Feeding the Future: Growing and Fueling Elite Equine Athletes

Hi everyone, this is Melanie Smith at Solo Select. Today we have a great guest, Dr. James Latimer from what is now Hubbard Feeds, which we're going to talk a little bit about today. We have had Dr. Latimer on podcasts previously and we always get amazing feedback on these and I have a lot of people that call me and say, hey, I listened to your podcast and I have this question and this question. So we're bringing him back again to talk a little bit about feeding equine athletes specifically. So one thing we talked about before this is we're really going to focus today on growing young horses that are going to be equine athletes, feeding the horse that is currently an equine athlete, things of that nature, not necessarily going into the how do we feed our.

Horse that's a trail horse or our babysitter, you know, any of that. So just know that this, we're really going to focus today on feeding and growing the equine athlete. And Dr. Latimer is a Equine Nutritionist. I have sent a lot of my customers to talk to you about their feed programs and they always come back from that phone call with a wealth of knowledge. So I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to them over the last couple of years. A little background on us and our relationship with what is now Hubbard Feeds. So Hubbard Feeds is now what ADM was before, correct? So people know us saying like, oh, I feed ADM feeds. That is now going to go into Hubbard Feeds. And so the product that we feed right now is the same product.

It's the same great product everybody loves. The Grow Strong is the same Grow Strong everybody loves. So I want to make sure everybody knows that. And we know there'll be exciting changes and improvements coming and new lines and things like that. So that'll be something we'll talk about later in the year. Today, we're going to let Dr. Latimer kind of lead the conversation and talk about how. Really, what he gets a lot of questions about when he goes to barns, what are the main problems he sees? What holes does he try to fix with his nutrition program? And so I'm going to let you start off. I'd love for you to give us a little bit of background about yourself, your education, what you do within Hubbard now, and how long you've been there. And then we can roll right into talking a little bit about feed. Sure, sure, sure.

Well, Mel, first off, thanks for the invitation. This is always good. And yes, we've got great feedback on the last podcast and a lot of phone calls came in when I'm able to, and we'll do the same thing, right? Where I can talk with them one-on-one and at the end of the day, that's what I'm here for, right, is to help and improve the life of horses. And I think like one thing it's important for people to take away from this is that is something that's available to you guys is is being able to communicate with Dr. Latimer. And I think our customers that have called and followed up with me, I can get you guys in contact with them, have found that they have really been able to revolutionize their program and get it up to speed by having those one on one discussions with you.

This isn't just like a normal like, oh, please go to the feed store and buy our feed like this is we might test your hay. hey, we're going to want to see pictures. We want to, I think it's so valuable. People don't understand that they have the ability to do that and get you to help them lead them in the right direction. So I just want to put that out there. Our emails are all over the podcast and the website, and we would love to get you guys connected with the great crew over at Hubbard to actually give you one-on-one, not just email you a, hey, please feed our feed brochure. Yeah, no, those conversations are commonly, right, 30 minutes to an hour, right? Because we're going to cover everything we need to cover and not rush through anything.

And so that can seem a little bit overwhelming for some that are maybe new or don't have as much knowledge on how to feed these good ones, right? We call them the top one percenters, top 10 percenters, whatever. And we're going to talk about that today. And they're tough to feed. Okay. Make no mistake about it. We cannot feed these horses like we feed, you know, fed them 20 years ago, 30 years ago before. They're just totally different creatures. So before we get into that, tell me a little bit about, so people know, what is your history in this? Like what, how did you get to where you are today? Sure. So I did my undergrad and my PhD at Kansas State University, my master's at Oklahoma State.

Interestingly enough, I was at Nestle Purina for a while. So I was a dog and cat nutritionist at the beginning of my career. I worked on ProPlan and pre- and veterinary diets, so the therapeutic diets. And that wasn't where my passion was. Learned a lot, right? But wasn't my passion. and then had the opportunity to go back to Kansas State as a teaching and research role. And so was there in the animal science department, teaching and research, had graduate students. Bulk of everything we did was revolved around equine nutrition, really gut physiology, the gut microbiome, right, ingredients, that type of work. While I was there. At that time, it would have been ADM and reached out. Asked if I could help kind of part-time on a retainer.

So did that for a few years and then asked if I wanted to come over full-time. And so then that's when I moved from academia to the industry. And now I've been back in industry for about five or six years. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Perfect. Well, and just a quick background on us and our relationship with Grow Strong. We've been feeding this mineral long before this became a partnership, which is the cool thing about it. And the Grow Strong mineral has been a very important part of our program for a long time. And one thing I want to make sure we touch on, and I know we will here in a little bit. We, we, we love this partnership because you guys focus on forage first. And I think that is my favorite thing about you guys.

We see a lot of feed companies that push feed all this feed, feed all this feed, feed all this feed. You guys are very like, let's get the mineral out. Let's test your hay. Make sure you're having the right hay. Then let's use that feed as a tool in our toolbox. But let's not push bags and bags and bags of feed on these horses. And that is what I love about this company and what I love about everything you guys stand for. And so as we talk through today, you're going to hear Dr. Latimer say, you know, talk a lot about forage and the alfalfa or the coastal or whatever you natively feed in your area, which is, of course, different all through the United States. And I don't think I can put enough emphasis before you start listening into this on how important that part of your feed program is. We can fix a lot of things with mineral and we can fix a lot of things with feed, but we can't fix it. we can't overcome bad hay.

And so you'll talk more about that, but that's something I wanted to point out, talk a little bit about our relationship with Grow Strong, ADM, and now Hubbard. And so I'll let you take it away with, you know, you go do these barn visits. What is, let's just start with, what do you think the number one thing is that you address at these? Oh, that's a tough one to put number one. I've got a handful and depending on the type of barn, And they would kind of fluctuate, I guess, in order. But so let's stay with the forage, right, first. And I think everyone would agree, hopefully, that that should be the foundation, right? But a good forage, right, a high quality forage should be the goal. And sometimes year after year, right, it's tougher to find those.

I get that. And we may not understand what a good quality forage is. Again, so then that's where I come in, right? So let's test it and let's look at it. And on numbers, is this of value? Are we getting taken advantage of price-wise? Just because it's green and looks good doesn't really tell us much the usefulness of that inside of the horse, right? We're worried about digestibility, right, and the nutrients. We can only do that with the lab analysis. So we do that a lot, right? It gives me a good foundation of what we're working with, right? Because it could, it's 20 to 30 pounds of a horse's diet, right? And when we have problems, we get so focused on what's coming out of a bag. Well, let's focus on the 90% of the diet first, right?

And, and we'll, we'll look at the forage too, but, or I'm sorry, the feed too, but let's look at 90% of the, of it first. So do you think when you look at that at most places, are they often surprised by the lab results that you get back? I think so. Yeah. I think so. Yep. And just because they thought, oh, I'm paying premium for these, you know, either small bells of alfalfa or mid-sized three-string alfalfa bells and they're X amount of dollars and they must be great because they're green.

But the numbers won't support that, right? And we look at, and we don't have time to get in the weeds, But one of the very first things I'd look at is a number called NDF or neutral detergent fiber. And that tells me two things, along with ADF, NDF and ADFs tell me how digestible is it and how much can the horse consume per day. And as that number goes up, digestibility goes down. As that number goes up, voluntary intake goes down. So when we feed these low quality forages, I rely on more out of a bag, more out of a scoop. It's not the goal. And maybe that's counterintuitive for a feed company to say, feed more forage in as minimal amount of feed as you can. Right. But that's absolutely what I'm telling you to do because that's what's best for the horse. Now, we're going to talk about throughout the day or throughout the hour or however long we're here, everything I'm going to tell you to do is what's best for the horse.

