What is best high-quality low starch/low sugar feed for a horse with compensatory insulin resistance?

Question

If your horse has an type of insulin-resistance/blood sugar issues, please also tell me what and how much you're feeding him/her all the way around, including supplements, turn-out and grazing, etc.?

Include horse height, age, and current weight, if you could.

Most appreciated!

Answer 1

One of my jumpers came up with laminitis almost two months ago. We switched him over to Buck-Eye Safe and Easy pelleted feed. He's a 12 year old TB, 1250 lbs, 16.3 hands. He gets a 1/2 quart in the morning and the same at night. We feed him as much hay as he possibly wants, and soak it for fifteen minutes before feeding to eliminate some of the sugars. He's still recovering from the laminitis, so he's only hand grazed for ten minutes a day. His other supplements include standard glucosomine, hoof supplements, electrolytes, and minerals.

Now, my vet recommended the Buck-Eye product, and so far we've had no problems on it at all. She said it's one of the easiest to digest feeds on the market, and my horse has done great on it. Additionally, she recommended Power Horse minerals as helping with laminitis, but I couldn't get my horse to eat the powder, so that was a bust.  

Answer 2

In my opinion, the best high quality low starch and sugar feed is the new WellSolve L/S (L/S meaning low starch) by Purina.  It has been researched for I think 8 years now.  It GUARANTEES the starch and sugars to be less then 11%.  NO OTHER feed guarantees their starches and sugars.  Sure they say they are low starch or even safe starch but you can not find any guarentieed analysis of that on the bag.  

It contains no grains and no molasses.  Digestible/ fermentable fibers are used as an alternative energy source instead of carbohydrates.  The vitamins and minerals that are added to this feed are formulated for the special needs horses.  There is also added biotin as well.  The feed is designed to meet the nutritional requirements of a special needs horse (with forage being fed too.) so that you don't need to supplement.  The only supplement that is not added to the feed is a joint supplement.  Its extremely expensive to put it in a feed and if not feed properly (according to weight) it wont do anything or you will be overdosing your horse with too much.  The feed is highly palatable too.

When fed properly to a horse, this feed showed no spikes in the insulin and glucose response.  For the insulin and glucose response in the horse, its as if they did not even eat anything.  They even researched what feed form gave the lowest response too.  The pellet form its in now is what gave the least amount of change.  While a horse was eating they took blood every hour to monitor how it was affecting the horse.  Thousands of vials of blood were drawn to research how it affected the horse.

Just remember this is NOT a perscription diet so it should be available at your local feed store as long as they are certified to carry it.  The feed will not cure your horse, it will provide balanced nutrition for a horse with specail needs.  Its also ideal for horses with laminitis and cushings.

You can check out the full research on it here:

http://www.wellsolveequine.com/

For forage you will still want to feed 1-1.5% of the horses body weight.  The back of the bag has a table that reccomends the amount of feed to be fed and you adjust accordingly depending on how much roughage youre feeding your horse.

As for supplements, like mentioned you dont need any since they are already in the feed.  Adding more and you may risk a toxic level in your horse.  The only one you could add safetly is a joint support.

Definatly discuss any diet changes with your vet for any horse.

Answer 3

Hay should be free choice (timothy hay/grass), also some horses like cinnamon (not cinnamon sugar), it naturally lowers sugar levels in animals and humans, about 1 tablespoon twice daily for about 1000# horse.  Stay away from apples, very high in natural sugars, for giving supplements let say Vit E, Selenium and so on just give a small hand full of rolled oats.  Hope this helps:)

Answer 4

I answered your other question, sort of.  I'm only writing here as I see no one else has written.  The article I cited also stated "Hay should be most, if not all, of the IR horse's diet, and few hays contain this much magnesium [i.e. a 2:1 Ca:Mg ratio].  A hay analysis is the most accurate way to determine the levels in your horse's diet."

Hope someone with 1st hand experience posts an answer for you.

ADDED:  Note that the article stated that "Strong caution is advisable until it is known for sure that glucosamine is safe for IR horses"  This was stated in reference to a study cited on human diabetics which indicated that they had abnormal glucose elevations after taking glucosamine.  

Don't know if your horse is on glucosamine, but thought I better add that.

Answer 5

My two both have it.  they are on grass pasture.  One is an easy keeper, one is not.

Both are out 24/7...the easy keeper wears a grazing muzzle for varying times during varying months.  She has grass hay free choice year round.  She gets a mineral supplement with chromium daily, and I can't think of the name of it....or if it's a cup a day, or half a cup...I have to be at the barn and measure, cause I use containers that I premeasured a long time ago.  Gosh I sound ignorant.  Anyway, in winter I also feed her Equine Senior, only 2 cups a day in two feedings.

She is still not as lean as I'd like.

My hard keeper gets 4 lbs of Senior a day in summer, and 5 lbs a day in winter, and free choice grass hay year round.  He also gets stabilized rice bran (balanced calcium and phosphorus), one cup a day summer, and 2 in winter (for fat).  He also gets a natural chasteberry product called evitex to balance hormone levels.  I prefer the Purina Senior feed...my vet has done reseach and visited some of the feed mills and says Purina is the best regulated.

Both shed completely, coats and hooves look good, no advancement of crest formation, or new symptoms.  The easy keeper is 22, 15 hh, and weighs about 1000 lbs. to 1100 when fat.  The hard keeper is 15.3hh, 21 years old, and weighs the same...1000 lbs.

The hard keeper was diagnosed 5 years ago, and the easy keeper was diagnosed two or three years ago.

Answer 6

I have a small mare (my pony from when I was a kid) who developed grass founder two years ago. She is 21 years old and 14 hands tall, weighs around 800-900Lbs. Since it happened she has been on a good quality grass hay, mineral supplement, and Safe and Sound pellets (3 lbs/day). She is allowed turn-out during part of the year, but only when the grass is not at all lush and usually I only turn her out part of the day. So far she has had no more problems at all and is completly sound.