Feeding Horses with Special Nutritional Needs

in the diets of horses with the abovenoted metabolic conditions. This however is an area of active research and it is still not well known how these big carbohydrate molecules behave in the equine foregut consequently if you have a horse with insulin dysregulation fructans part of the watersoluble carbohydrates WSC carbohydrate fraction on your lab analysis should at least be monitored in the nutrient management plan for your horse.
Tying Up
The metabolic circumstances when horses experience painful tying up episodes are multifaceted and complicated. The term tying up refers to syndromes where the large muscles in the horses body are subject to painful contractions causing acute pain following strenuous exercise. In the past this condition has been called a multitude of names including azoturia and Monday Morning Disease but researchers have concluded that this set of symptoms can be caused by more than one condition and now refer to them by the term equine rhabdomyolysis syndrome ERS. The condition can be related to overtraining or overuse poorly balanced diets stress underlying genetic abnormalities or a combination of all of these. Disease conditions within the definition of ERS generally fall into one of two categories chronic when the condition is related to intrinsic or genetic characteristics in the muscle or sporadic when the conditions are caused by circumstances in the horses environment.
Horses with ERS will need a veterinary examination and diagnostic work to determine which of the two categories the syndrome falls into. Sometimes the condition is related to sporadic circumstances such as diet imbalance work andor some other stress but the horse has no genetic abnormality in the muscle. It becomes very important for the owners of these horses to ensure that they do not overtrain them for performance that they allow sufficient rest between performances and that the horses diet is balanced and contains sufficient electrolytes and antioxidants such as selenium and vitamin E. Many of these horses do better on diets that limit sugar and starch but include additional fat.