EPSM Diet/Quantities etc

[Tempi]

Just wondered if those of you who feed a high oil diet could let me know what quantities you feed and what of?

Also I am not sure which Vitamin supplement to use, so any suggestions on that please? I was going to use Globalvite as its not got any fillers in it (the NAF supplement has fillers which i'm not keen on).

How much soya oil would you feed per feed?

 

[almostthere]

Hi,
My older horse has now been on this diet for 4 years (he is now 20) and looks fab. I did a lot of research because it is quite revolutionary in its approach, as I am sure you are aware, and the advice is to feed 0.5 litres of oil a day to him (he's about 580kg). This gets spilt between 2 feeds so 0.25litres per feed. I chose soya oil which is expensive but i think you can use most oils just not flax ( if i remember correctly) because that shouldn't be fed in such large quantities. Basically the diet changes the way they digest the food so i was advised to carefully introduce the amount over 4 weeks to give his body time to adapt. He also gets a low starch balancer. I have to say i found no side effects at all in introducing it slowly.
As I say he is 20 now and is not exactly in hard work so the advice may change for a younger comp fit horse. But he looks fab (no-one believes his age), he still sails around a 1.10m sj course for fun from time to time and whilst i am not sure whether it has adddressed the symptoms entirely (shiver-like symptoms in his case) he has most certainly not got any worse.
Ps when i was doing my research the nutrionists at Top Spec were very helpful - one had written a research paper that i found very useful and which she sent me with no obligation...Good luck

 

[catembi]

I loaned then 'sold' my EPSM sports horse as he was extremely slow & not up to BD/BS. He has been happily working for 2 years as a trekking horse.

Hwever, the person who 'bought' him still hasn't paid me for him & I was idly thinking of getting him back. Is it likely that he would BD/BS? He went on loan a couple of months after I started him on an EPSM diet as I unexpectedly got divorced, & he probably hasn't done any dr/sj since, so I'm not sure whether 2 years on the diet would have helped him.

Idle ramblings; pls feel free to ignore!

T x

 

[Tempi]

Thank you, thats really interesting - and great that the diet has helped your horse so much.

I was going to get Soya oil as was reading an article on H&H saying that the pure oils are the best so Soya and Corn oil.

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/horsecare/1370/34018.html

Do you feed a vitamin supplement aswell or just the balancer?

Mine are on simple systems feeds already so lucerne nuts and grass pellets - no cereals etc. Its just a matter of me introducing the oil now and a vitamin supplement.

 

[Tempi]

Catembi - I remember your horse and all the problems you had with him (well not problems but the fact it took a while to work out what was wrong with him etc). As the person hasnt paid you I would get him back - surely he could do a bit of BD. The diet helped him quite a bit I seem to remember?

 

[catembi]

Hiya,

The diet had a v v dramatic effect for a couple of days, then he kind of relapsed. Apparently it was because, immediately previously, I'd been feeding him the soaked oats diet as I was still in the phase of flailing around trying anything & everything. So, taking him OFF the soaked oats may have made him feel a LOT better, because I'd pretty well been poisoning him, but then he'd have gone back to level once the worst of the bad stuff was out, IYSWIM...

I am no sort of scientist, & the above is only what I've managed to cobble together from various sources.

I was also doing everything wrong in my enthusiasm - feeding the high oil diet AND the acetyl-L-carnitine diet together instead of either/or. Apparently the oil BLOCKS the uptake of whatever the bad stuff is, whereas the carnitine makes the muscles RELEASE it.

He has been with the lady who makes Pure Feeds for the past 2 years, & she is probably a lot less ignorant than I am!

Poor Adrian... it took me a good 18 months and maybe £4.5k to find out what was wrong. All that time, I was bullying him cos I thought (and so did my trainers) that he was lazy when in fact he was sore. But when I got him, he could jump 1 m 25 like it was a pole on the ground, so it was kinda baffling when no available test could find anything wrong...

T x

 

[Tempi]

Thats really interesting Catembi, thanks for that.

Hows he been getting on in his 'new' home - I take it she still has him on a high oil diet? x

 

[almostthere]

Thank you, thats really interesting - and great that the diet has helped your horse so much.

I was going to get Soya oil as was reading an article on H&H saying that the pure oils are the best so Soya and Corn oil.

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/horsecare/1370/34018.html

Do you feed a vitamin supplement aswell or just the balancer?

Mine are on simple systems feeds already so lucerne nuts and grass pellets - no cereals etc. Its just a matter of me introducing the oil now and a vitamin supplement.

Hi,
No vitamin supplement - just the balancer which of course has various vits and minerals in it. He was on Simple Systems at the last yard (just the grass pellets and greengold) but he has always had a balancer as well. To be honest I have seen no difference now I have switched from simple systems back to the "more commonly available" brand of chaff. As he has had a rather hectic life (was advanced eventer) he is also on a no-bute and joint supp but that is more to address the wear and tear rather than the shiver symptoms. Hope this helps....