Nutrition for Rehabilitating the Starved Horse

Worked Best?
Our results with the complete feed were very consistent with human studies conducted years earlier using concentrated calories. As the horse ate the high carbohydrate diet insulin was released in response to the high level of starch. The job of the hormone insulin is to facilitate carbohydrate uptake from the bloodstream and storage in cells for future energy use but it also simultaneously draws the electrolytes phosphorus and magnesium from circulation into the cells. Since the starved horse has no stores of electrolytes this depletion can lead to kidney heart and respiratory failure. These effects do not occur with the initial meal but can be seen several days to a week later due to the repetition of insulin release following a high carbohydrate meal and the cumulative depletion of electrolytes.
The alfalfa hay had the best results due to its high composition of quality protein but also the major electrolytes phosphorus and magnesium. Since alfalfa hay is very low in carbohydrate content there were minimal effects due to insulin response.
In a subsequent feeding study we compared a ration of alfalfa hay to a ration of alfalfa hay and corn oil. Equine diets usually do not contain much fat but in the recent decade the use of corn oil to increase the energy density of a meal has been widely used in nutrition programs for older horses and in horses undergoing intensive training programs. The two diets were fed again on an equalcalorie basis.
Although the corn oil had no harmful effects substituting calories from corn oil for alfalfa decreased the total nutrient content of phosphorus and magnesium in the diet. Thus the response to the diet combining corn oil and alfalfa showed a decreasing blood phosphorus level over the ten day period which was not advantageous to rehabilitation. Again the alfalfa diet was the most effective at delivering the necessary nutrients in the correct amounts to the starved horse.
Our research has shown that starved horses had very different responses to several diets. We found that the best approach for initial refeeding of the starved horse consists of frequent small amounts of high quality alfalfa. High quality alfalfa has characteristics of leafiness fine stems no dust or mold with a crude protein content of 16 to more than 20 percent. This amount should be increased slowly at each meal and the number of feedings decreased gradually over ten days. After ten days