Ep 236: Building Your Horse's Foundation From the Inside-Out with Dr. Jyme Nichols from Bluebonnet
On this week's episode, I'm joined by Dr. Jyme Nichols with Bluebonnet to discuss the considerations that go into crafting your horse's nutrition program and setting your horses up for success from the inside-out.
Episode Resources
Follow Dr. Jyme on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drjyme/
Feed Room Chemist: An Equine Nutrition Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2u1mXQstzvHv6uOmDOKz4r
Free Nutrition Consults with Bluebonnet: https://bluebonnetfeeds.com/nutrition-consult/
Explore the products mentioned in the episode:
Intensify® Omega Force®: https://bluebonnetfeeds.com/intensify-omega-force/
ADR Paste: https://strideanimalhealth.com/adr-paste/
ADR Powder: https://strideanimalhealth.com/adr-powder/
Episode Transcript
Phil: Dr. Jyme Nichols is the Director of Nutrition for Bluebonnet Feeds and Stride Animal Health. She is also the star of the Feed Room Chemist podcast, which I have become a big fan of. We'll talk a little bit more about that later on in the podcast, but to begin with, Dr. Jyme, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you're at in your position with Bluebonnet.
Dr. Jyme: Thanks, Phil. I'm excited to be here, and this is going to be a fun episode. I'm really excited that Bluebonnet and myself and our whole team that we've been able to work with you and collaborate.
I'm a ranch girl at heart. I grew up on a cow calf operation in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Horses have been part of my life for, I mean since the moment I was born, you know, I was, I was on a horse probably as soon as my parents could get me lifted up onto one, and they just have been in my blood. I've always known that horses were going to be part of my career and what I did with my life, it just took me a little while to figure out that exact path.
I spent plenty of time chasing rodeo and went through college on rodeo scholarships, and I was really fortunate to be able to do that. But it got to the point, you know when you get through undergrad and they won't let you rodeo anymore and it's like what are you going to do when you grow up? And I had to figure out: what's my career going to be?
I was really fortunate to have a good major professor in the equine department. I was at Montana State University at the time and he said, “Hey Jyme, I've got this project that I want to do, and I would really like you to consider sticking around and doing a master's program.” And it didn't take a lot of convincing because my rodeo coach also asked me to stick around and help coach on the rodeo team. So I'm like, all right, I’ll drag this rodeo thing out just a little bit more! I got my Master's in equine nutrition at Montana State, and that was really where I found this love and this passion for nutrition. And it was there that I knew that's where I was going to go with my life and my career.
Post-grad, I eventually got into industry and finally convinced Bluebonnet to hire me as an outside equine specialist. I got to spend a lot of time going to a lot of operations in Oklahoma and North Texas and got to experience a lot of different people, a lot of different types of horses. And, it was through that experience that I realized I wanted to go even deeper than that – I really thought that formulation was where I really wanted to be. So, I went back and got my PhD at Oklahoma State and when I finished with that, Bluebonnet made me the official head of nutrition at Bluebonnet Feeds. I've been with the company for 13 years now. It's been a fun ride, and it's been a really cool company to grow with.
Phil: One of the things that I'll kind of interject here is, you talked about your background in the western industry growing up on cattle ranch and having a love of horses… you know, and this is just my personal opinion, but this is what I've learned over the years in my business: Everybody that I have that's worked for me, that's had a background in the western industry like yourself, I just value that so much. When you and Brock Arnold were at my place initially just after the first of the year, you know what I need, and to me, that is so important.
And, I'm not saying people that go through school and that are in that field that didn't own horses or grow up with horses, can't learn all the formulations and understand what's best for a horse… but, it's just like somebody trying to sell me a bit. If you make bits and you don't ride horses, you know, to me there's a little bit of a disconnect there. I hope I don't offend anybody by saying that, but just to me it puts so much more emphasis on what you're saying.