Now that may or may not coincide with some of the personal views of ingredients or things like that of alfalfa of some of your listeners. Feelings don't feed horses. Feelings don't belong in the feed room. Now we have feelings all over our industry, right? And it should be, right? We're all very passionate. We are. But even feelings are good, right? How a saddle feels to you and the horse. That's good, right? When I pick up on a reins and I pick up on a horse, how he feels in my hands, how he feels in my legs, that's all great. We need those feelings. Feelings don't belong in a feed room. Facts belong in a feed room. Biology belongs in a feed room. Emotions should not be in a feed room. Experience should be in a feed room. Right. So we're going to talk about that.

We're going to keep that in mind today. Right. And everything I'm going to talk about is based in facts and biology and experience and how I would feed one. Right. How how then a listener chooses to listen and use that or not is completely up to them. But just rest assured that. How we talk about feeding one today is exactly how I would feed one of my own, right? And certainly forage first and a high quality forage, because then that significantly decreases the amount of feed then that I have to go to. And sometimes I'm sure we're in positions, depending on where you're at in the country or the time of year, that sometimes it's unavoidable that we do have to use that feed as a tool to help supplement more hay.

You know, we don't have access, whether it's a drought year or whatever. And, and even we have seen that in a drought year where it's like, it's just not available. So we have to use y'all's feed to supplement it more so than normal. And so I think that's where you come in to somebody to consult with them of, hey, we do need to, if this is all the hay you can get, then we're going to have to use our feed, you know, So in a different way. And the feed may change, right? Yes. And so we have two goals. Our is prevent undernutrition and prevent overnutrition. And both of those are rampant in our industry. That is so true. Overnutrition. Depending on what we're talking about, right? And lifestyle has a big part of that. So the mature horse that's pretty easy and we're not doing a lot with, right?

Overnutrition is more common. Mm-hmm. Gestating mares and growing babies, it's the exact opposite. Undernutrition would be much more common in those types of horses. Do you think that is just an education? Yep. You think? Because I think one thing I want to make sure we touch on today that we talked about, we had some people bring in some horses the other day, and they didn't look bad, but they weren't grown. They were just way smaller than all our yearlings. And I think it's important for people to understand, especially like with the broodmare, it's fat doesn't equal that they have the nutrition they need to have. You know, we have a broodmare with a three inch crease down her rear and you're like, oh, my mares always look great.

Happy you said that. I was thinking as I was driving here, it's exactly a point because I hear it. Well, they're fat and happy. OK, so let's let's turn that around. Let's put that in human nutrition and human medicine. Yeah. When would we ever say that? Yeah. Well, I'm fat. Yeah. So that's good. Yeah. There's a lot of fat horses that have no top line, that are vitamin and mineral deficient, that have poor feet, that reproduction trades poor. For sure. So the only thing that fatness tells us is the caloric balance of the diet. It's just one thing, right? You're missing everything else, all the vitamins, all the minerals, all the amino acids. So yeah, body fatness, it's obviously very important, right?

But just one, because one is fat, doesn't mean he's healthy, right? Doesn't mean he's getting the nutrition. Well, I think it's a good point to put that with, you know, if we saw that, if we were having, talking about people right now, we're like, well, yeah, you know, I have a big old crease down my back and I'm fat, you know, we would be like, well, maybe you need to eat healthier. You know, it's easy to get fat. We can just go drive through McDonald's every day. And so it doesn't mean healthy in humans, but we do have this overall reaching idea that that's what it means in horses. And I think it's easy to follow that rhetoric, but it's not real horsemanship. And then you have the emotional piece of that, right? The same in the dog and cat world, right? How do we show a dog and cat that we love them?

Well, there's multiple ways. And one of them is with the feed scoop. That's so true. Horses, the same thing, right? No one likes to see their horse. I think he's hungry. I better give him a little bit more. Yeah. A little more treats. Yeah. And tell, oh, now I've got a body condition score of eight. I wonder what happened, right? And they found her. Horses can't regulate their energy intake. If you give it to them, they're going to eat it and they're going to get fat. Now, there's exception to the rules. I get that. But the vast majority, right? Just like dogs. If we give it full choice, very few of them are going to be able to regulate, right? So we have to do that for them. They're very smart.

That's one place they're not too smart at, right? We have to regulate that. So we want them in good body condition, right? Not under, not over, because there's problems on both sides of that. But yeah, we can be unhealthy and fat at the same time. So let's start with, I think this is a good way to organize, you know, the different thoughts on each life cycle for our listeners is let's just start with whether it's a recipient mare or a donor mare. I think that the needs are similar, you know, on reproduction and vitamins and minerals and all of that. Let's start with that. We have, I have the, I want to breed my mare Sally next year and she's a great horse and she's won this much in the cutting. She's been sitting in the pasture for two years. she's a little fat now. Hadn't been graining her because she's fat.

Now what? Yeah. So she's guaranteed vitamin and mineral deficient, right? So before we get into it, let's talk about nutrient requirements. And when we talk about nutrients, right, it's protein, fat, vitamins, minerals. Okay. Everyone wants to talk like a horse has one set of nutrient requirements. It's not true. Okay. I divide them into three categories. They have nutrient requirement to exist. To thrive, and then to meet their genetic potential. That's such a good way to put it, yes. So, to exist. So, the Mustang, the wild, what's that horse eat? Whatever God gives him, right? Grass, whether it's dormant or growing good, that's what that horse eats. There's no supplementation. Stallions are covering mares, mares are having babies. Now, are they living the longest? Do they look the greatest? Are they the biggest that they could?

Absolutely not. But they're surviving. Now, if we have, and probably very few of your listeners would be in a forage only diet, but they are surviving, not thriving. And if that's the mentality, then I'm of no use to them, right? I'm here to help them thrive and then meet their genetic potential, right? So a forage only diet, just forage, it'll keep them alive. It will in no way make them look good, feel good, and certainly won't make their genetic potential, right? So exist, thrive, look good and feel good. We need help out of something. And that may be two ounces of mineral and we're done for a quarter of a day. 25 cents a day and we're done. Or it may be quite a bit more because we've got a top one percenter, right? Got a top 10 percenter. They're tough to feed.

Yeah, I've got to bring in maybe a little bit of heavier hitting feed so I can meet the genetic potential of that horse, which is very high. Let's talk about that. So I think this is something that, as I've learned from you over the last several years, has really been like a light bulb moment for me when I'm trying to explain this to customers. And they're like, well, I fed, you know, maybe they didn't say my Mustang, but maybe they did. My Mustang eats this and it looks fine, but my yearlings don't look good on the same feed. But I've been feeding that feed for 40 years. And it's like, well, we have bred these horses to literally be the best three-year-old faturity horses that the world has ever seen. And they just get more and more incredible every single generation.

What we have not fed them to do is what Mustangs have been bred to do, survive. We have not bred them to survive. And whether you like it or not, if you're playing this game, these horses are genetically made to be incredible athletes, not to just live. And so that is where the separation happens and why we have to treat and feed them differently than your grandpa fed his using horses 40 years ago. It's just different. So to your point, and I'll let you continue on, but I've found that trying to explain that to people, then they're like, oh, that makes sense. We haven't bred these horses to survive. So I think... Just the tremendous potential for growth, right? I mean, you have horses here...

