Lysine is the FIRST key to unlocking protein efficiency and supplementation and is essential for horses kept in our care today.”ĭr. Tucker says, “Lysine is the number 1 limiting EAA and it is often not available in large enough quantities in grass and hay. This means, you might have 100 g of each of the nine essential amino acids, but if you only have 60 g of the tenth essential amino acid… then your horse can only use 60 g of every amino acid. Tucker asserts that most hay/grass does not contain enough Lysine, and the way that amino acids work, is that protein utilization caters to the lowest common denominator. Equine essential amino acidsĪlfalfa contains all 10 equine essential amino acids (EAA), including Lysine (which apparently can be the limiting amino). And the rest of the year, I top-dress my alfalfa pellets with hempseed and/or hemp oil. So in the winter I like to include ground flaxseed and/or flax oil – because flax needs to be kept cool or else it goes rancid easily. Whew, so that’s settled.įlax also contains lots of fabulous Omega-3 fatty acids for whole body health (hemp also has a decent amount of Omega-3), and soluble fibre which helps the intestinal peristalsis and encourages good bacteria to thrive in the gut. So then I went to my database of human supplement Certificates of Analysis and looked up flaxseed and hempseed and they agreed with the Italian study, listing the protein content for both between 30-35%. However, I also found this extensive study done in Italy, showing that both flaxseed and hempseed have a similar protein content which is around 30% (varies according to species). I found a few sources including this nutrition data sheet (data provided by USDA SR-21) saying that flaxseed is composed of 18% protein. This allows the plant to access a large quantity of un-depleted nutrients, salts, and other necessary elements, while most other plants simply don’t have this advantage.” ( Source) The root system of the alfalfa plant reaches thirty feet deep into the soil. “Alfalfa has a very unique and distinctive quality that sets it apart from most other plants. 5 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, depending on the needs of the horse.
If you don’t want to watch the presentation and just want the cheat-sheet version, then add both alfalfa hay (or cubes or pure pellets) and hempseed or flaxseed (1/2 – 1 cup) to your horse’s daily diet and see how they do. Tucker also displays pictures of various “well fed” horses and shows you where this protein deficiency shows up in their body – so you know what to look for in your own horses (he starts that at 7 minutes): Geoff Tucker DVM offers us a hypothesis, “that a chronic protein deficiency is the root cause of many unexplained medical issues in horses.” And he shares an in-depth webinar on this topic presenting the background, his ideas, and detailed instructions for how you can assess your horse’s protein matrix (they need a mix of proteins, not just one type). I was amazed at the changes I witnessed in every horse over the next 10 months.ĭr. Then it became too much hassle to segregate her and ignore the pleas of the others, so I just gave them all some daily alfalfa. About 10 months ago, I started giving my Belgian mare Audelina some alfalfa hay each day – because she was nursing a colt.
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