Growth Plus Farrier's Formula™

Supplement for Mares and Foals

Growth plus Farrier's Formula^TM includes the nutrients in Farrier's Formula^® for maintenance and contains the additional nutrients needed for growth and musculature in young foals, yearlings, and two year olds. In mares, it provides nutrients to help foal development and, after foaling, provides nutrients for milk production.

Proper Nutrition

Proper nutritional support for the pregnant mare, beginning at conception and continuing through the end of the lactation, or nursing period, is essential for the health of the developing fetus. While it is important that the broodmare has excellent nutritional status prior to conception, there are essential additional nutrients that must be supplied to the mare during gestation and lactation over and above those needed for maintenance of the adult horse.

In order to understand the nutritional requirements for growing a strong, healthy foal, we must first look at the process of development in the young horse in utero. This process is primarily one of building sound musculoskeletal structure, with the most intense bone, muscle and skeletal development of the foal occurring during the last trimester of pregnancy.

Bone Development

The process of bone development in horses forms the framework upon which the rest of the horse is built. Healthy bones are composed of calcium phosphate and other minerals laid onto a bone matrix of collagen fibers. The strength and health of bone tissue depends on the strength of the collagen fibers on which the bones are built.

Collagen is a protein with tremendous structural strength, that's why it forms the foundation of the musculoskeletal system. Tendons and ligaments are made of collagen. The strength of collagen fibers is provided by numerous chemical cross-links between amino acid chains. Unless these collagen fibers are developed with an optimum number of cross-link connections, the tissue constructed will be weak. Without properly cross-linked bone matrix, or collagen, calcium phosphate and other bone minerals cannot be deposited properly to allow for strong bone formation. This process of "mineralization" is what determines the strength of the bone structure and skeletal system.

Amino Acid Protein Chains

The amino acid chains required to create highly cross-linked collagen bone matrix are nutritionally very "expensive" for the horse to build. That means that the construction of a single cross-link can use a tremendous amount of "chemical currency" in the form of nutrients. Strong bone requires literally millions of such chemical bonds for good health. Therefore, its stands to reason that the development of strong, healthy bone and collagen structure cannot be achieved without proper nutrition. And, at no time in the horse's life is optimum nutrition more important than during growth and development of the young horse as a foal.

Skeletal Development in Utero

The basis for good nutrition for the foal begins long before it is born, with the proper nutritional status of the mare.

In horses, a tremendous amount of bone and skeletal development occurs in utero, allowing for a newborn foal to be able to stand, walk, run and play within hours of birth. Therefore, our attention to nutrition that supports the growth of the healthy foal must begin with the broodmare.

The greatest amount of growth of the foal in utero occurs during the last trimester of pregnancy. It is during this period that intense and rapid development of the skeletal structure occurs and the foundation of bone matrix and mineralization of healthy bone tissue begins. For this reason it becomes most essential for the mare to have available the proper balance of sufficient nutrients to support the growth of healthy bone and collagen in the foal and for sufficient lactation after foaling. However, the mare cannot consume and process the amounts of required nutrients in the last trimester of pregnancy for proper foal development therefore, it is essential to supplement the mare on a continuous basis year round to have the nutrients stored in her tissues to support this rapid growth.

It is our firm belief, based on our research, that providing the proper levels of nutritional support to the broodmare during gestation and lactation will produce stronger, healthier foals with adequate structural soundness to reach their full potential.

The Nursing Foal

A nursing foal has no source of nutrients to support its growth other than the mare's milk. Therefore, a tremendous nutritional burden is placed on the mare during nursing, both in producing an adequate supply of milk to nourish the foal and in producing milk that is complete and balanced with the proper nutrients necessary to support the intense growth and development of the foal during this period.

A foal that has not received the necessary nutrients for strong bone development in utero and while nursing will require years of later nutritional supplementation to replace the original defects in the bone matrix and will likely never reach its full potential for total skeletal health.

The Nutrients: Proper Amounts and Balance

What are the nutrients and how do we determine the proper balance and the amounts needed to support healthy bone structure in the developing foal and young horse?

Having studied nutritional deficiencies in horses for more than thirty years, we have amassed an extensive database on this subject which can be used to answer these questions. Through years of laboratory testing, we have learned that even slight deficiencies can cause severe clinical problems that can be corrected through nutritional supplementation.

Blood Tests to Determine the Exact Nutrients and Amounts

At Life Data Labs we studied blood samples taken from over 200 horses, some with clinical problems and some in apparently good health. We tested each blood sample for more than 175 different factors. By entering this data into a computerized database, we were able to determine through statistical analysis which nutrient deficiencies were related to particular clinical problems. Re-testing at intervals to determine the exact nutrients and the amount needed for each animal has provided a great deal of data on the precise quantities required and the proper balance in which these nutrients must be presented to the horse. Presenting the nutrients in the proper balance is absolutely essential for proper absorption and metabolism

Each test has its own normal range and distribution curve. This is important because we were able to use the entire database of lab results to compare the findings for each individual horse against the normal values for the entire sample group. Using this method, we are able to develop correlation coefficients for each nutrient and identify which nutrient deficiencies were commonly found in the horses with poor skeletal structure or other problems associated with weak bone development or poor growth. In particular, we were able to identify key nutrients that were deficient in young horses with musculoskeletal problems such as contracted tendons or osteochondrosis (OCD).

By using the data we obtained from studying horses, particularly foals, with developmental deficiencies, we were able to formulate a balanced nutritional supplement to support equine growth. The data allowed us to identify and include in our growth supplement, for the past thirty years, the nutrients such as silicone, manganese, lysine, omega fatty acids and phospholipids as major players in proper foal development.

Nutrition Information
Feeding Instructions