? So, let's say we have doing a, which would be nice. I would say for, you know, most horses would like us to do a four-week period of rest. And if that hopefully is a time when there's still some grass on the ground. But, yeah, what should we be feeding them? You know, we said, just grass probably isn't suitable and that isn't enough. Also, depending on when we turn them out, when, you know, we're not doing that to October, they're not going to break the left and that grass is there. - No, it totally agree with you. It's, I particularly agree with the whole downtime. Yeah, that's what we're, that's the whole purpose of that break. It's to give the body a rest, give the, you know, say the soft tissue, the muscles, tendons, segments, gives the whole body a rest, but also the mind. Because it is, it's very, it's, you know, it's been a long season for them. And I think the more we can give them that sort of month, six weeks, even more of a downtime, the more they'll be on form next year, in terms of like mental health, we're all talking about it with humans, because it's the same for the horses. Yeah, it is, there's a lot of stress. We need to have them on form. So, I mean, when you give them their break, you're obviously going to cut back on their feed, because we have matched the feed with the workload. So, you're going to gradually reduce their workload and gradually reduce their feed. That's one side of us, but it's also the type of feed you're giving. So, in season, you're probably more than likely giving sort of a higher energy feed. And you're going to be reducing that to a lower energy feed, come the break time. So, it really depends on the horse. I suppose the most important would be to base the diet around forage. So, consider you, as I say, the grass quality is not going to be great, but in terms of downtime, in terms of de-stressing, having a turn out would be the best thing to do. But ensure that they've good quality forage if they are out there to supplement that grass. And if they are kept in, ensure that you're feeding quality forage, and then maintain and monitor their body weight around that. So, you may have some horses that will need to continue with some sort of hard feeds to maintain their body condition through that break period. I would recommend, if they're on a very low maintenance work program, I would recommend kind of like, maybe a high-fiber, high-fat sort of a feed, and a low sugar cereal grain feed, just because they're not going to need that sort of sugar from the feeds because they're on a maintenance program. That would be one would be sort of reducing the feed, reducing the energy type of the feed from sort of a go-back down to a slow release high-fiber feed. But most importantly, I think would be to feed, to supplement during that period with a feed balancer. And what you're doing with the feed balancers, you're ensuring that they're getting their amino acids, their vitamins, their minerals. So, ensuring that the horse is staying at a good level of nutrition through that period in terms of those kind of micronutrients. And then you're going to monitor the calorie intake and the weight gain through the feed. So, I think that would probably be my first bit of advice would be to start introducing a balancer, if you're not feeding us already, just to ensure that they stay nutritionally on form throughout that period, and you're not paying catch up when you bring them back in. - That would be it. - Sorry, Nick. Can I just pick up on a little question? I'm just gonna pop into my brain when you're talking about it. We say a lot about ensuring that we're feeding good quality forage. How do we know, and what can we do to know how good our forage is? 'Cause generally, we're in a livery yard environment. It's what's available to us. Again, just, you know, you've got horses at home, you really have your hay supplier and finding out how do we, how can we ask those questions rather than, particularly, I'll say that sounding a bit tricky. - Hey, livery yard manager, how good is your hay? But, you know, there are ways of finding out, aren't there? - Yeah, I mean, you could do an analysis, that would be the straight answer to do that. It's worth doing this. If the livery yard has a constant supply of hay, your hailage, or your own stables has a constant supply of hay, hailage, that's fine. But keep in mind, if your supply is changing, if your yard are sourcing their hailage from different farmers, they may get through the first couple of months, and then they have to get in some hay or hailage from another supplier, that's changing all the time, where it would be important if the hay, or the hailage has been cut off the farm, and it's, say, it's your own farm, so say the horse is grazing on that farm, you're cutting your hay or hailage from that farm, that's really important that you do do a soil analysis, or a forage analysis, because if there's a nutritional deficiency or an imbalance in your grassland, it's going to reflect in the grazing, it's going to reflect in your hay, so you need to address that. So there you have their place, the analysis, absolutely have their place, but I think keeping this practical, I think visually you can look at the hay, you can tell a lot from the hay, it should smell good, when we're looking at hay, it should smell good, if it's very structural, very stalky, very stem-y, you can imagine that's going to be a lot of structural fiber in the gosh, it's going to help the gosh, but in terms of nutritional, in terms of calorie source, it's going to be quite limited, so you're looking for a kind of a light soft hay, or a light soft haylage, just that would ensure that you're getting good calories from your