1,100 pounds at a yearling, right? Or could. Has that genetics. Should. That's what we bred him for. That's why we spent all that money. Well, you look at the racehorses out here. The racehorse, I mean, they're different beasts. They might weigh 1,100 as yearlings, and it's not because they're overgrown. That is what they were meant to be. No, they're not. Because at two-year-olds, they have to be at the height of their performance ability, And that is that game. And so we have to feed those so much differently than even our cow horses. They get fed. I mean, they're different. So to the owner, you have to recognize what genetics you have. That's very important, right? Do you have the 50-year-old genetics that are pretty easy? Do you have something in the middle? Do you have a top one percenter?

I don't know. You got to tell me. Sure. Right. And then we'll work through that. But those three horses are all very different in the feed room. Right. And how we feed them. And yeah, if I fed a top, if I fed the 50, 50 year old genetic, you know, every day or, and there's nothing wrong. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Right. There's two different feed programs. The backbone of the industry. Yeah. A good using horse, right? For sure. He's easier to feed. And if I fed him like an 1,100-pound yearling, yeah, he's going to get fat as a tick. Yeah. Right? And we're going to have problems. Yeah. If I do the opposite, I never get a 1,000-pound yearling and hands don't go up in the air on sale day. Yeah.

So recognizing that, right? Not getting on Google and search on a forum and seeing what somebody else is doing and what's your neighbor. Yeah, because I think that's good too, because they are all raising different types of horses. And so it's hard until you get somebody like you've spent your whole life studying this. Like I call it being a student of the game. You are a student of the game. You're a student of feed and growing horses. And even if our listener is the person that has the 50-year-old genetics that they want to capitalize on because those horses do make incredible using horses and they're tough and they're resilient and all of that, but they still want to feed them to their best potential.

That's still a conversation that you are very much a part of. Yeah, 100%. It's not that we only help people that they're trying to feed for charity champions. They, this feed and different versions of this feed and this, you know, the mineral is one type of mineral all help support each of those three horses we said, but, but it's used differently. It's just a different program. Yes. Right. It could be the, the same feed at different amounts. It could be a completely different feed. We just have to have that conversation. Right. And that's why some of these conversations that I have on the phone, 30 minutes to an hour, because the first 15 minutes is just me asking questions. Like a fact-finding mission. Yeah.

Tell me about your horse. What are you doing? What are you currently feeding? What's your forage? How much are you riding him? How old is he? How's his teeth? What's his deworming schedule? So you better be prepared for all of that. Yeah. And that is another piece of it that's really important is, you know, this is not a one-person consultation. Sometimes it's you talk to them and then it's a discussion that maybe it's you and them in their vet or just them in their vet. Like what's our deworming program? What is our, you know, those things that if we don't deworm them, we can feed them to death. If they're full of worms, it doesn't matter. And so this is something that is a holistic conversation still with you and you can, guide them the right way. But a lot of times they need to bring their vet in and make sure that the do we have ulcers. That's what I was just saying.

Do we think we have ulcers? Do you want to pay to get one scoped? Yeah. If we do, we're going to treat some things differently. I'm going to, my focus then shifts, right? That's such a game changer. We had one the other day that has been a really nice three-year-old and just all of a sudden the guys were like, this horse has just gotten a little cranky and he doesn't look strong up. And obviously the feed program hasn't changed and we scope him and sure enough he's full of big bleeding ulcers like it was bad and you feel terrible as an owner when that happens but just know it happens to all of us you know and it is important to make sure that that is brought into the situation when we talk to somebody like you yeah the ulcers are just another i mean 60 of our performance horses at least 60 have them right, and all of them on the track the data says 90 plus percent but let's be real and just say they all do so it's a guarantee if they're on the track pretty much right and that's man-made condition let's let's be self-aware, we did it yeah the mustang doesn't have ulcers okay but.

It's it's what we have and we you know we keep them installed we feed them how we feed them because to be the athlete but know some problems right are going to come along with that, very manageable sure very manageable very manageable we know a lot about it right Right. But yeah, that changes things. Okay. So, okay. So, so we'll go to our. So we're going to start at the mare. Let's start at the mare, I think. Yeah. So, you know, your open mare and your early gestating mare, right? She's pretty easy, right? There's not a lot of fetal growth going on early gestation. Two thirds of the fetal growth occurs in the last trimester. So her nutrient requirements from open to first and second trimester, not drastically different.

So if she's on a good forage, in many cases, she could just be on a ration balancer maybe. If she's this common, right, stock horse, quarter, fairly easy fleshing, right, the thoroughbreds would be different. But let's use that. The thoroughbreds are a whole different. I don't even want to talk about it. So we use that stock horse, right? More than not. An easier keeper, right? So maybe one to two pounds of a ration balancer might be all we need to do. And would you, like for us, we always have the mineral out for them, free choice. And the big green tubs, if you drive around here to whether it's the Recip Farm or out here, we've got the green tubs are in every pasture. So that's essentially a ration balancer in a free choice form, right?

Some people like, and you can understand, right, there's an emotional connection at feed time. Sure. And some people like that, okay? And there's also, if you got a lot of them, it's nice to put out tubs and you're going out and checking, but I don't have to pitch feed every day. And so for these early mares, good hay, and they're eating two pounds of the tub per day. We're good to go. So when you say a ration balancer, that can be the mineral, the free choice mineral. The tub. Yeah. It is essentially a ration balancer in a tub form, more or less. Or you can get a ration balancer, right, and a pellet, right? Those are designed to be fed at one to two pounds, right? Amino acids, vitamins, minerals without a bunch of excess energy, right? Which is what we don't need typically. And then life is pretty good.

Now, when we get into the last trimester, right? Producing a, she's making a lot of fetus, right? Depending on the mare and how big she is, she at peak gestation, she could be making up to a pound of fetus a day. That's a lot. It's wild. That's crazy. So when you think about that, here's where problems start, right? And I had a call not too long ago and it was essentially a gentleman and he'd been in the business forever, right? But he was doing the polar opposite of what he should be doing. And he kind of kept the mares gestating and lactating on kind of a bare bones nutrition program. Then once we weaned, now we really ramp them up and put them on a feed program. You're so far behind you've already created the problems you've fetal programmed at that point you're you're drastic behind the eight ball, you've got to start that that last trimester of gestation right when all that growth is occurring and we are pro you talk about fetal programming we are programming things.

Ocds development orthopedic diseases they We'll never get rid of them, right? Because of genetics. But those are, we can help a lot. And those are beginning or not beginning in utero. Those don't start on the ground. An OCD doesn't begin once it hits the ground. Okay, those problems are beginning in utero. So vitamin and mineral intake is absolutely critical in that last trimester. Where's colostrum, right? When she's lactating, a lot of protein, a lot of calcium, a lot of phosphorus, devoid of trace minerals, right? Copper, things like that. It, it, it, it's not in her milk. So how does the baby get it? Well, it gets it in utero. The mare, we feed her, she gets hers. The extras go to the baby and, and, and those minerals are deposited in fetal liver and the baby's liver.

