Leading the Way for Senior Horses
Challenge
- Keeping Senior Horses Healthy as They Age
Solution
- Creating the senior feed category to help horses that have difficulty chewing or digesting hay, then improve upon it.
Aging gracefully is something we want for ourselves, and for our horses. After spending time with our own senior horses and observing changes relating to chewing, maintaining weight, among other challenges related to the aging process, we created targeted formulas to help senior horses live long, healthy lives. 20 years later, we continue to improve our Equine Senior® feeds, the number one vet-recommended* senior horse feed, with the latest research and technology.
Purina’s Ph.D. Equine Nutritionists and Veterinarians have been studying senior horses and their nutritional needs in our state-of-the-art research unit at the Purina Animal Nutrition Center for many years, making Equine Senior® horse feeds the most researched equine feeds on the market.
We love our senior horses, and they deserve the best nutrition to help keep them happy and healthy. Our Senior feeds are formulated to give you and horse everything needed to get the most out of your nutrition.
*Four out of five Equine Veterinarians recommend Purina’s Equine Senior® horse feed to their clients with senior horses, according to an independent study conducted in November 2012.
Take an in-depth look at Equine Senior
Supporting Equine Gastric Health
Challenge
- Finding a Solution for One of The Most Common Equine Health Concerns – Gastric Discomfort
Solution
- Supporting a healthy gastric environment by scouring the planet for the most effective ingredients
Nothing matches the joy of caring for horses, but it doesn’t come without stress. Stress can create so many challenges for horses and it’s estimated that up to 90 percent of horses experience gastric discomfort, affecting health, attitude and performance. Stress can be caused from common activities including stall confinement, exercise, transportation, weaning and change in environment. Our Ph.D. team wanted to find a way to address this stress through nutrition. After years of researching ingredients and formulas we found a key ingredient in Europe. In 2017 we introduced the revolutionary Purina® Outlast supplement. A product that would set the bar for gastric support.
Predicting Future Challenges
Challenge
- Creating a World Where We Have More Predicable Ways to Manage Significant Horse Challenges
Solution
- Building the world’s largest equine fecal microbiome database to make future nutrition-based solutions possible
We like to entertain mostly any idea that could use nutrition to help horses, and the idea of promoting good bugs with good nutrition is high on the list. The science of the Microbiome is on trend, and in light of the ineffective hit-or-miss approach of supplementing random probiotic that is all too common, we wanted to make sure we took a needs-based approach to this advancing area. While sitting in a hotel lobby in 2019, Dr. Robert Jacobs and Dr. Mary Beth Gordon sketched out what this future might look like, on a napkin of course.
Two years later, our team has built a microbiome program that is designed to build the appropriate data and intelligence backlog to help solve equine health challenges in the future. This is a true whitespace area, and Purina is one of the few companies able to invest in the people and technology needed to study this space. There are trillions of bugs present in a horse’s hindgut, and we are working to understand how to harness the right ones and identify repeatable and reliable way to leverage them to improve horse performance.
Breaking Down the Microbiome
The Purina Equine Research team has recently launched the MQ Equine project aimed at answering the question of what a normal, healthy equine microbiome looks like. We have been collecting samples from horses all around the country, and we need your help to continue building our dataset. The goal of this project is to understand how different factors such as feed, age, breed, living conditions, diet, and other factors influence the microbiome of the horse.
Delivering the Benefits of Fresh Pasture
Challenge
- How to Deliver the Nutritional Benefits And Omega-3 Fatty Acids Found in Fresh Grass For Horses With Limited Access to Pasture
Solution
- Designing a product that delivers the same Omega-3 fatty acids found in fresh grass to fill nutritional gaps
While we do focus on creating unsurpassed technology in our feeds, we’re also always looking at the complete diet and recognize the extraordinary nutritional benefits of fresh pasture. Born out of spending time with our horses and an understanding that many horses have limited access to pasture, our team of Ph.D. equine nutritionists spent years trying to develop a product that delivers the nutritional benefits horses get from grazing. We explored several ingredients and conducted multiple feeding studies to ensure we had something that was both biologically meaningful and that horses and their owners loved.
Purina® Omega Match™ Ration Balancing Horse Feed is inspired by the benefits of feeding fresh pasture, but without the drawbacks of too many calories or soluble carbohydrates. This proprietary limited-ingredient formula addresses common ingredient sensitivities while meeting your horse’s nutrient requirements and providing the fatty acids and antioxidants naturally found in green grass. Purina® Omega Match™ Ration Balancer provides a way to fill in nutritional gaps, whether your horse has a busy competition schedule with limited turnout or cannot graze green grass due to metabolic concerns. It’s a great way of ensuring your horses get the nutrition they need, no matter their forage source.