hay. I'm more of a fan of hay than haylage, haylage can be quite acidic, I would always be very concerned that horses can sometimes run quite acidic, they're hard for you to put in them, and there would tend to make a horse a little bit more acidic, haylage would make horses more acidic, the whole process of competition and performance, you're building up a lot of waste products, like the gas that they can horse acidic, so hay, I find it's great, it's great buffer for the horse, it's great for utilizing the horse, so I'm always a fan of hay, I prefer hay, but again, it's very much dependent on our climates, and sometimes we are quite limited, and we have to source haylage, so if you are sourcing haylage, ensure it's a nice dry haylage, ensure it's not too sweet smelling, or too acidic smelling, and try and find a nice clean one, if it's dusty, stay away from us, in terms of respiratory health, and yeah, I think it's, your forage should create the foundation of your feeding program always, so always try and source good quality forage. - So I'm gonna be your example clients, I'm gonna bring you up there, I've had my hay analysis done, and, but it's all I've got, this is what I've got, I've got bales and bales of it to be made on my farm, and this is what I've got from a sports horse since this winter, but I found out that it's not great quality, what can we, you know, it's not easy to suddenly go, well I'll just find another Georgia bales pay from somewhere, what can we do to alter the feed, or what we're giving to them, that can maybe take into account, that the haves may be a little bit substandard, it's fine, it's not dusty, it's not a risk, but it's maybe not got the higher levels of content that I would want it to have. - Yeah, so no good question, they, so what you're, when you do an analysis, you are, you're going to get your protein content, you're going to get your energy content, your sugar content, but you're also going to get your mineral contents, and that's probably, so your protein and your energy, you can tell a lot from that, so if they're running quite low in protein, you will find that you'll need to ensure that you feed in a balancer, high protein, top dress, but also the protein quality and hay or halage wouldn't be as superior as the protein quality that you'd find in a balancer, or a high protein top dress, so just to be aware of that, it's better if you can source your protein from a good quality source, such as your performer, your balancer, or your high protein top dress, that's one side of this, if it's providing good calories, that's great, if it's providing good calories, your horses are going to condition nicely on that, and you won't be as reliant on a heartbeat, so when you have a good hay or halage source that has good calorie content, then you can easily just feed that alone with the performer care, or the likes of another feed balancer, that's one side of it, I'm particularly interested in the mineral analysis, because the mineral analysis will tell you if there's an imbalance or deficiency in the minerals, and I think that's key, because if there's an imbalance, all these minerals, they have all these interactions, and if one is high and one is low, it can affect the absorption of another, so that's where I'm particularly interested, and where you find, you will usually find it in relation to your copper, your zinc, your iron, and that's where I'd be particularly interested in, and you can supplement then, so if your find your hay is quite low in calcium, or has a reverse calcium phosphorus ratio, you can supplement then with a calcium supplement, or you might find that your hay is low in copper, or it's high in molybdenum, or high in iron, or it's in zinc, and it's interacting with the copper, and affecting the optic, then you can supplement with copper, so that's where I'm particularly interested, because we might be feeding a balanced feed, a balanced balancer, a balanced top dress, and all these nice supplements, but if our hay is imbalanced in certain minerals, it's going to affect the worst long term as well, so that's where I'll be particularly interested in, would be the mineral profile. - Yeah, you properly tickled my scientific brain there, that's really bad, I love that detail, I think that's really good, and I love that line, I think we feel a balanced feed, and a balanced, and if our forage is imbalanced, then what can we expect? I think that's absolutely fascinating. Loads of really good stuff out there, listeners, and the testing of the hay, it's not an expensive process, I mean, to my memory, it's less than 100 pounds, or less than 100 euros, you know, it's a worthwhile thing to do without actually costing you a fortune, so particularly as we're spending, you know, feed cost money, let's make sure that what we're doing is correct. So, oh, that's pretty important. So we've gone through a bit of off-season, we've gone through a little bit of rest of breach have, and a bit of re-charge of the batteries, they've had a bit of nice grass before the weather's turned, it always turns in this country, anyone listening from overseas? Pity us. And they, we're now coming back into a bit of work, and I think the really, really key part of that, so it looks at times, that sort of strength and conditioning work, what I call pilates work, really trying to work on things like top line, abdominal tone, strength in different areas, and muscle groups, things like that. What, how are we gonna start adjusting our feed? Is this when we start thinking about really increasing our protein levels as well, so that we've got those building blocks for the muscle? Do we need to start thinking about increasing our, you know, our starch and