Like when I'm listening to your podcast, I'm like–okay, I know that makes sense and that's right because I know you've lived it, just like I have.I just wanted to add that in because I just want all our listeners to understand how valuable that is. I just think it's so important that you have that experience in the industry.
Dr. Jyme: Oh, 100%, I mean there is just no replacement for that. That hands-on experience and living it, you know, there's only so much that you can learn from the books or from teachers and sitting in classes. It really is when you can marry that book education with the real world and the real life experience and what it looks like because the horses don't read the books. There are times where I can see and sense and feel and just know that we need to change something based on what I'm seeing with the horse or feeling with the horse. When the book says we should be doing one thing, I just know that that's not what's right in that situation. And I think you have to be in the industry and I think you have to know horses in order to make those little calls and it's those little fine tunes that really can take a program to that next level.
Phil: And you know, along with that, when you are in the industry like yourself and you've been in it your whole life, we all understand that every horse is an individual. There's some blanket type programs that can work pretty good for multiple animals. But then at the same time, there are other things that need to be addressed with an individual to be efficient with your program. And you know, that's something that I think there needs to be more awareness of.
I tell you, there was your podcast you put out recently on How to Choose a Feed. I guarantee anybody listening that feeds a horse, you need to go to the Feed Room Chemist podcast and listen to those eight steps to choosing a feed. You know, we go in to choose a feed and let's face it–the labels can be overwhelming. When you're looking at tags, it’s important to know what they actually mean. I have a variety of horses from ages 2 to 17 on my place, and it's so important to be able to understand what they actually need as an individual.
Dr. Jyme: Yeah, absolutely, and I think that one thing that people don't understand about nutrition is that there's really two types of nutrition. There's what I consider foundational nutrition, which is what most feed companies are, right? It's vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, you know, the nutritional things.
But then there's this whole other division of quote, nutrition that I call functional nutrition. And these are the things that aren't necessarily meeting dietary needs, but they're meeting biological needs within the body. So in that functional category would be your things like, you know, joint supplements or plasma supplements or things for immune system support or antioxidant status. If we ramp them up to these higher levels and then apply them correctly, we can actually get biological responses from the body. We can get the body to make changes.
Another way to talk about it is as biohacking–we're basically biohacking the body to improve its performance and we're just using the mouth and the digestive system as that mode of delivery. That's one thing that really excites me is getting into this whole world of functional nutrition. Because just like you said, not every horse can blossom and be their absolute best on the exact same program that every other horse on the ranch is on. Some of them you have to fine tune and you have to plug in a little bit of functional nutrition on top of their foundational nutrition to really maximize that genetic potential.
Phil: Yeah, I think it's so important and too, here's the thing – we talk about it all the time now being efficient, you know, understanding your costs. There are times with our nutrition we can be spending more and getting less.
Dr. Jyme: Oh, absolutely. One of the things that I think people overlook with feeding horses is that they don't read the tag. They don't read the feeding directions, so a lot of horses are getting either underfed or overfed based on what the nutritionist formulated that feed for. You might take an average feed out there and people go and they buy feed by the price of the bag. Right? Because that's how we think: we're like, oh, we're going to spend, $25 for a bag of feed. And that feels reasonable. But, if you go and you look at how much of that feed you need to feed in order to meet all of the vitamins and minerals that were formulated into it, you might have to feed 8-12 pounds a day of it, depending on the type of horse you have. Well, you can also go over and look at a different feed that maybe sells for $38 a bag. And a lot of people get sticker shock and they say, “Oh my gosh, I can't do that.” Well, if you look at that feeding ration, you might only have to feed 4 lbs a day to that same horse. So you're feeding half the amount of feed, which means you're actually saving money because that feed, that bag of feed, wasn't twice the cost. I think people get hung up sometimes on looking just at the price of the bag and they don't consider what your feeding rates are.
