Protein - can you feed too much?

H

HBII

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As the title really .. can you feed too much protein to a horse?

Just a Tuesday wonder ...

Ta in advance

Hb
 
I think you can.

A lady I know fed a lot to an elderly retired mare in the spring as the grass was coming through & she got Azoturia a couple of times. The mare was in her mid twenties & a bit poor, hence the feed.

She was out at grass & being fed Alfa A, Top Spec balancer, 1 scoop of Build Up Cubes & sugar beet twice a day.

After altering her ration, it hasn't happened again in the 2 years since.
There may have been something else that triggered it though, but cutting out the Alfa A & Top Spec seemed to prevent it happening again.
 
horses have evolved to eat grasses which are fairly low in protein. Their digestive enzymes were not designed to deal with complex proteins which is why they get a bit constipated and sometimes fizzy on higher protein corn rations. Quite simply as these stay in the gut longer while the enzymes try to break them down and deal with the biproducts. When increasing protein levels in feed it is best to do it gradually and make sure that there is plenty of fibre in the feed to assist the gut in moving the bulk through. Alfalfa is much higher protein than British grasses and can prove a bit high for some. Some of the mixes e.g. hi fi lite are lower and suit many horses better in my experience.
 
Yes and it can lead to all sorts of problems including Azortoria, I always check protein in feed and always ask my farmer who makes my haylage what the protein content is.
 
Growing youngsters need up to around 18% protein in their diet depending upon age and type, pregnant/lactating mares about 16% and others generally less, depending upon the amount of work being done (racehorses/adv. eventers much more than retired/resting ponies) These percentages are from memory - would need to check!!
Any protein that is not required by the horse will be re-processed and excreted or stored as fat/used as energy.
It is worth looking at the quality of the protein as much as the quantity of the protein too
 
Also, any horse with liver damage needs a very low protein diet, though what protein you do feed should be of the highest quality to reduce the amount of work the liver has to do.
 
Yes, definitely. A horse on a diet too high in protein, will develop very strong smelling urine as an indicator of the problem as the body has to break down and excrete the excess.
 
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