02/12/2025
Want to know what and when to feed to help with muscle gain in your horse?
If your horse has the right genetics for muscle + you are giving them the correct exercise, then feeding can play a role:
Specifically the essential amino acids (aa) these are the building blocks of protein.
There are 21 of these that function within the horse’s body.
Every aa is an individual with different unique identities. Best way I have heard to visualize individual aa would be as letters: e, j, a, n, r, I, d.
If you start linking these aa together you get words e.g., jane sees
When you link words, you get sentences e.g., jane see land.
And finally, you get a full story if enough are linked together. The story of how jane was sailing till she saw land….This would be your protein!
Essential Amino Acids are those that a horse MUST consume from their feed in order for their body to work properly. The horses cannot make these on its own.
Think of these as the vowels that are necessary to link letters together in order to make an actual word. If the diet is deficient in essential aa the body simply can’t work properly.
e.g. you can have letters (aa) present such as TH H R S LS W NT S L NG
You can’t read this sentence; it doesn’t make sense until you put the vowels in. The same as the body can’t work properly unless you add the ALL the essential aa into the diet.
Like this: The horse also went sailing!
Missing even one essential aa can result in the horse not reaching peak performance.
There are 10 essential aa. Lysine arguably the most important aa for a horse. It is called the first limiting aa. This means that if there is not enough lysine in the diet the body cannot make enough protein for its systems to work.
Like trying to write a novel without being able to use the letter E!
Other limiting aa for horses are Methionine and Threonine.
What feeds contain amino acids?
Amino acids are contained in pasture, hay and forages. Lucerne is a great source of aa and protein. However, the older the hay or chaff the less active aa present.
Sources high in quality protein aa are legumes such as soybeans, canola meal, tick beans, lupins.
Horse owners can also feed essential aa in powdered form such as whey protein.
Read Part 2 this week!
Need help making sure your horse has the best possible diet for optimum performance then get an individual nutrition programme.
www.dlequine.co.nz