carbohydrate income? What do we do now? We're starting to do a bit of work, but it's targeted in trying to improve, improve the horses way of going, let's say. Yeah, so you're gonna gradually bring them back into work. So as you do that, you're going to gradually increase the feed. So can't increase the feed, or sorry, increase the workload, increase the type of work before you increase the feed. So you almost have the words to look in first, in a way. That would be in regards to your calories. So don't be- - All right, that's really interesting. So you increase, you take a step up in the workload and then match the feed, rather than increase the feed and then match it with the workload. - Yeah, so, and, you know, you're doing a very, you know, very much following each other. So it's not like you're increasing the workload and then they're getting tired and then needing it. No, you kind of need to know your horse, watch your horse. But it's not a case of like, oh, is workloads increasing and going to increase his feed because you might find then you're going to run into other issues with that. So just sort of be very careful, watch your workload, watch how the horses weight is adapting, watch how their body condition is adapting and then gradually increase their feed very much alongside us, but yeah, after it. So definitely do that. What you're, because you've kept them on some sort of a balance or over the winter months, and because you've kept them on sorts and maybe some light conditioning program over the months, just kind of keep them sort of a little bit on the, the light side. So you'll find that your balancer, you will continue using your balancer through that period that kind of coming back into work conditioning period. And then that's where you're going to slowly increase the feed alongside that to match the workload and the match the energy that it needs. And then what you'll find is as you bring them up into full work, you may find that, okay, I'm coming back into more of a normal feeding rate. Just look at as a ratio, you can start to drop back down on the performer care, increase the feed content. So sort of play around with this. So as you're coming out of the season, you're reducing the amount of feed you're giving, but you're increasing the amount of performance, the amount of balancer you're giving. And then as you're coming back into the season, you're reducing the amount of balancer and increasing the amount of hard feed you're giving. So yeah, always feed them relative to the amount of work they're doing. And then what you're going to find as we came out of the season, the energy content or the energy type of the feed will change as well. So you're going to maybe you'll find as the workload increases as he pushes on into more of a fitness level, he'll find us, you might be moving maybe more away from the kind of fiber, the oil, the slow release type of a feed, you might be bumping them up into maybe more of a cereal grain type of feed. Definitely as the workload increases, yes, you're right on the protein, that would be important. So you might have been feeding a 10% protein feed over the winter months. You might find that you may need to increase to a 12% protein feed as you're coming into the back-end feed. So yeah, it's sort of you're gearing up and the feed we should be matching the workload. - Thank you, I think I love that little comment you said about up the little workload so they're then looking for the food, you know, you know, which is their hunger level. I like that, you know, it's a subtle change, isn't it, rather than over facing them before they need it, you know, because of the other concept? - They're gonna get fresh, they might run into some muscle issues, you know, because it's a type of overfeeding if you start increasing the feed before they actually need it. So it's just something to be aware of, I think, and it's... - And you might any do a few days, you know, if you're doing absolutely. - Yeah, yeah, literally. And it's about knowing your horse, reading your horse, looking at your horse, feeling your horse and go, okay, yeah, let's give him a little bit extra tonight now. Yeah, so I think, I think what I've also mentioned over the winter months, I think it would be important to, if your horse had, say, you ran into top line issues the season before, and you're, you know, it's important to remember that, like, over the winter months is your time to work on that, because, yeah, they'll run into poor top line, maybe true over work, maybe true, maybe just not get enough feed, maybe it was a tough season, maybe they were young and underdeveloped. So I think that would be really important to, when you come into your off season, that, okay, this is my goal for the season, I'm gonna work on this top line. So as you say, the Pilates. So kind of, as you're coming, you know, maybe bring them back in earlier and do a lot more of that, but that's where your protein would be very important. So if they don't have enough protein that out, they're not gonna put on the muscle, but they're both, it's very much protein and work equals muscle. You know, it's like, you can't build a wall without the workman to build a wall. You can't, the workman can't build a wall without the building blocks to build a wall, and that's how a protein is. So it'd be very important for that sort of off season or is it coming back in that you are matching your protein with the workloads? And it's not a case of, oh, increase the protein and the horse will put on more top line. You know, they do need that workloads. So keep that in mind. So that would be very important over the winter season. Another thing would be gut support. If your horse really