Then when the baby hits the ground, it's like a bank account. Pull on those stores until the baby is on feed and consuming those minerals. By the first months of life, if there's no bank account, there's no stores drawn. They can't get it. They're getting, no, because it's not in the milk, right? So that's one common thing that a lot of folks don't know is, yeah, there's a lot of protein in milk, but there's no trace minerals, right? We have to put that in that baby while it's in that mother. So it has that bank account to store them. So all of her nutrient requirements go up in last trimester. Energy, amino acids, protein, vitamins, and minerals, right? They all increase. Then when she folds and she lactates, now they go up even more.

And depending on how heavy of a milker she is in that time, her energy requirement could double. Her protein and amino acid requirement, double from when she was open. Double. So if she was on. Four or five pounds. Now she's on 10. That makes some people nervous, but that's what her new, that's what her requirements are. And if we don't feed her as such, well, now who suffers? Well, the baby suffers, right? Milk quality is poor. She suffers, right? And now we want to rebreed her and maybe rebreed her as quick as we can. Well, now she's in a poor body condition score. And for every body condition score under a five, right? Five is ideal. As we go under, you knock off for every score about 20% reduction in pregnancy rates as you start to get under body condition score five.

So now she doesn't run a rebreed, right? Because we kind of mismanaged her in her first pregnancy. So realizing all that fetal growth that's occurring, And I have to fuel that and I have to fuel her. I'm feeling two things, right? All that fetal growth. Plus, she still has to exist, right? I don't want to rob her protein, right? Her muscle to put it in the baby, right? I've got to feed them both, which will occur, right? So realizing that I'm feeding two now and there's a lot of growth and a lot of nutrition that needs to occur. And then when she lactates, when she foals, it goes up even more. Yep. What about, let's, let's go opposite. Sometimes I get these mares in to foal and they are just blubbery, fat.

I mean, they are just so overweight and it almost, it makes them have a harder time foaling and they're foundered, they're... It does. So there's such a happy medium. It makes dystocia, right? And, and unfortunately... That is the response. Unfortunately, I shouldn't say that, just matter of fact, that's the owner's responsibility, right? The owner did that. The mare can't regulate her intake. You have to do that for her, right? So we think, oh, fat mare, right? She's going to produce more milk. She'll have a bigger baby. You can get her so fat that all of that is the opposite. You suppress all of that right now she has dystocia problems foaling problems right she's so fat now rebreeds you thought she was going to be fat and rebreed quick now rebreeds are down right, milk quality actually in production actually suffered because she's so fat so there's a balance right we can't have her body condition score of you know three, but we can't have her a seven, eight either.

We need to be around that five and going out there on the daily, putting hands on mares. She's getting a little thin. I've got to up or oops, she's getting a little fat. I've got to take it away. People just want, well, we just feed five pounds. We feed a scoop a day. Just that's easy. I get it. It's easy. OK, we're not here to do things easy. Right. We're here to do things right. Well, and I think that's on to the not to interrupt you, but I think that is a lot of my customers. I'm like, we spent all this money on a stud feet and a mare. And please, let's just do this. And if you're not going to do it, leave her here and we'll do it. But don't just throw away the investment you've made in your time and your money and all.

And honestly, for our effort, because we take a lot of pride, too, into like, we got your mare in full and we're as excited as you are. And like, yeah, we're all rooting for this baby to get on the ground. And then the mare shows up the next year to full out if they didn't leave her with us. And she's, you know, 300 pounds underweight. You can see her every bone in her body. And you're like, guys, come on. Not only is it not fair to your mare. And obviously, there's a lot of times that it's not that drastic. She comes to us then. But it is that drastic on the things you can't see of we didn't feed the mineral and we didn't, it doesn't, whether it's your mineral or any mineral that they feed, the mayor didn't get what she needed.

And now they're like, well, my baby is average. Yeah. So we should have saved that money all up front, right? Let's just not even, yeah. We should not have invested all of, if we have the mentality of, right, we're going to step out and pay big time money for one, whatever that is to somebody. To somebody. That could be a $2,500 stud fee or a $25,000 embryo or whatever that is. Correct, right.

And then we're going to save money by, you know, feeding a, what I call a horse and mule feed, right? A $12 feed or something from the local co-op that somebody came up with a hundred years ago, right? Because we're going to save money. You're not going to spend 20 grand on a feed bill on that horse over its life. Should have saved that 20 grand up front, bought you a $2,000 one, right? We see this all, we see it in the show ring all the time too, right? You go, parents go out, buy a big time show barrel, right? Pay big money, take it home, feed it, cheap feed, and then take to the fair and they get gate cut. Well, I wonder what happened. Well, you left all that genetic potential on the table, which is insulting to you.

And it should be. It is. We want them to do great things. We're proud of our studs. We promote them. We try to put them in the right incentives to make sure that those people have success. And then when we see those dang yearlings and it never fails by even the, you know, whether you're talking about a $2,500 stud fee on Tic Tac or a $10,000 metallic cat stud fee, you see those people post yearlings and you're like, golly. I mean, it's just so disappointing. It makes your gut hurt. And so when we transition to those babies, I think some of that, it probably is, oh, I did, you know, maybe a cost or we're trying to be economic or whatever. But I think then maybe more common is we just don't know how to feed these young horses or these top enders, right?

And we get a little nervous, maybe feeding them at the level we need to feed them. And so. When we've got that mare and she's lactating and we want to feed her down low, right? So the feed we use here, as long as we're feeding good hay, it's our feed we feed across the board, right? So mares and babies and cell prep barmen, and it negates the need to swap from a growth feed to a, you know, we can do it kind of all in one, right? And so we feed a mare down low, the baby starts nibbling on that. And by weaning time, the baby's fully adapted to that. I want to pause you real quick because I think that's an important part that you're talking about feeding them down low. Explain that to people, what you're saying on feeding them in a feeder that the baby can have access to. Yep.

Then that is what you mean by that, correct? Sorry, yeah. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about that. We use the Rubbermaid deals here. Yep. Big O bins, whether they're in a stall or out in the pasture, people walk through and they're like, why do you all use those? Like, they think it's weird we don't have corner feeders. And I'm like, well, the babies can get in them, you know, and also literally the babies can get in them and get out of them, which is positive. So they're not stuck in a corner feeder. But talk a little bit about that and making it where those babies can eat and want to eat out of those. Yep. So, and sometimes the mares, depending on the mare, they don't let the babies. Okay, we have to manage them. Yeah, sure. Okay. Depends on the mare.

Depends on the mare. But all things are going well. We go out and we feed her. The baby's epimimetic behavior. Oh, what's mom doing? I'm going to come up here and stick my nose in this and just at first move it around with my lips. Right. And then I'll get a bite or two. And then as months go on by full or by waning time, babies eating should be quite a bit by that pounds, hopefully by that time point. The baby's gut is fully adapted to that feed. And so it's one less stressor at weaning time. It's a great point. Yeah. One less stressor. And however we need to minimize the number of stressors at weaning time, then great. And I think a good piece of that too is like, because we don't do that here, we don't hang a bucket on the fence for the mare to eat out of.

We put it in one big feeder and the feeders, our Rubbermaid deals are big. So like the baby, can almost always get to unless you got a really mean mare by going around the other side you know and we put it with their hay and i feel like that is really that works really well for us rather than having it up or that because, you can speak more to this but the way they eat whenever their head's up as far as their teeth and their wear on their teeth and all that it's better on the ground on the ground quote unquote it's how they eat yeah for a while yeah so we don't want it up in a feeder and you we don't use feeders for that reason we don't use those big, feeders that those mares heads are up eating at a weird angle you know.

