Grass: The Horse Food that Kills Horses

If you’re a member of a metabolic horse Internet list, you are probably being cautioned strongly about certain types of grasses as being higher in sugar than other types.  I am certain that many of you are desperately seeking exotic types of hay, such as Teff, because they are said to be lower in sugar than some other varieties.  Perhaps you are thinking about plowing up your pasture and planting some recommended variety of “horse-friendly” grass.

 

The former will in many cases be an exercise in frustration and the latter is an extraordinary step, somewhat equivalent to bombing a large population of innocent civilians and should only be considered as a last resort.

 

My intention here is ABSOLUTELY NOT to de-emphasize the critical importance of looking first at grass and hay varieties that are demonstrated to be better for metabolic horses on average.

 

The difficulty lies in the fact that these horse friendly grasses may still rocket off the sugar and starch scales if they lack the soil elements to maximize their horse-friendly capabilities.  That is what this article is about.  It in no way challenges the work of those who have painstakingly shared their knowledge of grass species.  I hope that the reader will ADD this list of possibilities to their possibilities data bank, not delete ANYTHING that they have learned previously.

 

Photosynthesis and Biosynthesis

 

First of all, what’s the problem with the horse’s natural food, grass, anyway?  Carbohydrates of course.  Too much sugar and starch.  Some grass plants produce more sugar than others.  News flash, the same species grown in northwest Oregon will not have the same nutritional analysis as the same species grown in Texas.  Why is that?

 

We are very focused on the contribution of these water soluble carbs to our horses’ metabolic diseases. But you should know that the WSC (or NSC) numbers on your hay analysis may actually be a symptom of a deeper plant metabolic illness, and not just a way to gauge the safeness of the hay for your horse.  The WSC figures on the hay analysis may be trumpeting the news that the grass hasn’t got the soil-derived nutrition it needs to finish the job of turning the carbs into amino acids.

 

Sugar and starch are the products of photosynthesis.  Those of us who aren’t particularly interested in plant metabolism generally stop at photosynthesis, which is why we’re all in trouble.  Photosynthesis makes sugar and starch.  Sunshine and air make sugar and starch.  So as long as the plant is only metabolizing the wealth of above ground resources, it’s about as nutritious as an air fern.  This is true for any grass plant, including the limited list of supposedly horse-safe grasses.

 

Of course a grass plant doesn’t live on air and sunshine alone.  It also grows underground.  Generally there is as much root mass underground as there is leaf and stem above ground.  We know that roots slurp up nutrients from the soil and anchor the plant.  We all are in despair over Declining Soil Fertility, but most of us don’t know WHY we’re in despair, other than it’s somehow related to declining nutrition in our hay and in our own food.  We’re given to believe that it’s an irreversible condition.  It seems to have become another way to make us feel helpless and out of control. 

 

By the way, “depleted soils” are not strictly human driven.  In many cases we’re trying to grow healthy grass-eating mammals on soil that if left to its own devices would prefer to grow pine trees.  Mother Nature has a big hand in that, as I’ll later explore.  Suffice to say, soil that’s good for making wood or sugar, isn’t necessarily suitable for making nutritious forage!

 

The reason to be worried about Declining Soil Fertility is because it means the minerals have gone missing or were never there to begin with.  Woe is us – now our horses are not getting their minerals AS WELL as eating high sugar hay.  We’ve created a paradigm in which we have separated the horse’s mineral deficiency as one problem, and the high sugar content in the grass as another.  We are advised to soak the sugar (and other nutrients) out of the hay, and feed the horse ground rocks to make up his mineral deficiency. 

 

Is there a problem here?  Sure there is.  The problem is that we have separated the horse’s metabolism from the grass’ metabolism.  They’re one and the same.  If the minerals are not available in balance to both organisms, the problems that result are identical for both of them; disease, parasitism, reproductive failure, compromised growth and tissue repair.  Of course the horse needs some of the basic minerals for its own body building blocks.  But the minerals that the grass plant confers on the horse have already performed some key nutrition biosynthesis of which the horse is not capable itself.  If those minerals were not available to the plant originally, some nutrient of vital importance to the horse exclusive of minerals will be dangerously missing in the grass as well.  Plants don’t go slurping up minerals from the soil and say, “Here horse, have some minerals.”  No, before the plant hands a mineral over to the horse, it has used that mineral itself!  The horse gets a double nutritional gift from the grass plant, an amino acid AND a mineral!