And in all honesty, as horse people, we feed by scoops, right? It's like, oh, scoop in the morning, scoop at night. And nobody knows how much their scoop weighs or how big it is. When we tell someone to come feed for us because we're going to be gone, it's like, oh, feed a scoop, you know, and some people scoop weighs 2 lbs. Some people’s scoop weighs 4 lbs. Some people’s scoop weighs 6 lbs. I think the best thing people can do, honestly, is get a kitchen scale and figure out how much feed you're feeding your horse and how much your scoop will hold of whatever feed you're feeding. And then make sure that is in line with the recommendations that are on that particular tag.
Phil: Yeah, well, I'll be honest with you, after you and Brock were at my place and we spent that afternoon, that's what I did. I've got a scale to weigh UPS packages. And so I got my scoop, filled it full, put it in a bucket, went and weighed it and then started adjusting per horse a little bit differently. I mean similar but a little bit differently.
You know, just like Slider, the horse that we looked at that had EPM three times–his top line is basically gone. I've been feeding him two times a day like you suggested and making sure I'm feeding him the correct amount. I feed the Omega Force with the Intensify formula, which I love, and that's a dense feed. Per scoop, that’s a heavy feed. That’s one thing we have to remember with the scoop: a scoop of this and a scoop for that can be a pound or two different easily.
Dr. Jyme: Oh, for sure. I think one way to kind of really get people's heads wrapped around that is you can go get a scoop of feathers or you can go get a scoop of rocks. Those don't weigh the same. But, they’re still a scoop. But yeah, the Omega Force, that is my personal favorite feed too. And it is, it is very dense. A scoop of Omega Force weighs a heck of a lot more than a scoop of oats or a lot of other feeds that are out there. So again, just a really good reason why people need to go weigh it.
Phil: Yeah, and that's one of the things that I think we're really at a point now where we really have to pay attention to our numbers. I've always looked at everything as cost per day. I’ve never charged by the month with my training because I've always separated my training and my feeding care because it makes sense. The cost per day is what matters. And, that's what I like about what Bluebonnet does. You provide so much information and you back it up with information that helps a person understand, “why am I feeding this and why am I feeding it at this rate?”
Dr. Jyme: Exactly, and that’s exactly why I was so interested in Bluebonnet because of the fact that it was a company that was open minded about the potential. In all honesty, this concept of an equine nutritionist is really fairly young in the nutrition world. Universities crank out dairy nutritionists and beef nutritionists and poultry nutritionists, but equine nutrition is not as common just because it's not a production livestock discipline.
Horses are treated honestly more like pets or companion animals, and so there are very few companies out there whose nutritionists are not focused on one of those production species. Bluebonnet was interesting to me because they kind of thought beyond that they weren't trying to feed the poultry houses. They weren't trying to be dairy nutritionists. They weren't trying to do all this production livestock stuff, and they really were like “let's rethink this.”
Bluebonnet's actually an older company – I think it was founded in the early 80s. And you know, of course it was 2010 or 2011 when I joined. At that time, they were really trying to reinvent themselves as an equine company. That's what made me so excited about them and just the fact that they weren't hung up on, “oh, well, that's not how cattle rations are formulated” or “oh, you have to use these certain ingredients or you have to buy the cheapest commodities in the lowest grade so you can get your price point as low as you can.” None of that was ever the conversation.
The conversation was always around what's in the best interest of the horse? How can we maximize their genetic potential? What technologies can we use from the nutrition world to make this horse be its absolute best as an equine athlete? Those were the kind of conversations that got me excited. That was really what made me want to be a part of the Bluebonnet team and that same passion and desire has carried through this entire time. Our conversations are so fun when we get together in a room and talk about the possibilities in the future and what we can do with nutrition for these animals, for these horses.