That's one thing i've had a lot of people ask me about when they come through is like why do you all use those why do you feed the way you feed like why do you not have hay feeders on the side of the stall and it's for babies and it's so that those and the mares too and it so if you've got a crabby mare or some crab then, then you just have multiples and they all don't have to be big yeah it just has to be down low right and so if them just put them 10 to 20 feet apart yeah, And the mare's over here, and the baby may migrate over here and eat on this. And as long as it's 10, 20 feet over here, that mare is content. Yes. That baby will go find it. Yeah. Right? I promise you it's getting further than 20 feet away from the mare at that time point. Right?

So it doesn't have to be one big thing. It can be multiple smallers. Yeah. Those rubbery things you get. Yeah. You know, at any feed store. Yeah. Right? Just put them in a line. Yeah. And then just split your feet. So, yes, that's what I mean by down low. Yeah. And so let's talk about, okay, we wean them. We wean ours. The way we wean ours is, you know, everybody does it different. This has nothing to do with feed, but we do ours, you know, two to a stall. Usually we try to find a friend that they're comfortable with, that we see them buddy up with. Those two get weaned together in a stall, and that way they have a friend. And then what? Feed-wise. Yep. So the mare now, when she kind of dries up, right, she goes back to maintenance, right? So, her diet completely changes, back to pretty easy to feed.

The baby, staying on that feed it's adapted to. That was the other goal. We know this is the feed that the baby's going to be on for the first several years, maybe indefinitely. Amount always comes up how much do i feed these fresh weanlings right, so we have now genetics plays a lot into that right and body could do body size and genetics okay general rule of thumb is is one pound per hundred pounds of body weight of a of a, growth feed or a good feed like like what we're doing here, right? So these babies are four to 600 pounds, depending on how they're bred. Yeah, they should be eating four to five pounds. Now, some people will balk at that because, well, my mare doesn't even eat that. Your mare's not growing anymore, right? Your mare has a fully functional gut, that processes that forage very well.

A baby at five months old, six months old, that gut is not a fully functional horse's gut yet. It's still learning how to process, right? That complex hay with stems and leaves. And it can't do that like a mature horse yet. That takes time. So here's one of the very common reasons why you go out and you see these wailings and yearlings with big old pot bellies and bad tops and they're short and small and dumpy. We're. I've got to be careful here, right? It's always forage first. I get that. But here in many instances is where we've got too much forage and not enough of a concentrate, not enough of a feed because we haven't recognized that that gut is not fully activated. So their reliance upon a feed, on a highly digestible feed is much higher.

So yeah, they should be at four or five pounds per day at that body. Now that rule of thumb goes out of the window, but it's kind of a place to start, right? And then we adjust it for body condition. But if we've got those pot-bellied, bad-topped, that is almost always a, or we don't have enough feed in combination with an average or a lower quality forage for feeding a really good alfalfa. we don't have as much of that problem. And these babies should be on at least a mix. That's a good point, too. So a lot of people ask me that on, oh, I've got my babies are just on coastal. You can do it. You're going to feed much more feed as a result. And your likelihood of never maximizing genetic potential and growth increases. Mm-hmm.

I get it. There's people that don't like alfalfa. Yeah. Your horse likes it. And these top enders and these athletes that have a lot of potential, their genetics likes it and their biology likes it. Yeah. I don't know what to tell you. You can dislike alfalfa all you want and, you know, read any Google horse forum about how it's just awful. And in a lot of horses, the easy keeper, yeah. Not what we're talking about. Right. Talking about the athlete, the young. The weanling that's going to grow up to be a baddie. Right. Yeah. That should be on alfalfa. Yeah. Okay. At least a mix. Yeah. Okay. Not coastal. And if you're on coastal because you can't get alfalfa, then just realize you got to go. You got to get in the bag more. Your feeding rate now goes up.

And that's where you can come into play to help these people, too, I think is important. Like, okay, we can't get high-quality alfalfa where we're at. It's not possible. And we only have one mare, so it's not like we can get a truckload from Arizona. Fair. Let's test your coastal along, you know, with you, and let's make sure that we have the right food. We'll work around it. Yeah. Right? But if we can get it, then yes, this is exactly how I'm going to tell you to do it. Right? I would caution and say people like alfalfa pellets, right? I would be very cautious of the pellets. I've tested a lot of them. They are low-grade to utility-grade alfalfa that's made to make those pellets when I send them to a lab, right?

Because if you look on a tag, they have to hit 17 protein and some bogus fiber number, and it tells you nothing about the quality of the alfalfa that you use to make that pellet. So over about a year, I sampled them and never once did that come back as... Prime or grade one to alfalfa that you would buy? Never. Right. It was always grade four or five or utility grade, which makes sense because if I put it in a pellet, you'll never see that it was the coarsest, stemmiest stuff you've ever seen. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So plus the long stem is always better for the horse. Yeah. So that's, I want to talk about that with the stem and, you know, the difference in their ability to absorb and all of that between a pellet and alfalfa, because I get that question a lot an alfalfa pellet versus an actual hay yeah so you got you kind of got hay you got cubes and you got pellets okay right and and.

We we have this thing it's called functional fiber right and and, the the chop length or the long stem horse eats that goes in pokes the gut right, causes a muscle contraction in the gut we get it causes things to move more efficiently right? So I kind of put it like a washing machine. You got a heavy-duty psycho and a delicate, right? If you've ever watched a top load, you put a heavy-duty, man, that thing's just in there cranking, right? Well, that's a long stem forage. The pellet is the delicate, right? It's just barely moving, right? Well, there's no big particles poking the gut to make it contract and move like it should. So... Now, there's value to pellets to the old horse that has no teeth. Sure.

On board. Yeah. Gotcha. Not what we're talking about. Right. I got to keep, and I know people are thinking, well, okay, let's bring it back to what we're talking about here. We're talking about weanelands to the end of their yearling year. That are going to be big time athletes. Yeah. That's, that's, or athletes, right? Yeah. That's what we're talking about. So, yeah, we're always going to preferentiate a hay. If we can't get a hay and we get cubes, okay, I'd still pick the hay cubes. Okay. And then the last thing I'd pick would be the pellets. Yeah. And so that, just so I understand the contraction that you're saying that those stems stimulate, essentially. What does that do that, you know, why is that contraction important?

Like, I understand it's happening, but why do we want it to happen? Well, how clean are your clothes going to, you put your barn clothes on a delicate cycle. How clean would they get? Yeah. It's the same idea, right? I want stuff moving and gurgling, right? And I don't want stasis or really slow moving, right? That's when digestion could be hampered and then things get really still and not moving. Colic and. Okay, and action and things like that. But yeah, we want a lot of movement and contractility. Do you think that that also makes them drink more? Does there anything, like where does water come into play in all this? Because I know that that's still important. Yep, there's good data on that.

And, you know, I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. It's actually not true. We can give him a bunch of salt. Yeah, make him drink. For sure make him drink, right? But you're right. Those long-stem forages, he's going to drink more, right? And there's more water holding capacity, too, in that long-stem. So that's good. The whole cycle from from the stomach all the way down through the rectum yeah that's all good stuff right holding a lot of water in the gut water holding capacity is a good thing, very good thing for gut health yeah right interesting okay so we've moved on we've, weaned them we've upped our feed for weaning now we're judging for body condition from there to when they let's just say these people are going to fit them with us and they come to my house for fitting about this time of the year of their yearling year. So we're in July.

