Feed experts - oil for suspected EPSM

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Stoxx

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Hi,

Due to a number of reasons I currently suspect my horse to suffer very mildly with EPSM.
He has a history of ulcers and is therefore already on a low starch and sugar diet, currently fed:
Dengie HiFi Lite
Allen and Page Fast Fibre
200ml of linseed oil per day.

As I understand it, horses with EPSM should be fed a high oil diet so I will gradually increase the amount he is having. However there is a lot of talk about corn and soya oil but no mention of linseed oil.

Do I need to change the oil I feed? He was put on linseed oil when the ulcers were discovered.

Thanks!
 
Personally I would come off the Hifi light- that is molassed.
You might be best to swap to micronized linseed and then use soya oil- that way you aren't trying to get him to eat/drink a load of liquid oil.
 
We looked into feeds for EPSM a few months ago and we were recommended Alfa-A oil - and by feed companies other than Dengie, which surprised us - that will give part of the oil ration without the liquid and it'll increase the vitmain E intake as well, which seems to be important on a high oil diet.

Our boy turned out to have a different ailment but still needs the oil and the vet at Leahurst recommended plain old Sunflower oil for him, if you try that Tesco do a good deal of 5l for £5 quite often :)
 
I would also recommend the Alfa A Oil - my girl ties up and was recommended this years ago. I am also now using micronised linseed to avoid large quantities of liquid oil. Baileys do a supplement called Outshine which is high oil I have used it for a number of months but now have swapped for the linseeed as it is quite pricey. With feeding lots of oil make sure you add extra Vitamin E. It will depend on the weight of your horse.
 
If you suspect EPSM you could try him on Acetyl L Carnitine (ALCAR), its an amino acid which is being used very sucessfully by many people now. You can get it from online bodybuilding shops such as www.bulkpowders.co.uk, and should feed about 2 teaspoons a day for an average sized horse. It allows you to cut down on the oil, and even to replace it entirely in some cases.
If you want to still feed oil for the ulcers, I think ordinary supermarket corn oil is fine, and a lot cheaper than linseed if you are feeding a lot of it. :)
 
I'd be very cautious about adding oil to a horse who is only suspected to have EPSM. This is what I did with one of mine who showed signs typical of EPSM. Within a month, he went down with colitis and nearly died. Monitoring his bloods showed that muscle enzymes had escalated dramatically and continued to rise for a couple of months after that time (reaching around 3,800u/l, lab ref 225).

I have since read that polyunsaturated fats can cause nutritional muscle disease in nonruminant cattle who are already selenium-deficient......... and my gang are all known to have a long term dietary selenium deficiency, so I suspect the colitis was caused by the oil combined with the selenium deficiency.

If you do choose to risk feeding oil, then you must increase vitamin E AND selenium so that it boosts the levels of both antioxidants.

But my preference would be to:

1) send a hair sample to Animal Genetics in Cornwall to be tested for type 1 EPSM (PSSM) . Only about £30 and you can just send it yourself. Then you'll know for sure about that type of EPSM.

2) have a forage analysis on hay/grass to check selenium levels. Anything less than 0.1mg/kg dry matter is deficient.

3) Make sure he's on a balancer providing around 1mg selenium (as selenium yeast, aka organic selenium) per day per 500kg horse. My choice is Dengie Alfa A balancer or one of the Blue Chip balancers.

I'd only risk using oil if I had a confirmed EPSM type 1 horse who could not maintain condition on a high fibre diet.

Sarah
 
We feed micronised linseed, but were also recommended to increase the selenium levels, use MSM and tye guard even though he has never had this issue. He had a very mild shiv type disorder when he came to us, which the vets thought could be due to too much sugar in the diet and a possible mild EPSM type disorder. On these supplements and a lower sugar diet the shiv (if that is what it actually was) has completely disappeared.

ETA: we use the dengie molasses free, which both horses seem to like
 
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