Phil: You know, that kind of segways into one of the topics we talk about all the time at our clinics is, “how do we make our best horse better?” And, not just through horsemanship. Yes, horsemanship's obviously a big part of it, but if you're always trying to make your best horse better, you know, it's just like ourselves. If you want to be healthier, improve your nutrition. If you want to be in better shape, improve your nutrition. If you want to improve your longevity, improve your nutrition. It's simple.
Dr. Jyme: That's the thing like when you sit at the table with Bluebonnet, the conversation is just different because it's exactly that. It's “how do we get better” or “how do we make our best feed even better” versus, you sit at the table with other companies and the conversation is “how do we make it cheaper?” I would way rather be at the other table that's over here saying, “we've got something really good, but let's figure out how to make it even better.” That's exactly in line with what you're talking about with how you approach your clinics.
Phil: Yeah, you know, we live in a world now or pretty good isn't good enough. Pretty good is just kind of a step above average. I always tell our trainers at our clinics to just eliminate ‘pretty good’ from your vocabulary. Because every time somebody tells me, “yeah, he's stopping pretty good,” that's telling me he's not stopping very good.
Dr. Jyme: That's a good point. I've had people say, “man, my horses look pretty good.” And, I'm like okay–I agree. They do look pretty good. And then, they'll try our feed and come back 30 days later and they'll say, “oh my gosh, my horses look amazing now!” And it's like, yes–there's a difference between amazing and pretty good.
Phil: I can back you up on that because my horses have been on Bluebonnet since the first of the year. My horses are fit. I love the way they feel. I love the way they look. It's different. If you're going to max out the potential of that horse from a horsemanship standpoint, from a performance standpoint, ‘pretty good’ is just enough to keep you from placing or just keep getting you beat. There are a lot of really good horses out there. And you know, anything we can do nutritionally with the help of your resources and the right feed to keep our horses healthier. There's no telling how much money that saves us and makes us in a year.
Dr. Jyme. 100%. I mean, just back to this whole concept of ‘let food be that medicine.’ The body is just amazing at the way that it works, the way that it repairs itself, the way that it takes care of itself. But, you have to feed it properly in order to get it to operate like that. And I think a lot of times people will cut corners. Maybe they cut corners on a broodmare, and then that baby in utero doesn't get the right vitamins and minerals and doesn't have a complete trace mineral program. And then, that baby is born with a little bit of poor bone density. You might not find out about it until they're five years old and in their futurity year. It’s all things that could have stemmed back to the corners that were cut because someone didn't want to feed a recip mare or didn't think it was worth feeding that broodmare right. You know, and the same thing is true with our performance horses.
If you look at the numbers, it's between 60 to 90% of horses that deal with gastric ulcers, and those are only those that we can scope and actually see. There's more that goes on in the digestive tract that we can't yet truly diagnose things like leaky gut or hind gut dysbiosis. We know those things are happening in horses because they happen in other species that we can harvest and see. Horses are not biologically that different at the cellular level.
But, if you can get the horse's nutrition program right, and then of course take all the right steps in management, you can prevent ulcers, anxiety, and all of those other things that we end up at the vet for laying down $1,000 here and $2,000 there. We waste a lot of money because we aren't getting things right at the root of their nutrition program. I am a firm believer that a solid nutrition program is where you should invest your money because it's going to pay dividends in the long run.
Phil: Yeah, I could not agree more. I've been in the training business for over 4 decades, and really and truly, I've tried about every program you can try. And, sometimes out of necessity because that's really all that was available. Every year's a little different, especially with forage. Forage is a challenge. Sometimes it's really easy to get your hands on it, and sometimes it's really, really challenging. But from the feed standpoint, the supplement standpoint, the one thing I love about it is we can have consistency. And to me, consistency's everything.
Like you were saying, a trip to the vet, a colic surgery, stomach trouble… horses with stomach trouble can still go do the job and get some results. But boy, it's hard on them. It's really, really hard on them. In my world, if a horse is on my place, there are times that it is going to be stressful. You can't train a horse without stimulating some stressful situations at times.