So into July, early August, they come to our house for the fitting. I know how we feed them. I'm going to let you talk about it. And you and Ty have designed and worked and massaged this until you have it to how you really like it. Let's talk a little bit about the feed program that happens for sale fitting versus just raising him so highly individualistic a true art form. I've always said that. You just don't put a horse in a stall and pitch and feed and call yourself a sales fitter. I mean, I guess you could. Well, a lot of people do, and they have a shiny horse when they show up. It's not sales fitted. Yeah. Right. And we don't have time to go into everything. We have a whole podcast about it with Evan and Dustin talking about like fat versus fit and what the difference is and why it's important that a horse is fit so a trainer can go and see their athletic ability, not have to try to look through these two inches of fat to see what this horse can do or how they move.

And so we have a whole other podcast that anybody can listen to that I think is really good. It's not as technical about the feed part of it, but it's really gives people insight to why it's important to use these people like Evan or Dustin or Maria that have made a literal career out of fitting horses and the art that comes with it. So it's, I mean, it's hands on right every single day because we what, shoot we may only have 90 days hopefully we have more but well we're lucky sometimes if we have 60 and so 90 is important and 120 is ideal yeah for sure so you don't have time to to mess around. Losing condition organic we gotta we gotta keep them dialed in so understanding what a horse feels like in your hands right what fat feels like and what muscle feels like, and that's all very important, right?

In a good sales prep feed and be the same feed that these babies are on. So that's the other good thing, right, is I don't have to introduce a new feed. Right. I'm just probably going to change the amount or the environment. And sometimes there may be some supplements that come to that. Right. Again, highly individualistic. Right. Maybe I need this horse. I know he's got a little bit more top. I need to round out a pop top. Maybe I'm going to bring in, you know, some amino acids like Asus or man. He's a little thin, I'm going to bring in some extra fat. Okay, highly individualistic, right? And that's where their skilled cell fitters come into place because they know based off of whether it's a racehorse or a cowhorse, which are very different, similar, still the same horse, but completely different, where those tools that you guys provide on those additional supplements that may be needed during the cell fitting, when and how they get used and when they need to be pulled back and added on to.

And it's not, we're not making drastic changes, but it's those little changes that really make the difference. So, you know, the feed we're using, right? It's not crazy high fat. It's obviously not low. It is, and when we start talking, starches and sugars, we need to talk about that. It's not as important now, but when they start performing, so remind me, because this is very important at a push button topic, right? There's so many people out there still scared to death of starch and sugar, of non-structural carbs. So we need to talk about that. A a a controlled what controlled level of starch and sugar right uh. I say middle kind of fat right like an eight percent is is these horses, should not be like on a 12 right it's it's too much for these there's still the problem is we get big bodies on little legs and things go wrong right you'll see growth feeds that have really high fat i disagree with them it's, not what not not what i would suggest the vitamins and the minerals are obviously a lot more concentrated because it's critical one it's critical in in the sales prep but it's also critical in these top end horses, there we have learned their vitamin and mineral requirements are vastly different, than the 20 50 year old type of genetics right we've learned that firsthand yeah.

So we put that extra nutrition right in in that beat so we don't have to bring a bunch of top dress and then the protein right it's a 14 protein but, just focusing on protein and ignoring the quality ignoring the amino acids we have to move past that right it'd be like i tell people it'd be like do you still listen to your, you know, music on a Walkman. No, right. The Walkman was really cool in the eighties. I had one, I don't have it anymore. We've moved past that. There's better ways and protein is like that. Right. So we got to look at lysine, methionine, threonine. And if those aren't on the tag of your feed, that's a red flag to me. Why aren't they on there? Are they ashamed of the levels that are in there? Do they not want to tell you what, why aren't they on there? Right.

Those are absolutely critical for muscle, right? And top line. And you've seen those horses, right? When their top looks like this, when it should look like this. That's an amino acid deficiency, right? Because for whatever reason, the first place they're going to rob amino acids is from that top. Horse has to have amino acids to exist, to live. And if it's not getting in a diet, it's going to steal it from the body. Is going to steal it from and that it's the muscle right just like if it's not getting calcium it's going to rob it from the bone yeah if it's not getting amino acid it's going to rob it from the muscle, yeah so that's why those horses look like that so then we have those horses are getting you know fit they're getting exercise i think, that's a whole different probably veterinarian lane of like you know are we building you know stronger bones and things like that when they start taking that pressure and that's in a good way in a controlled way you know it's very controlled exercise they are never you never see one that's gotten self-fit that's comes out with their head hanging low and they're exhausted you know, but it is starting to build up where those horses are ready to start so now we start them as two-year-olds and the feed program is generally similar from two to three, yeah this the base feed program could virtually stay the same right it's just the levels, of what we're constantly changing, depending on age and requirements and activity level and exercise. And that's okay.

We just want to feed a scoop a day every day for eternity. That's, I think that's a good point. That's what a lot of people get into. It's just like, well, I just need, like, how much do I feed my oar? Period. How much it needs. That's the answer. That's a great answer. And so... We need to look at the feeding instructions because there's a lot of people that don't feed according to the feeding instructions. And that's a big mistake. Feeding instructions of any feed, it doesn't matter who makes it, are based upon the vitamin and mineral level. So the ration balancer, right, only feeds one to two pounds per day, right? Well, it's very concentrated in vitamins and minerals. That's why it has a very low feed rate.

Take that all the way to a complete feed that a senior horse won well that starts at 10 pounds per day much lower in vitamins and minerals so the vitamin and mineral in a feed is what dictates, the feeding directions so when i write those i just don't make those up right, when we ignore that and we so the feeding directions say this horse should eat five pounds per day and you feed it two because it gets fat on five, I realize the horse is in condition, but he's vitamin and mineral deficient. So that is when they should move to the ration balancer. Yes. Because you've ignored the feeding directions. Yeah. Yeah. Or if you really like that feed, top dress it grows strong vitamin mineral on it. But that's when you're fat and vitamin and mineral deficient. Right. Right.

So feeding instructions are important. Please read those. Yeah. Right. They're important and they're not just made up. So yes, we're changing that depending on what that horse just looked like. We got to put a little bit weight on. We got to take a little bit weight off. Activity level's going up. Now he's coming out of the sale prep barn. He's going into work. That workload goes up. Okay. Let's recognize that. On season, off season, the nutrition changes. It's just like an NFL player, they eat differently in October than they do in, April, right? So horses the same.

So one thing you told me to point out was now we're, we've got these older horses. Let's just say we're in five, six, seven year old. They're getting shown in the age events. They're starting to maybe slow down as far as getting shown a bunch starch and sugar in the aged horse and the non-growing horse. Yeah. So again, we're talking about the athlete, right? We're not talking about the metabolic horse, the insulin dysregulated horse. Okay. Those exist. This is not the advice for them. Okay. We're talking about the athlete. That horse needs starch and sugar. Now these horses, we're not talking about horses on the track, right? Those are on a textured feed, lots of starch and sugar. Well, that's what they need to sprint for seven furlongs or whatever it is, right?

