Equine Nutrition
Feed During the Raising of Animals
Dr . Eduardo M . Beccar Varela
In this edition of the Argentine Polo Pony Breeder ’ s Association Year Book , Bill Buchanan was given the opportunity to speak with Dr . Eduardo Beccar Varela for the purpose of analyzing different aspects on how to feed horses from the moment they are born until they are fully developed .
In your profession how did the issue of Equine nutrition come your way ? -It crossed my path because throughout my profession I specialized in orthopedic surgery and my main field of action was at stud farms . I have been a veterinary surgeon for 40 years . From Capitán Sarmiento I visited most of the stud farms ( of all breeds ) when I began my practice as a “ rural ” orthopedic radiologist . Already by 1978 I was taking X-rays of foals and diagnosing conformation problems in almost every stud farm in the country . After a few years I was also practicing surgery both in young animals so as to alter deviations , and also in those that were reaching their time as sporting animals and had injuries that could have found their origin during their development period . As I collected data on a great many cases and associated them naturally with their growth processes , I automatically felt the need to discover more about the relationship between these pathologies and the way the animals were fed in pastures on the different farms . In 1989 I decided to find theoretical answers to describe what I was seeing in practice . There was a contradiction that I needed to find the answer to . The stud farms that most wanted to improve the development of their litters were those that had the greater amount of problems ( OCD ; acquired postural deviations ; epiphysitis etc .) It was necessary to learn to do things right . The answer was not to be found in recipes from the American stud farms , because in traditional breeding areas they do not have the forage available to us and which is , in many cases , the cause of these imbalances . I went to study at Cornell University under Professor H . Hintz , and went on to get work teams together to work with some stud farms , managing to invite nutritionists to come and have a look at our reality ( very different from other countries ) and learn to use new tools in order to reach conclusions and propose solutions . It is a fascinating subject , as are all those that we never completely discover , and the workplace is almost always very gratifying : farms and horses .
-What do Polo pony breeders consult you about most frequently ? -They consult me on several issues , but definitely the most frequent boils down to : “ We have adequate genetics ; we are providing them with food and we can ’ t manage to obtain the development achieved by some at the age of between 18 and 24 months .” Most consultations begin with this .
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