 

Returning to photosynthesis, let’s say we have a grass plant growing in depleted soil.  The sun’s energy is a reliable nutrient, so as long as the grass plant is adapted to depleted soil conditions it grew in, it will slog along like any half-starved dog, eking out a living in a deranged environment, growing a weak physical structure that is vulnerable to attack by parasites and foreign proteins (viruses and bacteria).  The only difference between the starving dog and the starving grass plant is that the starving dog has the ability to pick up and look for a new gig.  The plant is stuck in one place.  As Albrecht puts it, these parasites and foreign proteins attacking a malnourished organism are like nature’s pre-cleanup crew on a prospective cadaver.

 

The grass in a mineral starved environment will produce very little protein, very few vitamins, just lots of sugar.  It will have trouble setting seed and may be forced to reproduce by rhizomes, if at all.  It won’t be able to compete with “weeds” that are adapted to scavenge minerals, perhaps via taproot into the subsoil.  It will eventually die.

 

From the products of photosynthesis, the plant biosynthesizes amino acids, vitamins, and immune-protecting substances in the presence of balanced soil minerals.

 

Soil minerals, such as calcium, sulphur and magnesium, are vital to the biosynthesis of protein (I have news about protein in another article.) from the products of photosynthesis.  When the minerals are unavailable either by absence or imbalance or both, the plant suffers from a sort of arrested metabolism.

 

Now it’s important for you to understand that the grass plant doesn’t give a darn about creating nutrition for your horse.  Like all of us, it’s getting by as best it can for its own sake.  It makes proteins and vitamins and immune products for its own wellbeing.  The fact that it confers these blessings on the grass eater should stand out as clear evidence that the horse and the plant really share a kind of interconnected metabolism.  Because the plant confers the body building and protective substances on the horse that it makes for itself, it should be fairly clear that what goes for the grass goes for the horse.  Then, in a perfect world, the horse returns nutritional favors to the grass.

 

Grass plants are not some kind of straw from which horses sip soil minerals.  Hopefully by now you can see why getting the minerals into the horse via the grass is preferable to offering raw minerals as a supplement.  It must be done, but it must be done judiciously, with an awareness that some biological alchemy that produces nutrition was skipped between soil and horse.

 

Minerals play an active role as catalysts in creating some plant nutrients in which the mineral cannot then be detected in the nutrient.  They do their thing helping to create a nutrient and then they move on.  Kind of like a carpenter building a house.  The carpenter doesn’t move in with the new family, he leaves and builds a new house.  He may not have scrawled his name on the wall, but you know he was there because there wouldn’t be a house at all if there hadn’t been a carpenter.   No mineral catalysts, no protein.

 

So one might be tempted to believe that a certain plant nutrient has nothing whatever to do with a particular mineral.  In truth, without magnesium, without sulphur, without calcium, there is no fabrication of  amino acids, etc. for either the plant or the horse.  The fact that you can’t find a mineral in an certain plant nutrient doesn’t mean the mineral didn’t have a hand in building nutritious grass for the horse.

 

One might think that as long as you have adequate “protein” from other sources and can supplement minerals and vitamins, all is well.  Protein, as in “Crude Protein” on your hay analysis requires further inspection.  We’ll go there, but for now let’s return to soil minerals and grass species.

 

I’d like to give you some more food for thought if you’re still hungry, about the “averages” in tables of plant nutrients.

 

How many exciting new scientific studies have you read about in mainstream media that were subsequently proven bogus?  In light of what we’ve talked about so far, how many nutritional evaluations on grass species do you suppose have been conducted on plants grown in perfect conditions?  And how much similarity do you think there might be between a variety of grass plant studied in Iowa, land of King Corn (grass), and the same grass variety studied in Oregon, land of Douglas Fir (wood)?  Much of agriculture today is based on Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium – N-P-K – with lime thrown in to adjust the pH, and whatever else thrown in that produces tonnage.  Yield is what most producers want.  When was the last time you got an analysis along with your hay before you bought it?  Most of us are stuck buying hay and hoping for the best, then spending endless hours and thousands of gallons of water soaking the sugar out of yet another ton of hay after we pay for the analysis ourselves and find out the bright green stuff is another metabolic train wreck for our horses.  Maybe it was even a desirable variety of hay.