It's the muscle that dictates the type of work that is what dictates the fuel that's being selected. So right now we're burning just fat to do this. And if we were to go walk around the ranch, it takes no carbohydrates to do that. Unfortunately, yes. We like them, tastes really good, right? But to do that, no carbs, we're burning fat. Now, if we were to just sprint and recruit all of our muscle fibers. Now we've switched, right? Now we're burning a bunch of glucose, which comes from starch and sugar. So there's a big range in there. Well, your horse has a big range in there of the type of work it's doing. The horses we're talking about are kind of right there in the middle, right? So we need a decent amount of fat, right? And that eight-ish percent fat, give or take.

And then what we term a controlled amount of starch and sugar, which is around 20%. When you add starch plus sugar, that gives us non-structural carbohydrates. We want that number to be somewhere around 20 for these horses. It would have to be higher for a horse on the track. It would have to be obviously much lower for a horse that's metabolic. But for these horses, if you feed sub that, you will negatively impact performance. You will delay recovery, right? And we see it all the time. They're on a very low start sugar diet. They're trying to be performance horses. They have no gas in the gas tank. It takes them three days to recover. Yeah. It's kind of a no brainer, right? You put a human athlete and I always go back to Michael Phelps.

I know he's kind of dated, but he was pretty good, right? If I put Michael Phelps on a low carbohydrate diet, he wins zero medals. Yeah. Zero. Your horse is a better athlete than Michael Phelps. right so we have to supply that horse. Horse's muscles with the fuel that it needs right so we we cannot be so scared of starches and sugars there's a time when it needs to be low right those metabolic horses right. But in these athletes we need to provide a controlled level so they can perform in recovery and and and recover and it it impacts both of those significantly so So, I think the last thing I would like to touch on, which could be a whole podcast in itself, so we don't have to go into just deep stuff.

Details but the dang metabolic horses yeah they just i mean we fight it we fight it all the time we have these mares that are, it's just it's always the great show mares that you know say start just you know the cycle they get fat on air they haven't foundered yet but they get fat on air and then they get fat and they get blubbery fat nobody ever pulls back their feet or tests them or puts them on thyroid medicine or percent or, let's and this is something that I think it's important to note that when you start getting these this is, something that is there's a in my opinion and I'm neither a nutritionist or a vet but I think it's very much something that a nutritionist and a vet both work on depending on test results and you know things like that this is very much a two-part system, correct yeah hopefully we can help a lot before they get to that point it's where we need to really focus on right i we we need to do both right and you're right we could do a podcast of just this because you have to focus on both managing the ones, that are metabolic now.

And then how do we help not have that occur in the future right now there are genetics at play never get rid of it right but there are certainly things that we can do right, extra adiposity it it creates a thing called meta-inflammation right total body inflammation it's not good on anything right including, glucose and insulin kinetics and regulation right so. Yes for for the one that is already metabolic right,

And if she's fat, we have to trim weight. So can we feed a horse out of becoming metabolic? We can. It's kind of like OCDs. We can do a lot of good things and decrease our risk. We will never truly get rid of it. Yeah. So they probably either have it or they don't. I mean, I guess they're not probably. We can. I think. Well, we can go through some things. I think there is a horse that we could do all the right things, and she still ends up with insulin resistance. Yeah, yeah. I think there's a horse that was never going to get, we treated her right, and she never got it. And then her sister, we just kept her fat as a tick, and we programmed it into her, and we gave it to her. Yeah. That also exists. Yeah.

But to say that if we do everything, we'll never see it again, no, that's not true. Yeah. Yeah. But we have to be good stewards and recognize, well, she's like us, right? If we do things healthy, right, our risk of insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, all those things go down. Sure. They'll never go to zero. So the horse is the same thing, right? So when we have those ones that are already metabolic, let's say. Yeah. Once again, this is something that somebody would also work with their vet on because we've already hit that threshold. They're metabolic, you know. What, from a feed side, does that usually look like to you? Yeah, so we want to share. So generally, they're also overweight.

Not always, okay? But let's pretend they're also overweight. We got to get that extra 100 pounds or however much of fat tissue off, right? Because that's only creating more inflammation. It's only exacerbating the problem, okay? So the owner has to recognize that and realize the horse is going to be a little bit hungry for a while. It is what it is, right? Now, during this cut... We cannot have, it just needs to cut calories. Nothing else can be cut. Yeah. Right? Calories is the only thing that goes down. Vitamins, minerals, protein, amino acids, all stay up where they should be. Right? Because if we cut them all, now we've just got a whole host of problems. Yeah, we've lost weight, but now we're pretty unhealthy as a result.

And we've lost muscle mass in a top line shop. Yeah. Right? So... Insert something like a ration balancer, very concentrated, but low calorie. It's a good idea. Maybe just a vitamin and mineral. Maybe they're on good enough hay, right? That all I need is two ounces of grow strong vitamin and mineral, right? We just have to work through those on a case by case basis, which is my job. And we'll work through them all on a case by case basis and tailor made, right? Everyone wants to just, well, what do you do for this? I wanted you to just give me the answer for everybody right now. Yeah. So you wanted that on the last podcast and I couldn't give it to you and I won't be able to give it to you on the next podcast.

They're individuals. That's a great answer, though. Like you said, like that, I think, is where for our listeners and customer base, this is such they don't pay. They don't have to call you and pay you all these fees to do this. This is what you do. And you love to do it. One of your customer called and she's like, well, how much do I owe you? And I was like, what? You don't owe me anything. Yeah. This is what I do. Yeah. So I think it's really cool. Like, okay, I really wanted you to just give me this answer that was going to solve the world's problems and you couldn't. No. But the right answer is, well, I can't tell you that without knowing what are, I need to see all the cards to play the hand.

And so you haven't shown me all the cards. What, you know, what's the horse's history? What's their current weight status? How old are they? What's their activity like? Like, what hey do we have available? Well, we can't just like go through this flow chart in this podcast to get this person that's listening their answer. That's where them getting in touch with you and giving them those answers is the key. And I love that. Yeah, I can't feed two pounds of this and life and it fixes everything. I know. I want you to tell me that. That'd be awesome. If we could do that, we would probably not be sitting here. We'd be sitting in Fiji on a boat or something. But yes, that's not possible yet. Yeah.

So, yeah, we want to feed low starch, low sugar, certainly, right? We want to get calories down if the horse is overweight and then slowly add them back in and figure out what the maintenance level is, right? And again, you got to be a steward. You got to be a student of the game. Everyone does, right? Where is that? What's maintenance? What's too much? What's not enough? What's maintenance? That's what, that's what. And it's so different for every horse, which is what makes it so complicated. Like i think you walk through our barns and we we manage a lot of metabolic horses because we have a lot of mares that are aged that you know are, have they just are they're just we just see it quite often and so but there are very specific feeding instructions and if you're in katie's barn, and she's she watches them feed like a hawk and and she knows everything those horses eat, and that is critical to managing those horses so if you're not going to manage them at that level don't expect to to just show up and they're obviously they're metabolic but they just breed right off the bat and you've just had them turned out on the wheat field all winter.

Like it's not gonna work you're gonna be upset with us because we're gonna be like she either isn't cycling or we aren't gonna get anything out of her, this year and i fight that a lot with the education with people of like look we want to do a great job for you with this mare but she's metabolic she's completely unmanaged metabolic. We can't just put her on, unfortunately, a light switch medication that's going to make it better tomorrow. It takes time. It takes weight management. It takes feed. It takes meds. It takes all this care. Yeah. So, you know, so before this, right, owners need to be well-versed in body condition scoring. And we don't have time to go through that, right? But a five score is ideal.