Dr. Jyme: Absolutely. Just load them on a horse trailer–that in and of itself is actually, in university research, one of the protocols for inducing stress in a horse. If you want to create a model to induce stress, they literally load them on a trailer and drive them around. Horses don't like getting in those little tin boxes and bumping down the road. That is a stressful event. Some horses obviously tolerate it much better and are more stoic about it, but it still is a level of stress that they have to deal with.
Phil: Yeah, well, and then wherever you get to, you unload them. And we wonder why they're being reactive, why they're insecure, why they're full of anxiety… it's hard on a horse. Sometimes, we don't get the opportunity to provide the exposure to things that we'd like to, especially during the training process. Having them in a nutritionally sound program, to me, is so important to offset some of that so they can handle that anxiety.
Dr. Jyme: The other thing too, even when you get into your performance horses that are going down the road, being in the trailer and and hauling down the road is work in and of itself for that horse, right. So, I mean, you and I are sitting in the pickup and we're kicked back and relaxed. Well, those horses are back there with every muscle tense because they don't know that a stop is coming up or that someone's about to cut you off. They have to spend that entire time back there being prepared to be defensive so they don't get their nose slammed in the front of the trailer. When we unload those horses off the trailer, they have just spent those last few hours on the road working their muscles. With these horses, you've got to have good nutrition in them in order for them to recover and to be able to do that over and over and over again and not be as susceptible to injury or to be able to still give that maximum effort.
Phil: Yeah, I mean great point. Let’s let that lead into one of the questions that I've really wanted to ask you today: Talk about some of the challenges nutritionally for a horse when we're transitioning from winter to spring to summer. If you would please, give our listeners a few tips on that.
Dr. Jyme: I would say that hydration is one of the most important things that you can do and I think that is probably the biggest miss right there is that a lot of times people will just go add extra salt, and while that's a good step, it doesn’t always solve the problem. The problem is that salt doesn't necessarily increase the amount of water that the horse’s body absorbs. It might increase the amount of water that your horse drinks, but it isn’t really solving the full problem.
It's just making sure that the metabolic pH of the horse's body is in an appropriate range where their cells can actually absorb that water and become hydrated. Once that water's in there, we want it to actually go to good use, not just get passed out the back end.
I like to use a product called Turbo Mag, and I will just start them on it when it starts getting a little bit warmer. I'll add a 1/2 a little scoop of Turbo Mag, and then when horses really start sweating and it gets really hot, I'll add a little extra salt in addition to that. That just gets their electrolytes back in balance and keeps that metabolic pH in a good range where those horses stay hydrated, which will also help prevent your impaction colics and things like that.
Water's the most important nutrient. If a horse is not taking in an appropriate amount of water, they're probably not going to be taking in good amounts of forage because if they're thirsty or dehydrated, they're not going to want to take in more dry matter. If they're not drinking, then they're not eating enough hay. And if they're not eating enough hay, they're not getting enough calories. And then people think that, “oh, the feed I'm feeding is not doing its job.” Well, it's not necessarily that. You have to back up a couple steps and get to the root of the problem.
But another thing I think at this time of year that's really important to understand is whether your horses can tolerate being out on pasture. Some people don't have the luxury of having pasture.
They have their horses on hay all the time. But there are other people who do have the opportunity to kick their horses out on some green grass. And it's important to understand the horses that can be out on green grass and the horses that cannot. If someone has minis or ponies or any of these little guys running around, kicking them out on green grass is about the surest way to create laminitis or founder in those babies. They just aren't predisposed genetically to not tolerate the sugars in the green grass.
On that note, that's something that people don't realize is that green grass actually packs a pretty decent amount of sugar. If you have a horse that you know has metabolic problems or is prone to laminitis or has Cushings or insulin resistance or any of these kind of metabolic conditions, those are the kind of horses that I'll make sure people try to keep off of green grass. It’s just all about understanding what type of horses you're dealing with, and I think that is really important in some of these seasonal transitions.