 

I have (or had) an article from Oregon State University on pasture management and it tends to discourage adding anything that hasn’t been shown to increase yield.  Like magnesium for instance?  Adding magnesium doesn’t increase tonnage.  So if grass tetany in your cattle is a problem, supplement them with magnesium.  The trouble is, magnesium is not only a key player in the production of amino acids, it has a profound effect on soil pH.  More than calcium!  So if the soil doesn’t contain the right amount of magnesium, your cows will not only get grass tetany, they’re likely to suffer a hidden hunger for some other missing nutrient.  Somewhere down the line, that hidden hunger will express itself in more ways than just grass tetany.  The trouble for us horse owners is, we expect our horses to live to a ripe old age and provide a service to us most of that time.  But suddenly it seems they’re all tanking metabolically at around age 15.  Cows go away as soon as they quit producing or go to the feedlot.  What reduces our horses to victims of degenerative disease in their later years may not have the same type of expression in a short-lived food animal, but cows and sheep have a whole litany of problems for themselves.  No doubt many of those problems could, if thoroughly examined, be linked to the same metabolic short-circuits in their feed that are killing our horses.  They, too, are children of the grass.

 

Some grass plants will grow in mineral deficient soil.  Whether or not they “persist” is another issue.  They will always be more nutritionally complete – relatively more protein, less sugar and starch – if they are grown on mineral-balanced soil.  We tend to say that certain plants “thrive” in certain conditions (for instance rhododendrons in acid soil) but the truth is, certain plants can “tolerate” poor soil better than others.  Just like some humans can smoke all their lives, eat Hostess Twinkies and drink a fifth of whiskey every day until they’re ninety, then die in a bungee jumping accident.  Doesn’t mean they were particularly noble individuals, just tough buggers.  As far as grass is concerned, just because it is Timothy or Orchard Grass or Teff doesn’t automatically confer the title of Horse Food on it unless it is grown in conditions that maximize its potential to be horse food

 

If the grass used in tests for nutritional content are not grown on soil that is replete in the necessary minerals, the data from the tests will be flawed.  The entire model is flawed.  The published information for that variety is very possibly inaccurate.

 

Yes, one variety of grass plant may yield more sugar than another, but that may only mean that that particular variety or sub-variety is adapted to grow in mineral deficient soil and have little to do with its ability to convert some of the sugar to protein.  Hybrid corn, a type of grass which is engineered to produce huge tonnages of starchy grain, is adapted to ever poorer growing conditions.  (Rent the DVD “King Corn” from Netflix.) In the decades since WWII, protein levels of corn and wheat both have tended to be in decline and the starch has risen, to the point where it’s hard to think of corn as food.  Even the local crows are reluctant to eat the cracked corn I throw out for them in winter.  If a plant breeder of high sugar grass is deliberately trying to sell his new variety based on scientific studies, what’s to prevent him manipulating the soil to enhance the sugar values for his advertising campaign?  All I’m trying to say is, that same grass may be a big sugar producer, because it’s bred to conform to the N-P-K model.  It may be an entirely different plant in a model of complete plant nutrition.  Who knows? I’m not saying this is so, I’m only throwing it out as a possibility.  And a lot of these hybrids don’t thrive in field conditions without lots of chemical pesticides, etc., because they are incapable of producing immune substances in the lifeless dirt that anchors their roots.  Oh…enter genetic tinkering.

 

Further, the forage species you seek to either to grow or purchase as hay may not be adapted to grow at all in your region!

 

So if you’re searching for Teff hay, which I believe comes from Africa, your search may be entirely in vain if Teff is not well adapted to grow in your soil or climate.  We have a bad habit of taking grass for granted.  Native grasses are said to be the most likely to produce good horse feed (why wouldn’t they – horses originated where native grasses once grew).  But even native grasses vary in nutritional content from north to south, east to west.  And just because a grass plant is “native” doesn’t mean it will grow on any part of the continent.  It is “adapted” to grow in certain conditions, and may only be tolerant of a narrow band of soil fertility and climate conditions to produce the kind of nutrition that once supported the thundering herds.  As the herds went, so went the grass up a narrow migratory path through the continent’s midsection.  Hopefully a picture is beginning to emerge.

