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InTouch Equine Therapies

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22.01.2022 Victorian clients! I will be treating a limited number of horses next week! I will be adhering to current restrictions and will need horses to be tied up preferably. Please pm me if you would like horses treated so I can work out days. It will be mid July before I do another run. Cheers!

15.01.2022 Thoughts are with all of my clients in lockdown. Stay strong! Stay safe! I consider myself very lucky to have been given this work to get me through.

06.01.2022 The cold, hard truth about ‘Cool’ & ‘Calm’ horse feeds * Warning, do not read this post if you’re offended by sarcasm* There are 47 ‘complete feeds’ on the... market in Australia with ‘Cool’ in the title. There are 6 with ‘Calm’ in the title. I just counted. That’s 53 ‘cool and calm’ options for your horse and pony. Yay right?! These are the perfect things to feed if your horse gets a bit hot. Ideal if your horse has too much energy. These feeds are designed to calm your horse down over spring when the grass is green. And absolutely suitable for a pony that needs calming down on Sundays at pony club. Correct yes? So how many of these cool and calm feed contain ‘cool and calm’ ingredients? I’ll let you know after this very brief explanation of so-called, ‘cool’ and ‘hot’ feeds. Cool and hot is a bit of a funny way to talk about food. All food contains calories, and calories are energy. However cool feeds could typically be considered those that are easily digested, low in sugar and starch, contain slow-release energy and won’t upset the gastrointestinal system. An example of cool feeds are beet pulp, soybean hulls, lupin hulls, copra meal, oils and low sugar hays. Hot feeds are typically those which are energy dense, higher in sugar and starch and lower in fibre, i.e. grains/cereals and grain by products such as bran, pollard and millmix, and of course, molasses. The starch found in cereal grains such as barley, maize, wheat and oats provides a source of fast release energy. This fast release energy may be useful for horses in intense work, particularly those working hard for very short periods (i.e. racing). Another interesting bit of info is that the amount of starch that can be processed in the small intestine within 12 hours is less than 1 kilo. Anything over this amount passes through to the hindgut which could lead to laminitis, acidosis or colic. Okay, so how many of these 53 ‘Cool and calm’ feeds don’t contain grain, grain by-products or molasses??? NONE! Well... maybe one. Its ingredients are ‘cereal and pulse by-products’, whether this means it contains bran, pollard and/or millmix or the 'husks' of grains is up for debate. ‘Technically’ bran, pollard and millmix aren’t grains as they’re not the whole grain. The fact is though that they have similar characteristics to grain in that they’re high in sugar and starch, high in calories, lower in fibre and certainly not what is considered to be 'cool energy' feeds. Saying that something that contains pollard or bran is grain free is like saying that something that contains soybean hulls is ‘soy free’. If it contained the husks of grains then these are typically high in fibre and low in sugar and starch, but given it doesn't actually say, we're left to draw our own conclusions. But back to the ONE possibly grain free, ‘cool’ mix. So while it’s grain free (maybe), it also claims to ‘calm hot and flighty horses’. How does it calm hot and flighty horses? Does it contain acepromazine? If it contains a magic (natural) calming ingredient I'm not aware of can they please let me know. I'd love to be able to guarantee this for my clients! It also ‘reduces the risk of laminitis’, how does it do this? Does it mean it reduces the risk compared to feeding a laminitic-prone horse one of the other 52 ‘cool and calm’ feeds? It also says that it ‘Provides essential vitamins and trace minerals needed for performance’, yet according to its analysis it doesn’t contain any trace minerals at all. And that’s just the start! Let’s just take a quick walk through some of the ‘interesting’ claims some of these 'cool' feeds make One claims it’s ‘grain free’ on its label, yet the first two ingredients are bran and pollard. Ingredients are listed on labels in descending order by weight. So the ingredient that weighs the most is listed first, and the ingredient that weighs the least is listed last. This means this grain free feed contains mostly ‘grain by-products’. The OVERWHELMING majority of these feeds contained barley as the number one ingredient and then bran and pollard as numbers two and three with molasses somewhere a little further down the list. With a sugar and