STEADFAST^® Broodmare/L.A. Pomeroy for Arenus

 

So your broodmare is pregnant?  Congratulations! Mares have been prized as the cornerstone of creating great horses since the days of the first desert horse breeders. Their contribution is twofold:  passing on the genetics of their own fine bloodlines and offering a nurturing environment for a growing foal.

You’ll soon be “feeding for two,” but what exactly does that mean?  Are you sure you know when her nutritional needs will begin to increase and how to assure that both of you produce the healthiest foal possible?

When it comes to feeding an expecting mare, the rule-of-thumb has generally been to divide gestation (pregnancy) into two nutritional stages.  The first starts with the confirmation of being ‘in foal’ and finishes about eight months into pregnancy, (or early gestation, encompassing first- and second-trimesters).  The next stage is from about the ninth month through birth, known as late gestation, or third-trimester. Until now, the assumption has been to feed a mare like any ‘maintained’ horse during her first two trimesters, then increase nutritional support in her third trimester when fetal growth peaks.

According to Kentucky Equine Research, the latest (2010) revision of the National Research Council’s Nutrient Requirements for Horses has identified the nutritional demands of pregnancy as even more complex and important than previously thought.  Pregnant mares can still be fed like maintained horses over the first four months, but the NRC now recognizes every subsequent month after that as a separate period of gestation, with vital nutritional needs.

That’s eight – not two – important stages to a broodmare feeding program, according to researchers behind the NRC revision, who looked at maternal body weight and fetal growth, as well as such factors as energy expenditure supporting non-fetal tissues like the placenta and mammary glands. They also concluded that nursing mares require more energy for maintenance of body condition than previously thought because of (1) increased physical activity spent overseeing the foal and (2) increased energy needed by the gastrointestinal tract to digest larger meals fed to support lactation.

Knowing when to optimize nutritional support for your mare can help avoid problems that can impact a foal’s potential and value. “There are periods when the development of the fetal skeleton is faced with a window of susceptibility to potential problems of Developmental Orthopedic Disease or DOD,” says Arenus equine health expert, Dr. Ken Kopp.  “A foal affected with the DOD complex of structural problems might develop epiphysitis, flexural deformities like contracted tendons, angular limb deformities, wobbler syndrome, OCD, or any combination of these.”

“With this in mind, it is important during the gestational period that your pregnant mare receives a balanced diet and adequate supplementation of micro-minerals and vitamins that are then used by the growing fetus to form healthy bone, joints, and connective tissues of the skeleton.”

The insufficient support of a mare’s nutritional needs during gestation has been implicated as a risk factor in foals born with DOD.  While skeletal development occurs throughout pregnancy, it proceeds most rapidly during the tenth month and during this time, nearly half a foal’s total copper, zinc, and manganese deposits are established.  

Mare’s milk, the main source of nutrients for its first six to eight weeks of life, will provide many of these trace minerals, but a foal also needs enough in its own body stores until it can digest solid food. 

Fortifying a nursing mare’s diet with vitamins and trace minerals can help her foal draw less from its own resources.  Copper deficiency has been linked to structural deformities because of its importance to the copper-dependent enzyme, lysyl oxidase, which helps build collagen, cartilage and bone.  Manganese, like copper, is critical to cartilage formation, and zinc is one of the most important trace minerals in the mammal kingdom.  It plays a role with more than 400 different enzymes, and aids in healing damaged or broken bones. Vitamin D3 helps control calcium metabolism and decreases the likelihood of a variety of DODs. 

The Arenusfeed supplement STEADFAST^® Broodmare delivers nutritional support prior to and during pregnancy, and supports the development of a healthy-conforming foal.  The nutrition in STEADFAST Broodmare comes from an exclusive chelated mineral product called MINTREX^®, the most bioavailable source of trace minerals on the market (the higher the bioavailability of a commercial feed, the more stable it is through the gastrointestinal tract, allowing greater levels of micro-nutrients to be absorbed and meet the metabolic requirements of the broodmare during reproduction gestation and lactation).  MINTREX chelated minerals have also been shown to decrease the incidence of joint inflammation and tibial dyschondroplasia (weak bones).

According to the NRC (2007), the incidence of DOD can range from 1 in 3 horses to 1 in 20.  Avoiding nutritional imbalances in the broodmare appears to reduce the risk of DOD, while a healthier pregnancy and more nutritious nursing through supplements like STEADFAST Broodmare are the best possible advantages for the mare owner about to start feeding for two.

 

STEADFAST, MINTREX, Arenus, and  are registered trademarks of Novus Nutrition Brands, LLC and are registered in the United States and other countries. ©2011 Novus Nutrition Brands, LLC. All rights reserved.