 

The point is that grass is not necessarily good horse hay according to its pedigree.  I was told on a metabolic horse list that my low sugar hay this year was probably an accident.  That shows the extent to which the message of helplessness has become entrenched in the embattled metabolic horse community.  “Any good hay has got to be an accident.”  Ain’t so.  Grass can and will biosynthesize the products of photosynthesis (sugar and starch) into amino acids, vitamins and other body building/protecting compounds in the presence of adequate, balanced soil minerals.  To what extent for each species, I don’t know.  My pasture is a smorgasbord of species.  It all added up to pretty darn good hay after a lot of painstaking effort to make it so.

 

This overview is generally meant to show you why feeding animals out of a mineral box is, as Dr. Albrecht put it, “an act of desperation.”

 

Look to the soil before condemning the grass plant or tearing up your pasture.  And then begin to look at your horse as a soil crop.  Its metabolism is forever bound to the soil upon which its feed is grown, so if your grass is starving, your horse will also be afflicted with hidden hungers that no box of ground rocks will ever satisfy.

 

Comments

[Barb]

That's not the lab that's stirred up so much fuss over their recommendations is it? Oh, no I think that is "Probitas." ??

Barb

[Richard Woolley]

Barb I suggest you contact Peter Lester at Quantum Laboratories in New Zealand he has his own lab & has been involved in the Albrecht system since the early 70's and has had to withstand the NPK onslaught ever since. I worked with him for a number of years & there were a number of amazing outcomes.
Richard Woolley
http://www.quantumlab.co.nz/

[Val Coker]

Ever looked at the New Zealand Web sight
calmhealthyhorses.com or seen the DVD
Changes in the grass make changes in the Horse?

[Jodie]

Hi, just reading all about the issues with soil and sick horses etc. Just thorought i would let you know you are not alone on this. I am in NSW, and i have two horses with idiopathic headshaking, basically a potassium overload from incorrect grasses and superphosphate. My soil was so out of balance a severe mineral imbalance was the end result for these poor horses. I am not in the process after 3 soil tests of rebalancing the soil, and ive started seeding safe horse grass. But the posts above are right, i needed to get the soil right first to get the grass right and then my horses. The problem that we have is the potassium is so high in the horses diet they were getting so much that it was binding the calcium and the magnesium, both horses basically lost the plot and my normally calm and sensible stockhorse became very ill and out of control and even to the point he developed EMS and just continued to gain weight at a rapid rate, putting strain on everything. They also both presented with imflamation up their noses around the sinus cavity area. They were removed from the offending pasture, the stockhorse has been on dirt now for around 26 weeks, sad to see a horse that cant eat grass, thats what they do, but until i can get the grass and soil right it is just far to dangerous for them to be out there, and i would rather then be bored then in pain. The breakthrough came from Gotcha Equine in VIC.
I certinally hope you now have all your pastures under control.

[Barb]

Richard, so nice to hear from you! We seem to be few and far between! This blog is very outdated as I've put my energy into, well, writing a book on growing hay and grass that won't kill horses. That project too, is somewhat on hold as outdoor activities are taking precedence (it's been a very long, cold spring!) Copper is always an issue for me because I've yet to see an Oregon hay analysis with sufficient Cu for any class of livestock. And we kept putting it on, but the hay keeps going lower. It seems we have an excessive amount of OM that may be tying it up. It seems that growing good livestock hay, where no wild grazers ever existed, is an occupation that requires considerable strategy! This spring I will be trying some foliar Mg and P - to see how the hay is affected. It has been so stinkin' cold for the 3rd spring in a row, that I think the microbes are just not active enough. I am planning some experiments with fresh forage analysis on this, plus equating Brix readings with sugar content in the fresh forage. I should definitely post the results here. Hope to hear from you again!

[Richard Woolley]

How come it took so long for me to come across your web site. Perhaps because I have been so busy preaching the gospel of Albrecht myself. I have found people seem to find it easier to race off down the track of fixing the problem instead of the cause or as Albrecht said himself "spiting nature instead of working with it".
The grass WSC and specific mineral Mg & Cu seem to be the topics of focus at the present or element deficiencies rather than perhaps element excesses, antagonists.
Without addressing soil fertility first in respect of plant & animal health you could say we will always be shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.
Great stuff
Richard Woolley

[Jerald]

Maintaining a horse needs lot of commitment and responsibility, even the smallest thing should be taken good care of. Using the best and nutritious horse supplements is the best way to keep the horse healthy and fit.

