Help Your Horse Stay Warm This Winter With Nutritional Support
Winter is the time when we horse owners bundle up like Nanook of the North just to feed and hack ice out of water buckets. I often felt like the Michelin Man having so many layers on.
My horse, Lionheart, hated the cold. I not only had to put solarium lamps in his stall, but he wore on average 4-6 layers of various blankets. In a way, we were sort of twins.
I wish I knew then what I know now about nutritional support for horses in winter.
In Ayurvedic medicine, winter is the time of Vata: cold, wind, dry. To counteract Vata, we need foods that increase warmth, circulation, and hydration.
Keeping horses warm in winter means providing imperative circulatory support — as is maintaining good “digestive fire,” an Ayurvedic term for healthy absorption and digestion of food and nutrients. Hydration, omega 3s, and vitamin E are also great additions to your horse’s diet during the cold season, helping keep them warm in winter months.
In this article:
SUPPORTING CIRCULATION FOR WARMTH
Improving circulatory health
Horses need movement. By nature, horses are herd animals who are constantly moving and continually foraging for food. Horses maintained in a herd or turned out 24/7 get basic circulatory support by simply walking and eating. Therefore, horses who spend eight hours a day or more in a stall may need additional circulatory support to help reduce stiffness in their joints and body.
Even younger horses feel the demands cold weather makes on their bodies: joints become stiffer and it’s harder to stay warm in winter, even under blankets.
With improved circulation, horses can move more comfortably even in cold weather. Increased circulation improves blood flow throughout the body, which also plays a key role in tissue healing and repair.
Horses maintained in a herd or turned out 24/7 get basic circulatory support by simply walking and eating.
Keep the blood flowing
Nitric oxide, as the master circulatory molecule in the body, acts as a vasodilator, relaxing and expanding blood vessels for increased blood flow.
- At the skin level, vasodilation is experienced as warmth–like the feeling we get when we take a hot bath.
- Vasodilation is an important component in healing. When we increase circulation with shockwave therapy, for example, it helps the body send more nutrients and support to the area needing healing and can help move inflammation.
- Increased circulation helps muscles and joints, reducing lactic acid in muscles and driving the body’s own glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) to joints and other structures.
- Good circulation is also important for horses’ feet, and many problems in feet are the result of poor circulation. Isoxsuprine is a well-known medication for increasing vasodilation for horses.
Nitric oxide: The key to circulation
Nitric oxide helps move blood from the heart to the feet and back to the heart. The heart is the key organ of the circulatory system. As it beats, blood is sent throughout the body, and the feet are responsible for sending blood upward and back to the heart. Any inflammatory imbalances in the foot will reduce return-circulation to the rest of the body and the heart.
Recirculation is helped with nitric oxide relaxing the smooth muscles, allowing for more blood flow. This is especially important to maintain healthy feet and to help with foot issues such as navicular syndrome, bursa, bruising, and laminitis.
One of the key nutrients for nitric oxide production is the amino acid L-arginine. The body converts L-arginine to nitric oxide.
Maintain healthy hooves with circulatory support
In nature, L-arginine is always found with L-lysine, another amino acid. Some plants and foods are high in arginine and low in lysine, others are high in lysine and low in arginine, but these amino acids are always together.
Supplements for circulation that only include isolated arginine, not in its whole-food form, may not be as effective as supplements containing both arginine and lysine. This isolated use has led to varying results, with some researchers debating the benefits of short and long-term supplementation with arginine that is not food-derived.
Plants and foods for circulation
For horses, the plant ingredients containing high amounts of arginine include: pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, brewer’s yeast, oranges, oats, and spirulina.
Indian Gooseberry (Amalaki or Amla in Ayurvedic medicine) is a potent rejuvenating adaptogen. In Sanskrit it is known as “mother,” “nurse,” and “immortality.”
Western science has illuminated Amalaki’s promotion of circulation by increasing nitric oxide production in the body.1 Studies have shown that a patented extract of Amalaki called Capros® increased nitric oxide production by roughly 42%-51% in people with metabolic syndrome.2, 3
Other circulatory-supportive plants that assist in vasodilation:
- Turmeric
- Ginger
- Black pepper
- Hawthorn berry
BioStar’s Circuvate EQ
For a lot of horses, Circuvate EQ is a game-changer, and it is on the top of my list for winter nutritional support.
One of BioStar’s most popular supplements, Circuvate is an advanced circulatory support formula with Capros® (a patented Indian gooseberry extract), organic pumpkin seeds, organic sesame seeds, chia seeds, yeast flakes, organic oranges, and organic ginger. (Fun fact: Biostar is the only equine company using Capros® in its supplements!)
Circuvate EQ helps your horse stay warm in winter by aiding in better blood flow, which supports joints and connective tissues. The warming aspects of increased circulation also helps keep them supple, comfortable, and less stiff.
With increased nitric oxide levels through Circuvate’s plant ingredients high in L-Arginine, improved circulation helps to remove damaging waste products, balance the inflammatory response, and support muscles and connective tissues.
Ginger, which has been trusted for thousands of years in Eastern medicine for circulatory purposes, enhances vasodilation.
MAINTAINING HEALTHY DIGESTION FOR WARMTH
Supporting “digestive fire” with active probiotic yeasts
In Ayurvedic medicine, foods, plants, fungi, and yeasts are categorized into one of three categories: cooling, warming, or neutral.