Phil: Yeah, and this time of year, it’s just now starting to green up at my place, and I'm making sure that those horses that are out on grass traps are also supplementing with their normal feeding routine. Kicking them out on pasture 24/7 is kind of like getting a new flavor of ice cream… if that's all you've got to eat, you're going to eat too much ice cream. I try to limit their consumption that way by making sure they're not empty when they get out there.
Dr. Jyme: The way I think of that scenario is that grass is kind of your supplement. You're supplementing your base diet with some green grass, and that is so good in so many different ways. It's a great way to provide some vitamins to your horse–some naturally occurring vitamins and omega threes. And it's just good for that horse's mind and body, too. They can stretch that ligament that runs down their neck and stretch their back out. Jaw alignment is good when they can eat off the ground like that. There's just so much from a behavioral and a mental standpoint that allowing a horse to be able to go out and spend a little time grazing each day is just so beneficial.
Phil: Yeah, I just think anytime we can do things naturally, you know, the way it was originally designed for them, it's good for them to experience that. Going back to the supplements, talking about keeping horses hydrated – how do you supplement your salt? Is it loose or is it block? And secondly, what is your opinion on electrolytes?
Dr. Jyme: So, the first thing to understand in electrolytes is they should be part of the base diet everyday, they should be formulated into your feet. Electrolytes are one of those certain minerals like potassium, sodium, or chloride, that are nutritionally needed on a daily basis. A good feed will have those electrolytes built into it in the normal base levels.
Now, when the weather gets really hot or horses are working really hard and they are sweating a lot more, that's when we need to add additional electrolytes on top of those that are already built into the feed. I like to do it in terms of salt. Salt is also something that horses need on a daily basis.
At Bluebonnet, we do not formulate the full daily rate of salt into the feed for two reasons: First, salt can be a limiter, and we wouldn't want something like salt to limit them consuming the amount of feed they would need to get their proper nutrition. And then secondly, salt is just really cheap and so there's no reason that we would take up that much space in a formula and eliminate technologies that could be impactful for the body when someone can go and just get salt from their feed store for really cheap and add it on top.
I'm a fan of doing loose salt on top of the feed itself, that way, I know that horse is getting that every day. I usually do one to two tablespoons a day. I'll do one in the morning, one at night, and you can increase that a bit more if you need to. If the weather is really hot or horses are really sweating, don't be afraid to increase that.
When it comes to salt blocks, horses are not as good at consuming blocks or tubs as cattle are. And that's just because the tongue of a horse is smooth. A horse's tongue is a lot like a human's tongue. It's fairly smooth, whereas I don't know how many of you have felt a cow's tongue, but they're really rough. Cattle are really good at licking blocks, licking tubs, and getting a decent amount of stuff that way. With horses, on the other hand, their tongue goes raw before they can get enough consumed to meet their daily needs. I'm generally not a big proponent for blocks or tubs of any kind, just because there's no way to know that that horse is consuming as much as they need to, and most horses won't.
The other thing that can happen is, with molasses tubs, horses will chase that sugar and their tongues get sore, but they want more of it, so they'll take their teeth and they'll scrape their top teeth to peel some of that layer off. Then you end up getting all of these malalignments in the horse's jaw because their teeth are getting worn because they're using their incisors to scrape the molasses and minerals off the top of the tub. I've seen some really bad bad things happen from the use of tubs and blocks, so I generally lean on loose on top of the feed. That way I can be sure that none of that craziness is happening.
Phil: Well, I think we all got programmed to the blocks because of cattle, and I know when you put them out with horses, sometimes a block will last forever. Well…anything that lasts forever means they aren't eating it. Just because it's out there, doesn't mean they're getting it.
Going back to electrolytes, are there things to look for or to not look for when you're looking at electrolytes or are all electrolytes generally the same?