[Amanda Nicholas]

Hi Barb and Michael, im writing this the day after i received my copy of the book about the ideal soil, im sending my tests off this week. I havnt put the book down, why hasnt this information been available to us before, with all the technology we have and all the scientists and research, why hasnt something like this been made more available, i just love the book and thank you so much for putting me onto the right path, i will be in contact with you both as soon as i have the results back. What do you feel about pre packaged feeds for horses if the produce was grown on depleted soils then the end product would be defecient to unless they add the minerals and vitamins to the product, im going to have my pellets i feed to the pregnant mares tested as they state to adhere to the packet and not add any extras, but i feel this has not really benefited the horses as i fed my mare to the letter and the foal was still born with contracted tendons, supposedly a vit A and D deficiency however i corrected it within 2 days by feeding the mare a dose of cod liver oil in her feed for a few days and according to the manufacturers instructions on the feed packet if fed accordingly the feed would supply everything the pregnant mare needed and her growing foal the feed is called Mitavite Breeder and supposedly manufactured for breeding and young growing horses, but it didnt deliver as far as i am conerned. Any thoughts on that ? I guess ultimately when i get the soil right everything else will fall into place but i still have to feed them and make sure they are getting what they need in the interem of fixing my soil, i feel its a a bit of a conspiracy by the big manufacturers of horse feed that we need their product if our animals are to receive all they need and when information out there is so conflicting or cofusing or down right wrong what does a person do ? A lot of mis informed people out there doing what they think is right but in actuality could be doing the most harm. Im off to read some more of my book, talk again soon and thanks once again for all the help. Amanda

[Barb Lee]

Good heavens, Michael, why didn't I think of that?? I am reminded of an acquaintance in Washington state whose brother is constantly battling a copper crisis with his stock because the land is too high in molybdenum. Amanda, can you get a forage analysis done? Hay and or fresh forage - whatever the animals are eating. If you can't find a good private lab, agricultural universities can usually do this for you. If I am not mistaken, "wet chemistry" provides the most accurate information. You will have a selection of options to test for. Be certain the test includes the following: Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Potassium, Sodium, Iron, Zinc, Copper Manganese, Molybdenum, Sulphur and Selenium. If available, definitely test for Boron.
Of these, you will likely have to pay extra for selenium, sulphur and boron. Selenium is necessary to life, but is toxic above 2 parts per million in the feed. Sulphur and molybdenum, even calcium and iron, affect copper. Sulphur is necessary to the fabrication of quality protein. Boron has no established daily nutritional requirement, but is vital to bone deposition, calcium and magnesium metabolism, hormone balance, and insulin metabolism. Healthy forages contain about 10-30 ppm, which is dependent on species, but you can bet those are also healthy levels for horses. You can also test for nitrates and aluminum. This could give us an immediate snapshot of what your animals are ingesting. Amanda, I would also have the water tested for mineral content and heavy metals. I wonder if this is why your new farm was for sale in the first place...

Barb

[Michael Astera]

Hi Barb and Amanda-

Barb sent me the link to these comments and I read them with great interest. I'm guessing from the severe symptoms the animals are exhibiting that there is more than a deficiency or imbalance of soil minerals at cause. Mineral toxicity seems likely. As a example, in the western US some soils have rather high concentrations of Selenium, and when certain legumes grow in these soils they concentrate the Selenium. Horses that graze those areas get an overdose of Se and act crazy. And thus the common name for those Selenium concentrating legumes, locoweed.

I'm also thinking about some other plants in the clover family that have often been used to increase forage yields on worn-out soils. A soil that will no longer grow red clover will still grow lucerne, and a soil that will no longer grow lucerne will grow lespedeza. Growers trying to achieve higher yields have switched to crops able to survive on starved soils with little knowledge or concern for the nutrient content of the resulting hay or forage.

I'd suggest doing a plant survey of the most common pasture species on this place, and perhaps finding out if you can which were introduced by the previous owners. And then seeing what you can find out about any problems with feeding those species. The little reading I just did about Lotus Major seemed to indicate that it was planted to attempt to get forage to grow on depleted acid soils.

I also seem to recall that some legumes can form toxic amounts of cyanide.

The soil test will tell a lot.

Michael A