Active yeasts (colonizing live yeasts) are categorized as warming. Yeast increases digestive fire, and helps to move stagnation in the body, thereby increasing circulation and supporting the GI tract’s digestion and utilization of food. Yeasts are especially beneficial for keeping horses warm in winter, maintaining weight and supporting circulation, particularly for senior horses.
Active yeast strains like Saccharomyces boulardii and Saccharomyces cerevisiae also support the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the hindgut, including butyrate. SCFAs modulate health through energy metabolism, gut barrier function, and immunomodulation. Boosting SCFAs is especially beneficial to easy keepers, seniors, and insulin-resistant horses, who tend toward stagnation and need more digestive fire.
BioStar’s Bio Yeast EQ
Bio Yeast EQ combines those two active yeast strains (S. boulardii and S. cerevisiae) for a combined strength of 100 billion CFUs per serving (one teaspoon). This ensures colonization, making Bio Yeast the most potent active probiotic yeast available.
These active yeasts provide both probiotic and prebiotic support. Only active yeasts can do both.
The small serving size is an advantage for many horses who may be averse to finding large doses of powder in their feed buckets.
ADDITIONAL NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT FOR WARMTH
Hydration is just as important in the winter as it is in the summer
Hydration can be almost as challenging as staying warm in winter; buckets can freeze quickly, and many horses don’t like drinking cold water. Stress brought on by shipping and competition can bring on dehydration and even delay the onset of drinking to remedy it. And hot weather isn’t always the underlying dehydration factor; impaction colics can occur due to dehydration in cold weather.
BioStar’s Alixir EQ
Alixir EQ provides isotonic electrolytes from Celtic sea salt and sea vegetables which encourage horses to drink. It offers a quick and easy method to get your horse rehydrated.
The Ayurvedic resin extract Shilajit supplies essential mitochondrial support, of which most of the energy to power the cell’s functions and survival derives. A growing number of studies place mitochondria at the center of cellular life and mitochondrial dysfunction at the heart of disease and body system dysfunction.
Alixir also supports overall body homeostasis with the Ayurvedic adaptogen Holy Basil, supporting the endocrine, circulatory, and glandular systems.
The importance of vitamin E in the winter months
Winter grasses don’t supply vitamin E, and hay is notoriously low in E due to vitamin E’s fragile stability. Fresh cut hay will supply more vitamin E than hay stored for a few months.
Horses on pasture for eight or more hours a day in spring and summer (unless they are in demanding training programs or have health issues like EPM, Lyme’s, and MFM) get most of their vitamin E from the grasses. Come autumn and winter, the need to supplement vitamin E becomes a necessity for helping horses stay warm in winter.
BioStar’s Sunn-E 1000
Sunn-E 1000 is made from sunflower oil that is cold pressed and imported from Spain. Most other vitamin E supplements are from either soy or palm oils (with the exception of DL-Tocopherol, a 100% synthetic vitamin E).
This easy-to-feed oil provides the full spectrum of tocopherols: Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma.
Most other vitamin E supplements on the market typically only provide the Alpha tocopherol, despite the other tocopherols playing equally important roles in the horse’s body:
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- Beta tocopherol helps prevent oxidative damage to cells and protects cell membranes.
- Delta tocopherol supports brain and cognitive health.
- Gamma tocopherol helps increase nitric oxide production (circulation) and specifically helps reduce inflammation.
Digestive warming for hard keepers
Chaffhaye is a non-GMO, chopped, fermented alfalfa with yeast. It is a fantastic supplemental hay for winter. I feed it using ground feeders to augment the hay the horses are already getting.
The yeasts in Chaffhaye will provide the warming and digestive fire support the hard keepers need to stay warm in winter. The fact that the alfalfa is fermented makes it easy for horses to digest.
Don’t forget healthy fats
Foods like chia, flax, and camelina oil provide important Omega 3 fatty acids. Most commercial feeds provide higher omega 6 fatty acids than omega 3 fatty acids. Adding some chia, flax, or camelina oil can help restore the balance of higher omega 3s than omega 6s in your horse’s diet.
If you use hemp seed oil, it needs to be balanced with additional omega 3 sources; hemp seed oil is higher in omega 6 than omega 3. Remember, omega fatty acids are essential for brain health and function, inflammation and metabolism regulation, respiratory functions, and skin and hair health. They can also help limit muscle damage from exercise.
Winter is upon us
The cold winter months can be daunting for equine owners and riders. Fortunately, we can make winter more bearable for our horses by balancing the cold, wind, and dryness with foods that are warming, hydrating, and supportive.
About the Author: With over 30 years experience in the equine and human supplement industry, Tigger Montague knows nutrition from the synthetic side as well as the whole food side. She started BioStar US in 2006 with formulas she created in her kitchen. Before she started the company, she was an avid rider and competitor with eventing and show jumping, until she got hooked on dressage in the late 1980’s. She has competed on horses she’s owned and trained all the way from training level to Grand Prix.
References
1- https://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/view/amla-supports-endothelial-function-oxidative-stress-and-immune-health-says-recent-study
2- https://bmccomplementmedtherapies.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12906-019-2509-5
3- https://www.prweb.com/releases/natreon-s-capros-r-phyllanthus-emblica-amla-ingredient-showed-significant-improvement-for-heart-health-benefits-in-new-clinical-trial-813346412.html