Dr. Jyme: A lot of it depends on how you want to feed them. There are electrolytes that you put in the water. I’m generally not a fan of that because I like to have clean fresh water in front of them all the time.I think that if you flavor it or put electrolytes in it, the risk of them not drinking it is higher. For that reason, I like to use powdered electrolytes that you can just put on the feed.
There are also paste electrolytes – the only drawback to those is that a lot of times the carrier ingredients for the paste contains a lot of sugars and glucose. If we just are pumping tons of sugar into the body, that's not super healthy. I like my electrolytes to be kind of as clean as possible, and that's why I like that Turbo Mag product. It's a loose powder, and it's basically all active ingredients. You can do that, and then add a little salt with it, you’ve got a nice little electrolyte package right there.
Phil: I think clean water is critical, but adding the salt in the electrolytes, #1, it's cheap, it's easy. I look at a lot of that stuff, like, what do you have to lose? I mean, you got everything to gain and nothing to lose. Because when a horse gets dehydrated, you're in trouble. You're talking about big expenses. In our country, you see a lot of compaction issues and colic issues. It's a really, really big deal. You can be paying into the thousands very quickly if a horse gets dehydrated.
Switching gears a little bit, let's talk about the feed that I feed and the feed that you that you like, the Intensify® Omega Force®, and talk a little bit about the Intensify Nutrition package so people can really understand the benefits of them.
Dr. Jyme: First of all, it’s my favorite feed. Intensify® Omega Force® is a pelleted feed that was really designed to be low in starch and sugar. We know that feeding horses excess levels of sugar can cause excitability in their mind, and it can also contribute to things like tying up and some of these medical conditions. There are a lot of reasons to be mindful of what your sugar content is in your horse's diet. So, that was one thing that we wanted to really put at the forefront of this formulation. If you're going to be low in starch and sugar, you have to figure out where to get your calories. In this feed, we are pulling calories in from fat sources, so this is a very high fat feed. Fat is very calorie dense, but it does not contribute to the excitable brain. It helps provide a more stable and sustained source of energy. You don't have all of these big peaks and valleys of glucose and insulin going shooting up and down like you do with oats or a sweet feed or something like that.
The other thing we were talking about is that it's very dense–it's very nutritionally dense which means it weighs more per you know scoop, and it is also very dense in nutrition, so your feeding rates are lower. When you look at the cost of feeding Omega Force, you really need to look at the cost per day because you know if you compare that to an average feed. Let's say an average feed has an 8 LB feeding rate – for that same horse, Omega Force feeding rate is going to be 4 lbs. You are literally feeding half the amount of feed as what you do in other products. The reason we're able to do that is because we've ratcheted up things like the trace minerals, vitamins, amino acids, fatty acids, and all of these things that that the horse needs in order to maximize their nutrition program.
We're also very selective about the sources of those ingredients that we use. Take trace minerals for example – you can go get copper out of the ground. You can mine inorganic copper, and you can put that into a feed. And, you can get a label to test and say there's 50 parts per million copper in the feed, but it's inorganic copper, which means that the body doesn't absorb it as well.
Rather than going that route, we took a little different route because we're always looking for that concept of, “how do we make the really good even better? And, we use what is called chelated minerals or organic minerals. This is where that copper or zinc or manganese or cobalt, whatever the trace mineral, has been bound to an amino acid the body has a requirement for. Let's take lysine for example. The body has a requirement for the amino acid lysine, meaning it actively pulls it out of the diet and into the body. If you bind copper to lysine, that copper gets a free ride into the body. So, that makes it more bioavailable, meaning the body can absorb more of it, which means that then it can utilize more of it and put it in the places where it matters.
We made a really intentional effort to put the most bioavailable ingredients into Omega Force that we possibly could so that we can maximize how much of the nutrition is being absorbed by the horse and then utilized by the horse. And then, we added stomach buffers to it. These buffers are effective all the way through the digestive tract, not just the stomach.
We can keep that pH at a more tolerable level all the way through the hind gut by incorporating probiotics. In terms of of supporting that hind gut microbiome, which is literally the second brain of the horse, we provide mega dose levels of probiotics, prebiotics and post biotics so that we can make a really impactful change in a horse.
All of that is built into Intensify® Omega Force® We have got chromium in there. Chromium helps with muscle support and recovery. It's also helpful for the immune response. For orses that are traveling and being exposed all over, chromium just helps them recover and do better on performance day.
Intensify® Omega Force® is also fortified with omega threes. It actually contains fish oil, which is the most potent or most bioavailable form of the two specific Omega threes that the body really needs, which is EPA and DHA.
And then the last piece, and this is the part that I'm most excited about, is the newest addition to the Omega Force product, which is the lifeline supplement – an oral plasma. What it does is it brings all of these peptides and these immune supporting mechanisms to help improve that horse's immune system to help them recover quicker. It actually helps with the lining of the stomach, which can help prevent ulcer formation.
All of this is built into the feed. When we were putting Intensify® Omega Force® together, we thought, “what are all of the things that people want to supplement with their horse?” What are all these biologically active functional nutrition components that we can put in this feed to maximize the body of a horse? When you go on Omega Force, you're not going to have any extra supplements that you're feeding it. It would be a very rare and specific occasion that we would put an additional supplement on top of Omega Force.
So, when you talk about cost per day and really you know putting pen to paper and getting down to where can I be the most maximized in terms of providing the very best nutrition for the very lowest dollar, Omega force is head and shoulders above anything else out there.
Phil: I've got a three-year-old filly that I actually sold to one of my customers, but we put her on it first of January. And of course, she's in a growing stage. But I mean, she looks like $1,000,000 bucks. If you were going to supplement a probiotic, prebiotic and postbiotic, what would that be?
Dr. Jyme: I would go with one called ADR and it's available as either a paste or a powder. It's part of the the Animal Health division of Bluebonnet. ADR is the product that is the mega dose pre pro and post biotic. Since it's available as a paste and a powder, a lot of times I'll keep those paste tubes in the trailer. And if I've got a horse that I know gets a little bit of a loose stool when they travel, or gets a little bit anxious, I will do a tube a day of ADR while we're on the road. And that usually works wonders for helping them keep their appetite and and help keep them from getting such loose stool. There are basically maintenance dose levels of it built into the feed, but when you've got those extreme situations where you're ratcheting up that stress just a little bit, that's where you then pull in that extra support and add it on top.
Phil: I know that Bluebonnet offers some resources for our listeners. Can you tell us what those are?
Dr. Jyme: If you will go to bluebonnetfeeds.com, there's a tab where you can submit for a free nutrition consult and basically just a little quick questionnaire that you'll fill out to give us some information about your horses and your current program. And then, that form will get directed to a nutrition consultant who lives within your specific area and they can do virtual consults, or if they're within a reasonable distance and you want them to come actually physically look at your horse and your program, they can do that too.
We really want to understand what your program is, what your goals are with your horse and basically help fit you into the solutions that make the most sense for your horse and for your situation. There's 8 or 10 consultants that are on the Bluebonnet team, and they are all very sharp individuals. They are very good at what they do. They're very tenured. They understand the products very well, and if there's ever a situation or a case that gets in over their heads, I hop in and I get involved and work the case as well. We take a lot of pride in really taking a consultative approach.We want to try to really help you guys solve problems that you're dealing with and maximize your programs and improve your horses to the best.
Go to bluebonnetfeeds.com, and you can find all the information there about different feeds if you just kind of want to peruse that. There's a dealer locator there if you want to try to find your closest Bluebonnet dealer. If you live in an area that maybe doesn't have a Bluebonnet dealer, the feed is available through chewy.com and you can have it shipped straight to your doorstep.
