January 20, 2002

A Fine Tuned Engine

When my grandparents were ready to go to church on Sunday morning, they would hook up the horse to the buggy. They would then climb into the buggy behind the horse and to town they would go. Today when my son is ready to go to Church to teach Sunday school, he also climbs in behind the wheel and to town he goes. My grandparents had a one horse power buggy and my son has some more horse power.

There is a lot of similarity between these two means of transportation. When we look under the hood of the car, we see an engine that needs energy to run. The same is true if we could look under the skin of that horse, they also need energy to run. With the help of science, both have become very fine tuned machines. If we look under the hood of a Model T Ford and a car today, we will see significant scientific improvements. What we have learned about horse diets including protein, vitamins, minerals, etc. has improved significantly.

How have we take advantage of these scientific accomplishments? If we use the correct gas, oil and lubricants together with many computerized components we will get to our destination with good fuel efficiency. Some cars are designed for competition and they are adjusted much more accurately than the car we use every day. We also want our every day car to operate with modern efficiency.

The NCR requirement will give us the minimum requirement for a horse to be maintained and we adjust those ingredients depending the amount of performance we expect from the horse. Horses that are used in competition are fed a much more specific diet than the everyday horse that is ridden occasionally. But we all want our horses to live and enjoy a healthy life.

So what really happens? If you drive up to the gas pump and fill the tank on your car, does it make any difference if you fill it with gas or diesel? Can you imagine filling up one day with gas and a week later with diesel? How well will you cars engine perform? How long will your cars engine live? So why do we expect our horses engine to be fed grass hay one week and alfalfa the next week?

The digestive bacteria in the horses GI tract is just as sensitive to change as your car's engine computer components. If you put low octane gas in your cars tank, will you see a difference in performance compared to high octane gas? Why would you not expect to see a difference in your horses health if you use low quality grass hay instead of a good quality grass/alfalfa mix? Remember some of the grass hay fed to horses has the same nutrients as newspaper (fiber). Some time try putting water in you gas tank.

To make the car run even better, people have been known to put additives in the gas. These additives will allow the engine to make better use of the gas or diesel. The same is true of ingredients like vitamins, minerals, etc. that are fed to the horse as it digests the fiber portion of their diet. With proper additives, the fuel sources are much better utilized and the mileage will improve. These additives need to be in every gallon of fuel if we can expect to get the best results. When the engine on the car is running, every minute the fuel and the additives are being used by the carburetor and pistons. Is every mouthful of your horses diet the same?

Why do people think that the horses GI system is any different? If these additives are important for digestion, isn't the horse digesting all day? Does the hay the horse eats in the morning wait in the stomach until evening when the grain mix is fed with the necessary additives? Wouldn't it make sense to feed a Total Mixed Ration (TMR) so that every mouthful is the same just as we have in the fuel tanks of our cars? If you were a digestive bacteria in your horse, what would you tell the horse if you saw a slug of sweet feed coming down the esophagus after you just got use to digesting grass? Remember there is an army of bacteria that digests grass hay and there is a different army that digests alfalfa. Which army is on duty?

It is my opinion that using the best fuel with the best additives will result in a healthy engine giving the best mileage and performance. You should expect to go further on less fuel. The same is true with your horse. A properly science balanced TMR will give you better performance with less feed and you should expect a healthier horse that will go further and live longer. If you don't believe me ask your car mechanic.