I mean, keeping these horses somewhere in that five, not below not above because problems exist on both sides right and adjusting intake. To maintain that body condition score and help decrease the risk of this occurring. Now, we're not going to eliminate it by any stretch. But if I keep, right, oh, well, she's fat and happy. Well, you're increasing the risk of this occurring down the road, right? It's just the way that it is. And it's an expensive mistake. Overnutrition is expensive. Because when those mares show up here and you gave a bunch of money for them and you're all happy because they look amazing and they have this huge crease down their ear and they're beautiful and fat and we can't get any embryos out of them because they're way too fat.

About the time we get them on the program after they showed up in January is June. We get one embryo out of them for you for the year maybe. So I think people, getting ahead of that, so important because nutrition is just not something we can flip a switch on and we've just gotten their body caught up. Takes time. Consistency. For months to do in either direction, right? 60 days at least to move in a direction up or down. So, yeah, if we can manage that early on and cost savings, that would go a lot. I mean, just the feed bill. Now, some mares are such easy keepers that we've got to regulate forage intake. Yep. Right? We may have to dry lot them a little bit. We may have to slow net feed them. We may have to muzzle them.

That certainly exists. Sure. Right? Kind of goes against, give them all the forage that you can. Yeah. Right? But there are some that are that easy of keepers, right, that, yeah. We have to manage. They're being managed like that. Yeah. And so being aware of that and then being able to put in the work to manage them like that. Yeah. Well, I think we've covered a lot of ground and I hope that this has been something that's been educational for our customers. We have found, I have a lot of people that call me that I send to you or Cassie or somebody within the program to figure out how they need to feed, where they need to get the feed, where they need to get the mineral. And that happens weekly around here I feel like we're sending someone y'all's direction and so, to wrap this podcast up I think we've said it a lot but I want to make sure people understand that is available to them with you guys it's not something you charge for it's not something like you love taking the time to talk to people about their program what their goals are what horses they have there and customizing kind of a plan for them going forward and helping them achieve those goals and that's something at solo select that we're really proud that you guys have the ability to do and that, i feel like our customers that have used to have seen really good outcomes.

I agree. And again, when they call, right, everything that I'm going to tell them is for that horse, right? Irregardless of any emotions or, I mean, this is how I would feed one. This is what the biology of your horse says to feed one, right? And there are even instances and customers of yours that are certain part of the country, I just simply can't service them. Yeah. Right. For sure. And I'm still going to, I'm still going to look at their program. Right. And if I don't agree with the, even if I can't, you know, suggest one of our products, I physically can't get it to them. Right. Like this looks good. I don't like this. Right. Again, my responsibility at the end of the day is to the horse.

It's not to you, Mel. It's not to your customers or the listeners. It's to the horse. And you would think that those are the same, but I can give you examples of where they haven't been, right? And I'll give you one little story before we get out of here to kind of to show you. It was a tough conversation. A woman called. She's like, I have a thin horse. Can you give me some advice on how to put weight on one? Sure. Pretty easy to do, right? We just need to increase calories, right? There's a variety of ways that we could increase calories. We could switch from grass hay to alfalfa, right? We could add a... Just a fat nugget. We could go to a fat feed, a bunch of different ways to increase calories.

So I say, yeah, we just got to increase calories, get more energy into the horse. She balks. She goes, whoa, I can't give the horse more energy because when I do, I can't ride it. So here's a tough conversation, right? For me, I have two choices. One is to say it's okay to keep a horse in a body condition score of three or four, halfway starve one so you can sit on top of it, or have a harder conversation and say, well, you're just feeding that horse to its genetic potential and how its training has allowed it to act and you can't handle it. I'd probably go and find one that is more my speed. Yeah. That's the right answer. Right. I'm not going to sacrifice my ethics and say it's okay to underfeed a horse so you don't get bucked off of it. Yeah. It's the wrong horse for you.

Yeah. It's a lot of good ones that won't do that. Yeah. Sell that to one that can manage it. Yes. Right? So again, there's a story of where those didn't align what the owner wanted and what the horse needed did not align yes. Well, and unfortunately, we all have to hear things like that that we don't want to hear. But I think you're right. It ultimately comes down to the horse and what we can do to make sure that we're giving them a successful outcome. And that's not always with the rider or the program or the owner that it has or whatever it is in our situation. So we're doing what's right for the horse. That's that's. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to come up today. One thing I want to note is you will be here during open house so we're having our open house the weekend before Thanksgiving there is a RSVP on our website for that and we would love if people that are going to come would go in RSVP we're just kind of trying to make plans based on the people that we have there, Friday we're going to have a symposium that will have a lot of different speakers and you will be one of them talking about, how a lot of what we talked about today with some Q&A, some different, you know, questions and answers.

And then your team will be here along with you to talk to people. So if they're wanting to have these conversations, if they want to wait until open house, they can come talk to you in person, bring, you know, bring everything, all the information that they can with them and come sit down with you for a little bit here. That's a great opportunity to spend some time in person with you. But we will be doing that, like I said, It's the Friday and Saturday before Thanksgiving. So you guys can get on our website to see more information about that. We're going to have some super good speakers here, all kind of centered around, breeding, genetics, raising horses, choosing mares, feeding your horses, veterinarians talking about.

You know, things that go right along with this, raising them right and x-rays and surgeries and things of that nature. So it's going to be a great weekend. We're really excited about it. It'll be the first time we got to do it. I say last year we had it set up and we had horse COVID is what I called it. And so we had to cancel it. So we're excited to do that this year. And of course you get to come see all the studs for the open house and we will have everything here for our online sale. That's going to happen Thanksgiving weekend. We're going to have the 88 Ranch Performance Horse sale that Sunday after the open house. And then our big Thanksgiving sale will be the next weekend. So there'll be probably, with the cutting maturity horses, 200 or more sale horses to look at. So it's going to be a lot to do down here.

Hopefully everybody will be able to fit it in two days. So lots of great opportunity to meet everybody that's on our team, including the now Hubbard team here, previously ADM. So now the Hubbard team, and these are the people, you know we fed this mineral a long time long before this partnership started we believe in it and we believed in it for a long time and, So, uh, we would love for you guys to, to get your questions answered. And, and like he said, he may not be able to supply you with the feed depending on where you are in the country, but that's one great thing about Dr. Latimer is he will help get you on the right track, whatever direction that is. So thanks for coming today. Um, and we will probably be back for another one. I'm, I'm thinking maybe some stuff on metabolic horses for the next fun conversation.

And, um, and then if they're, you know, if, if they want to write in or leave comments or something that they want to talk about. Yeah. You know, we could do, you know, viewer ask question pods. That would be cool. Whatever that might be. We can talk about, yep, whatever we need. Yeah, so if you guys have any input on what y'all would like to hear about, we would love that input. Or if you have specific questions, we'll address some of those on the next podcast that we do. Probably do one around open house time when you're back up this way. We'll probably record another one. And so, and then of course, you can ask Dr. Latimer in person if you come to open house any questions. And if you're not going to be able to come to Open House, if you will email our office, we can get you the contact information to get to talk to Dr.

Latimer. Or if you want to start this process long before Open House, that's great, too. We will get you in touch with Dr. Latimer and his team, and they can get you led in the right direction and start reviewing your program and your hay and all of that to get everything on track. So thanks for coming up today. You bet. Thanks for the invite. Yeah. And we'll see you guys on the next podcast.