starch content of around 60%, I'm pretty sure barley isn’t really very ‘cool’. One claimed to be a ‘cool grain mix’ which seems a little bit like an oxymoron to me. Its number one ingredient was barley (not even extruded). Four contained the word ‘pony’ in the title as well. One ‘pony mix’ names these ingredients as the first five, ‘Bran, pollard, rice, barley, oats’. Forget the ‘coolness’ of the energy, let’s just think about what pony you've ever met that needs any, let alone several kilos of this feed! Another pony feed contains ‘Cereal Grains (barley, sorghum, wheat), millrun, barley malt combings’ as its first three/five ingredients and suggests that a (300kg) pony in NO work might need between 1 and 2.5 kilos of this feed per day. Given a 300 kilo (not overweight) pony needs around 6 kilos of feed TOTAL each day (including hay and pasture), feeding 2.5 kilos of this mix makes up almost half of its daily feed requirement! My personal favourite pony feed (doesn’t even mention a horse in its name so apparently it’s just for ponies) contains the following three ingredients as one, two and three, ‘bran, pollard, molasses’ and suggests 300kg ponies in light work need 2 kilos of it per day. Holy hell, I wouldn’t want a child of mine on that pony - although that said it might be too fat to trot so it may be safe after all. One ‘cool mix’ containing lots of grain labelled itself perfect for horses, sheep, goats and rabbits - righto, so something that’s a ‘healthy balanced diet for your horse’ is also balanced for your rabbit? And rabbits need the same ratios of copper and zinc as horses? One calls itself ‘low grain’, yet contains barley, bran and pollard as its first three ingredients. I wonder what the ingredients would be if it were ‘high grain’? A couple of ‘cool’ feeds didn’t list any ingredients whatsoever (always a good sign of quality when literally zero ingredients are mentioned). One said it contained ‘no ‘whole grain’, its first ingredient was millmix so I guess this is true as millmix isn’t the whole part of the grain, but why label things as ‘no grain’, ‘low grain’, ‘no whole grain’ etc when you’re pretty much putting these in anyway? Are these loopholes so you can use the word ‘cool’? One calls itself ‘cool grain’ yet contains barley and corn as the first two ingredients and molasses a little further down. Firstly this is an oxymoron, secondly, when did barley and corn suddenly become cool grains? Last time I checked corn was the highest energy grain with the highest amount of sugar and starch you could get, and barley was fighting out wheat for the number two spot. One had an ‘innovative energy and coolness rating system’. Its ‘cool’ feed had a 6/6 coolness rating yet contained the following ingredients in order: Bran, pollard, barley, triticale, cooked cereals, rice. It suggested that a horse in ‘light’ work get 2 kilos of this ‘cool’ mix per day. When this same feed talks of its vitamins and minerals its recommended feeding rate is set at 5kgs per day. 5kgs will provide almost enough copper and zinc to meet the requirements of a small horse. (Not a small horse I would want to get on, that’s for sure!). One of them claims that it's, ‘The ideal choice for horses and ponies in light to medium work that can’t tolerate or don’t require high energy feeds’. Its number one ingredient is barley. It also specifies that it ‘doesn't contain soy’ (because soy is heating, but barley isn't?). One is for ‘resting horses’ and contains 16.5% protein (at minimum) and also contains barley and molasses. When did a resting horse need 16.5% protein, barley and molasses? I could go on and on, but I think my point is well and truly proven. Cool feeds aren’t cool. Manufacturers can apparently claim whatever they like on the bags without having to substantiate anything. Manufacturers also use loopholes to make claims about grain-free. Besides not providing cool energy, this could have devastating consequences for a laminitic horse or pony. The moral of this story is: - Check your feed’s ingredients - read the small writing on the bag! - Don’t choose feeds because the label says they’re ‘cool', 'calm' or 'grain free’. - Understand what the different ingredients in horse feed are. - Get in touch with a professional if in doubt. i.e. one who can see through the marketing, loopholes and finds reading the fine print on the bag pretty much the most fascinating thing ever (as is proven by this post) ;)

04.01.2022 Hi Victorian Client's. Due to increased restrictions my July run back will be postponed unfortunately. Please stay safe!... Remember to keep up with good grooming practices and try to dedicate 1 day a week you give your horse a really good brush

02.01.2022 Another beautiful sunrise on the Moree Plains!