Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Equine Nutrition 101 - win a copy of ZINPRO's Best of Show DVD

When I got Lucy, one of the biggest learning curves that I had to overcome was horsey nutrition. I remember looking at her after the trainer I was working with left abruptly. I felt like I was all alone with this skinny horse and I had NO clue what to feed her. Obviously she needed to gain weight, and a LOT of it, but I was afraid to feed her the wrong thing and make her either sick or crazy.

I can't even tell you how many hours I spent researching, and it took me about a year to get her to the right weight and come up with the right combination of grain, supplements, and hay, but I am pretty happy with where she is now in her weight and condition.

ZINPRO is a company that specializes in trace minerals. They offered to send me a copy of their Best of Show DVD that takes the viewer through a complete overview of equine nutrition, including how to read a feed tag, how to make sure your horse has a balanced diet, how to recognize if there are any deficiencies, and what individual minerals do for your horse.

Since I am always interested in learning more, I watched the DVD (and took notes! my college professors would be so proud!). It was actually pretty good! There are different sections of the DVD, which is interactive and allows the user to click through at his or her own pace.

The DVD has five parts:
  • An overview of equine nutrition
  • An informative section about their 4-Plex-EQ product
  • A more detailed section about equine nutrition that goes into depth about different requirements in a balanced diet
  • How to read a feed tag
  • Additional tools and resources
I found the section on how to read a feed tag the most informative, because it also explained the units of measurement that are listed alongside the ingredient. I know PPM means "parts per million" but how does that really translate to my 1100 lb horse? Now I know!

I am a visual person and enjoyed "exploring" different parts of the program. I would have liked to see some video, maybe a vet explaining why he thinks trace minerals are so important (this was explained, but by the narrator), and also maybe a section on different ailments and how they might be linked to trace mineral deficiencies, but other than that I liked the DVD.

ZINPRO has offered four copies to me to give away to four of my readers. If you'd like a copy, leave a comment with a link to a photo of your horse that you feel shows him or her in great condition, and explain why you'd like a copy of the DVD. Four winners will be chosen on Friday 5/13!

This is one of my favourite photos of Lucy. It was taken in October 2010
and her winter coat is peeking through, giving her a lovely chocolate look
speckled with dapples that are catching the light. I love her weight here
and I think she has a pleasant expression on her face and looks happy.

Tally ho!

11 comments:

  1. I would be interested in winning a copy of the ZINPRO DVD!

    Riva is turning 4 later this month. She has been fed Stay Strong & Healthy Glo by Alliance since she was 2, plus good quality hay and good grazing in the Spring, Summer, Fall.

    She gained a bit more than I would have liked last summer, and lost a bit more weight than I would have liked over the winter. She is also on Smart Calm supplement, by Smark Pak.

    Not sure how to link a pic to you?

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  2. I would LOVE to win a copy of the ZINPRO DVD!!

    My boy is an OTTB who turned 11 in April. He is typically an easy keeper and I have never fed him anything but hay (and carrots, apples, etc... for treats, of course!). However, without his fuzzy winter coat I'm starting to think maybe he lost some condition over the winter. You are right, it's so hard to know where to start!

    I'm not sure how to link to a picture, but I could email one??

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  3. Kelly and Karen, you can link them from Facebook if the album is set to "Public" or you can link them from a photobucket.com account. If you need help, let me know. You could also email them to me and I will upload them to my photobucket acct and post them for you :) axford.k @ gmail.com

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  4. I'd like a copy because I love love love equine nutrition. I even considered a master's in animal science...then I realized I would probably end up in poultry nutrition :)

    This picture of Grayson was taken a few weeks ago. He's a little more of a hard keeper but I like his weight right here. You can even see a little butt muscle developing. woo hoo!
    http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5069/5646407564_b6419932fa.jpg

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  5. Julie, what a cute horse!! I love him.

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  6. Can I just say that I think Lucy in her ideal condition looks fabulous? I see so many fat horses come in through school I think a lot of people have totally lost sight of what an ideal body condition is!

    My horse if anything is more of an easy keeper. I feed him a quality hay and some senior plus his supplements, but I'm thinking of starting him on Platnium Performance and cutting his senior back even more.

    I really liked his weight and condition two summers ago when he was 18: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_debruler_family/5708642728/sizes/z/in/photostream/

    Since then we've had various medical issues keeping us from being ideal, although I am hoping we are on the way back.


    I'm interested in the DVD, I've never heard of Zinpro before. And theres always more to learn about nutrition!

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  7. I would LOVE to win the DVD. I have never heard of Zinpro either but I took a course on Equine Nutrition in my Equine Science studies and it was very interesting! Im always up for learning more :)

    http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.157261640968864.40052.100000550885442#!/photo.php?fbid=215478125147215&set=a.157261640968864.40052.100000550885442&type=1&theater

    Here is a link to a (hope I did that right lol)pic of my OTTB. He was thin when I got him and is a very hard keeper but we are slowly getting progress and his coat looks 100 times better!

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  8. Thanks Jessica! She's at a barn full of fat warmbloods so it's hard sometimes to remember that she's not a WB and isn't built to look "hunter fat".

    Here is Kelly's lovely horse Riva:

    http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu136/unionjack43/riva.jpg

    Summer, the link worked great! What a handsome guy!

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  9. Here is Karen's horse King looking nice and shiny this morning:

    http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu136/unionjack43/KING_May11.jpg

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  10. You stole my giveaway idea! I haven't gotten around to doing the post yet.

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  11. aww sorry!!! :( well you should do it too. I had no idea you were thinking of doing it - the company emailed me and asked if I'd be interested.

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Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment!