Many of these things cannot be controlled by means of simple tests, and therefore trustworthiness is essential. No more is needed. If they are given what they need every day that is more than sufficient.”
-It is quite complicated to keep things right every day. Our farms vary a lot, taking into account the years and seasons. What advice would you give small breeders( the case of most), for them to be able to solve this situation in a practical way?-I wish to be clear in that being‘ small’— unless their aims are different— is not a problem; in fact it is less complicated in every way. It is important to underline that our main problem is how to take the utmost advantage from our climate, which provides us with grass throughout the year, and to find the way in which our foals may receive a daily menu that is as stable as possible despite the changes of season. There is a method which is fairly technical, but which I think adapts very well to our system of pasture breeding: a) Determine the daily need( energy, protein, minerals and vitamins) for every particular situation that we wish to manage( gestation; lactation; weaning; post-weaning). b) Seek out the feed that contains what we need. c) Calculate the amount of that feed that will cover 50 % of what we need in energy and proteins and 100 % of minerals and vitamins. It is to be hoped that the pasture will have what is needed to cover the remaining 50 %. In this way it will be necessary to see that in seasons when forage is weak, that we at least have enough pastureland to cover that 50 %. It is possible, and it guarantees a linear growth curve throughout the months, which is the most important factor in avoiding acquired conformational defects. Another advantage regarding this method is the amount it saves in forage consumption, which helps improve the duration of pastures as regards quality and quantity.
-What are the benefits of a suggestion as the one you’ ve just mentioned?-I shall point out a mistake that is quite frequent when thinking of a daily feed schedule: in order to favor rations management, one unconsciously limits the foals’ access to good pastures a lot. It may be because one doesn’ t want to go too far from the homestead where the pens and rations are, and grazing gets restricted to fields close by which are generally over-pastured. Another thing that happens is that the hours in which animals are closed in become longer and pasturing time shorter. No ration will be able to replace the fiber. As from a digestive system that is functional thanks to forage, we are then able to provide a good ration for the intakes needed.
What are the benefits of a proposal such as I’ ve just described? To name a few: As I said before, we’ ll have saved a lot on pasture consumption. This is not a minor issue, taking into account the fact that the most difficult part of supplementing in equal parts is the forage, aside from which, it is the most expensive input and difficult to transport. Daily contact with all the population makes observation of conformation details, maintenance and health easier. Early detection of any deviation of any of these aspects will allow us to correct or see to and individual and“ save” it in time from having to exit a batch of horses to be used for sport. The possibility of adjusting the parcel of forage access + supplement to the requirements at the different development stages, gives us the tools with which to achieve an even and linear growth curve over time. Of all the factors that have an impact on achieving foals that are suitable and fit, I am convinced that the failure to achieve linear growth is the only one that can drastically change the destination of a foal. When foals are under fed from the time they are weaned until they are 2 years old, if we were to draw the growth curve we would observe that it is linear, but so low that it would limit its final development and exclude it from the market of young horses. When the aim is better development, and horses are given access to better pastures and seasonal grasses without development control through adequate adjustments, the foals will“ copy” the same lows and highs of the forage, causing a lowering
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