suffered with some gut issues this season before, so if they've got issues, a lot of it is stress-related. So what you'll find is that it's very hard to tackle a gut problem if the horse is already stressed and they're in the middle of their season. Yes, you can supplement. Yes, you can give them their gastric issues they have or if it's high in gut issues you have, you can give their probiotics. You can give their probiotics. But if they're continuously stressed because it's in the middle of the season, they've had competition, they've lots of travel, it's gonna be a hard job to tackle that gut issue. The best time to tackle a gut issue is during the winter season when they're on that break. So that would be really important, I think, to really work on that. So they're going to be off work. The stress is going to be minimal. They're going to be on very much of a fiber-based diet. And that's when you should really address that gush with some sort of probiotic support there and really tackle that. But the most important would be as you up their game coming back into work that you're really keeping in mind that gut health and ensuring that you don't fall into the same problem that you had the year before. So really target that, really keep them on a fiber-based diet and really monitor how they are doing in terms of gut health. It's much easier to have a preventative programme for stomach and high gut issues than to be in a treatment-based programme. You know, and I think that's a really key point there for everyone to take home with them there. Yeah, and I think that whole coming back into the season, that's key time to just really just watch them. And because you'll have some horses. And as the season progresses, they will inevitably go into that phase again because it's just how they're built, it's just how they are. So you'll know your horse. And I think the longer you can keep them in a healthy, a healthy frame of mind, healthy digestive health throughout that sort of coming back into work stage, the longer the season you have, the better the season you have. So I think it's a critical time. Just as the middle of the season is, the end of the season and the beginning of the season will be just important. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And this is, I've got a couple of lines in the fire to do some whole box episodes this winter talking about managing horses through that winter period, that's a strength and conditioning. 'Cause to me, I think it's an absolutely key area of trying to preventative, preventing problems through the season gets going. So watch this space, now in here, that's all gone. You've got another big one. You've got another big one, you've got another big one. - So I'm a huge fan of supplementing with some sort of linseed oil or flaxseed oil. - Oh, yes. - Yeah. And so, you know, a linseed or a flaxseed or a fish oil, they're supplementing your horse with omega-3. And we can provide, you know, everybody thinks during the summer season, we normally all feed an oil and we all think of oils sort of in digestive health. But if you are supplementing with an oil, it's very important that it's an omega-3 oil. So it's either a linseed flaxseed oil or a fish oil. So we tend to supplement the horse with everything during the winter, or sorry, during the summer, but keeping them on some sort of omega-3 supplement during the winter would be really important. So when a horse is at grass, there's lots of omega-3 in grass. And, but as that grass dries to make hay or halage, a lot of that omega-3 is dried off. So if your horse, your horse, the winter period is probably the most important time to supplement with an omega-3 supplement. - Because the horse has very little access to rich and luscious grass during the winter months. So it would be, that would be one supplement that I would definitely advise that you continue using throughout the winter months because they've no way of getting it during the winter months. And the omega-3 would act as sort of an anti-inflammatory. It sort of balances out your pro-inflammatory omegas. So the omega-6, the omega-9. So horses have loads of omega-6, and nine in their diets through the feeds. So it's really the omega-3 that we need to ensure that we're giving the horse that they're balancing out their pro-inflammatory omegas. And then the other one would be, so with everything else, you're a bit mini, your electrolytes, everything, you can pull back on those probably during the winter months, but your hoof supplements, you should definitely continue to use those throughout the winter months. So when you-- - Oh, Eddie, I'm on the hoof supplements, Nair, I'm stealing you again soon enough to-- - Okay, that's true. - Well, there we are. There we are, I'm roving another box there. I'm gonna have you back in my feed room soon enough when you worry about that. And that was real, that was amazing. Yeah, I love that. I'll make you three. That's something I've not been aware of, how that, you know, it's in your luscious grass, but through the winter, they don't have the access to it. That's something that's definitely, I'm gonna take home and think about some of these things, maybe adjustable, I'm advising as well. So that is brilliant. Nair, absolutely delighted to get you back. You've definitely signed yourself up for further trips into the feed room. I love the tea, I love the coffee, I love the biscuit free for you. And listeners, keep your ear out. We'll be back with another one soon enough, don't you worry. And I hope everyone is enjoying the end of what's been a pretty sparking event season. And yeah, we'll be back soon enough. Thanks very much, near your start. - Super great, thanks for having me.
