Reading a nutritional label: Significant figures and NSC

Like a lot of people, you may be one of those that look at a feed label and shrug, not really understanding what you are reading, looking at or what the significance is in relation to your own horses. Lets begin with some definitions. (These are MY own definitions)

A "Normal" horse: a horse that has no health issues. Is one that is not over or underweight, gets exercise and has never had any close calls when it came to health issues.

If you have the above horse, count yourself one of the very lucky few who have this type of horse. If you are like the majority, you’ve probably had at least one health issue with the norm being at least three.

The "Keep an eye on" horse: This is a horse that has had some issues although not significant. You may have had this horse on probiotics, antibiotics, had mild lameness issues, thrush, hay belly, or otherwise, like the title says, you need to monitor. This horse can be put out to pasture freely, but usually on limited time frames or during off seasons.

The "I’ve got issues" horse: This is a horse that you have to monitor at all times. Monitor how they eat, how they drink. They may have a tendency to colic or they may have issues such as Cushings, Insulin resistance, or have past issues with foundering or chronic laminitis. This horse needs daily care to keep them healthy and the thought of putting them out to pasture has you running to put your vet on speed dial.

(NSC) Nonstructural Carbohydrates: sugars and starches found inside the plant cells of equine feedstuffs.

Personally, I feel that most horses sort of fall in the middle. There are truly few “normal” horses that don’t need management, and can sit out in a pasture doing their own thing day in and day out without some sort of care or maintenance guideline. Of course there are varying degrees of the “keep an eye on” horse, some more significant then the other. But to keep them out of the “I’ve got issues” category, there are many things the horse owner can do to help them out, and one major one is to know what your feeding.

So what is significant about feed labels or analysis?

Analysis can provide a good guideline to keep your horse healthy, although most people do not read the labels. Why is that? Personally I feel that most people tend to go on what I like to call the “majority rules” theory. The majority rules theory is feeding something because it’s popular or makes grand statements, or even because it’s something you’ve always done but never questioned. Feeding a three way grain is a good example. We feed it because its what we’ve always done, its what our horsey friends do and its what we think we should be doing. I used to fall in this category until I got smart. Why do we feed a three-way grain when it is so HIGH in sugars and starches? Probably because like most of the population, you’ve never read the labels, or if you did, never understood the significance of the numbers listed.

Ok, so you don’t feed a three way but rather just straight oats. Did you know that oats have a sugar content of 4.8% with a starch of 44.1%? Looking at that, the sugar is not all that high but when you take the starch into consideration, which is a sugar not broken down; you get a Nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) score of a whopping 54.1%. That is HUGE!!!

When looking at horses that you need to watch or by my definition “Keep an eye on”, this is NOT a good thing to be feeding. A good way to look at feed is to keep in mind that sugar and starch go together to come up with your NSC score. A good score in feed for these horses is to keep it below 20%. Looking at the grain? Wow, we are off the scale here. Even for underweight horses its not a great feed, even if you are trying to put weight on a horse. The reason being is you can unwittingly help a horse become insulin resistant. As a human needing to gain weight, would you go on a diet of snickers bars? Or one that has a higher fat content. A better choice? Timothy hay, or even alfalfa pellets, both of which are below the 20%, but the fat is higher which is what you need to be feeding to put on weight, not feeding sugar.

So what does a horse need?

In my personal opinion, a horse will do very well on a good diet of roughage (ie: hay, pellets or cubes), good clean water, and not much else. If you must give other stuff, whether that be because your horse needs supplements or you like to give the horse a treat, the same above goes. READ THE LABELS. Any complete feedstuffs worth its salt will list their sugar, starch and/or NSC percentage. If they don’t, I’d question why or choose something that does list it and can guarantee that their product is below the recommended 20% NSC, that makes it safe for most all horses. I was just reading the labels on some feedstuffs that stated they were low starch / low energy and for Insulin Resistance, Laminitis & Digestive Upsets but nowhere on the labels was the information listed on its nutritional analysis. So would I trust that? On their word alone? Not on your life, nor my horses health. You’ll be surprised on how many feeds make the claim but don’t back it up and not list it on their guaranteed analysis label.

Horses do not need a lot of “extra’s”, but as a horse owner I can understand why people feel they need to feed grains or other great tasting feedstuffs, however, you can make a better choice, by knowing what to look for and why.

The analysis of our own Simple Medley is in and can be viewed by clicking here. As you can see, we’ve got an excellent analysis and it’s a perfect feed for mixing in supplements. It’s great tasting to tempt any horse to take their meds. For even worse tasting supplements, wet lightly to ensure the supplements stick and mix or use one of our great tasting herbal horse tea’s to blend with. Not only is this a great treat to give, but its healthy too.

A. Morlan

This article is the property of the author. Do not copy this article without prior authorization from the author, or change it in any form, to do so will subject the user to plagerism and copywrite infringement. This article may be linked to without reprecussion. The information presented is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition, and is written to the best of the authors knowledge and for informational purposes only.