SARAH: "Is corn oil good for horses?
I've seen people put corn oil in their horse's feed.
What are the benefits?"
I am so excited this question got voted to the top,
because at my barn when I was a kid, we used to feed corn oil.
And now I'm glad I don't anymore.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And lots of barns still do.
I mean, I'm not surprised that she's seeing people do this.
It was always sort of the go-to oil.
But now we have lots of not only liquid oils
but solid products, and--
SARAH: Which are a lot less messy.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
So let's go first for the reasons you would feed it.
And I'm going to back up and say why would you
feed fat in general, not just the corn oil.
You feed fat for calories, for energy.
So you have a horse in heavy work or that is a hard keeper,
and you just can't maintain his weight and energy with just hay
and whatever concentrates you give him.
So fat is a very calorie-dense nutrient.
There are some conditions like PSSM,
where we found that when you provide fat as a fuel,
they seem to do better movement-wise.
Their muscles appreciate that.
Now, we're getting more specific.
There's specific kinds of fats--
omega-3 fatty acids-- that have been shown
to support really healthy skin.
So horses that have sweet itch seem
to do better when they have omega-3s on board.
That's the problem with corn oil.
Corn oil, as you know now, is really high in omega-6s and low
in 3s.
So the balance is skewed.
The problem with that is that 3s tend
to support pathways and processes in the body that cool
and calm things down, and 6s tend
to be exciting and get the body all ramped up.
And we don't want to do that, because it's not just the skin,
it's everything.
It's joints, it's muscle, it's digestive system.
Those omega-6 pathways are--
I'm just going to go ahead and say it.
They're on the inflammatory side.
They lead to inflammatory mediators and cytokines,
and the omega-3s don't.
So we still use fat, but we've gotten away
from corn as the source of it, because that ratio is about--
I've seen anywhere from one part omega-3 to 60 parts omega-6,
even 80 parts omega-6.
And we look at pasture as the ideal ratio,
and it's four parts omega-3s to one part omega-6.
So even the opposite.
SARAH: Omega-6s is in pasture, and then corn oil is like this.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yes.
SARAH: So of the opposite way.
It's not what you want.
DR LYDIA GRAY: It's very hard to come back
from that skewed of a ratio.
So your choices for, then, a healthy fat
would be flax seed, chia seed-- two
of the most highest levels of omega-3s in plants-- fish oil.
But the other side of it is, what form of fat
is convenient for my horse and tastes good?
Sometimes oils, in the summer, can go rancid
if they're not stabilized properly, and in the winter,
they can get thick and hard to use.
And so a lot of people have gone to solid fats.
And not, like, like a chunk of fat.
I don't mean that.
I mean, like--
SARAH: Like a scoop of Crisco.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, no, I mean, like-- the word is prilled.
And they're tiny, tiny little granules of fat.
They have a little bit of flavoring in them,
and they're quite tasty, and they're
convenient for everybody to use.
And so a lot of people have gone to that.
SARAH: Around here, we affectionately
call them greasy fat pearls, which--
how does that not sound appetizing?
But the horses do love the taste.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
SARAH: A lot of people, I think, wonder
why there aren't more pelleted fat products,
because that is always a challenge, especially
with hard keepers.
A lot of times they're picky eaters,
and that's part of what makes them a hard keeper.
But fat is just hard to pellet.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Well you said it.
Greasy.
Things that are greasy don't stay in formed pellets.
They just, bleh, fall apart.
So we can prill them into the little pearls,
but it's very hard to make a larger pellet-like structure
that holds together.
SARAH: Fortunately, we have several powder-based,
pearl-based fat products that have terrific reviews,
both in terms of palatability.
So you guys can read reviews from horse owners
right on our website.