Question: I am trying to figure out the digestible protein and energy in your product for my excel spreadsheets on horse nutrition. I just want to find out if I have to change anything in the daily ration in order to provide them with all they need. Thank you!
Answer from Abe Scheaffer: The thought that runs through my mind is that metabolizable protein is a moving target more in horses are at least hasn’t been objectively quantified for horses. But to give you some ball park thoughts, I’d put EquiPride alongside dried distillers grains, which is 60% undegradable in cattle terms and 40% degradable. That doesn’t mean unusable, just not fermented in the rumen of a cow. Now, I’m not certain how to evaluate that when the digestive system is in reverse order, as in the horse compared to the ruminant. So, in 1 lb of EquiPride, there would be 9.5 or so, oz of undegradable protein and 6.5 oz of degradable protein. This would be very interesting to see this data in cecal cannulated horses. I’m doing some digging around in the literature and I expect I can come up with that relationship between the ruminant system and the equine system.
These estimates are simply a ball park figure based off the data that is readily available for many of the ingredients in EquiPride.
As you know from the EquiPride label, it is 14% crude protein. I’m not certain I’m tracking with you regarding digestible protein for a horse, the energy number I have is for our similar cattle product, Fresh Start. Fresh Start is DE = .86 Mcal/lb @ 4% fat, whereas EquiPride is 5.5% fat. Fresh Start is 66% dry matter.
Abe Scheaffer, Ph. D. is a graduate of Northwestern College and earned his Masters in Ruminant Nutrition at North Dakota State University before finishing out his education with a doctorate in Animal Science (Metabolic Physiology) from the same. He is a member of the American Society of Animal Science, The American Dairy Science Association and Scientists Without Borders. He is well-published and a constant source for animal nutrition. We are thankful to have him as a resource for Agape Distributors.