August 2021 - Page 2 of 2 - Kissimmee Valley Feed

Archive for August, 2021

Kissimmee Valley Feed’s 30-Year Anniversary

Monday, August 23rd, 2021

Kissimmee Valley Feed's 30-Year Anniversary flyer Kissimmee Valley Feed’s 30-year anniversary is nearly upon us! Celebrate 30 years with huge sales at both the main store and 2nd store from September 30-October 2nd. Both stores will respectively hold a raffle and giveaway. To read more details about each store’s specials, click here for the main store and here for the 2nd store.

KVF History:

In 1991, Kissimmee Valley Feed & Ranch Supply was established by Stan Touchstone. In the beginning, the primary purpose of the company was to meet the needs of Osceola County’s extensive cattle industry. Stan’s 15-year involvement with the Florida Cattleman’s Association, as well as managing several cattle ranches, helped create a successful business.

Over the last 18 years, our community has changed. While we still have a significant cattle industry, a growing number of residents have included a variety of pets such as horses, dogs, cats, tropical birds, and exotic animals. Over the years, Kissimmee Valley Feed has continued to grow to meet these ever-changing needs of the community.

KVF hopes to continue evolving and serving the community’s needs for MANY years to come. Thank you, Osceola County, for your patronage and friendship. We wouldn’t be here without you. In conclusion, celebrate Kissimmee Valley Feed’s 30-Year Anniversary with us!

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How to Keep Horses Cool in Hot Weather

Friday, August 20th, 2021

How to keep horses cool in hot weather? As summer drags on, heat can become a serious problem for many horses.

Sweating is the primary way horses cool themselves. Experts believe that prolonged, consistently high sweat rates can lead to “exhaustion” of the sweat glands. In horses, this may result in anhidrosis, or the inability to produce sweat adequately. It is crucial to address anhidrosis and find other ways to keep horses cool because it can pose a serious health risk to horses in warm climates.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when trying to keep your horses cool this summer.

1. Fresh, cool water

Hydration is critical during hot weather, but poor water quality can severely limit your horse’s intake. Most horses don’t like to drink hot water, so it is best to provide fresh, cool water daily. Dark-colored troughs or buckets placed in direct sunlight will absorb heat and warm the water quickly.

Keep horse water troughs and buckets clean and free of algae to encourage drinking. Remember, it can be hard to see accumulated algae and debris at the bottom of a dark-colored trough. Another tip: overfill water buckets and troughs to provide moisture for your horse’s hooves, especially in dry climates.

2. Salt and electrolyte supplementation

Feeds do not contain enough salt to meet a horse’s daily sodium requirement. Therefore, an additional source of salt is always recommended. At a minimum, a salt block should be available free choice. However, horses are not natural lickers and may not lick enough voluntarily. Top-dressing their feed with 2 oz plain salt per day is a good way to ensure they get enough.

In the “sweating season,” whether due to temperature or workload, salt should be switched to a quality electrolyte. This will supply important minerals like potassium and calcium, in addition to salt, that your horse loses through sweat. The best electrolytes will be mostly minerals, not sugar.

3. Summer horse shelter

We can all appreciate how much cooler it is under the shade tree in the middle of summer versus being out in the full sun, and your horse feels the same way. If there are no trees in your turnout areas, providing a run-in shed or even a fabric sunscreen as a horse shelter can make a big difference in helping to keep your horses cool.

Horses cool themselves primarily through evaporative and convective cooling. To help them, apply cool baths or use sprinklers to keep your horses more comfortable and to decrease their need to sweat as much. Moving air increases both convective and evaporative cooling. If the breeze isn’t blowing, provide a fan to move the air. Some farms even use large golf course fans to keep their horses cool in pastures. Finally, remember it may be more comfortable outside in the sun than inside a stuffy barn with poor airflow.

4. Exercise and heat stress in horses

Metabolic heat from exercise is another primary heat source for horses; therefore, it is best to confine strenuous exercise to early morning or later evening hours when ambient temperature and humidity are the lowest. Alternatively, you can give yourself and your horse a break from hard training during the hottest summer months.

To avoid additional heat stress, postpone events such as vaccination, weaning, changing barns, moving horses between groups, etc. If any of these events must occur during the hottest days of summer, try to do them during the coolest hours of the day.

Even though summer can be a sweaty, uncomfortable time, these tips can help your horse stay healthy and happy year-round.

Check out Kissimmee Valley Feed’s equine feed & supplements to help your horse stay happy!

Article source: Purina Animal Nutrition

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Performance Horses and Muscle Recovery

Tuesday, August 17th, 2021

Concern for performance horses and muscle recovery may be the difference between a win and a loss. In various disciplines speed, strength, collection and stamina all play into the difference between earning a big paycheck and awards or going home empty handed.

Performance horses need to be able to come out of the stall ready to win. (Whether it’s the first day of the event or the last.) Like their human athlete counterparts, a solid nutrition plan is the fuel that allows performance horses to compete and perform at their highest level. With Rebound Technology™, recovery isn’t an afterthought, the horse is always being fed for optimal performance.

Rebound Technology™ is a unique, proprietary blend of research-backed chromium and branched chain amino acids (BCAAs). They support exercise recovery. When performance horses have the right nutrition, they are more able to quickly return to peak performance after strenuous training sessions and/or competitions. Each time an equine athlete competes or performs there is an opportunity to increase its value, that of future offspring or help a rider achieve his or her goals. That’s why avoiding muscle fatigue and giving horses the ability to rebound from exercise and efficiently train for performance activities is a high priority for horse owners and trainers alike.

What Happens When Horses Exercise

When horses exercise, they experience an increased cortisol level. Additionally, reduced muscle glycogen, increased Serum Amyloid A (normal inflammation), increased heart rate, reduced blood sugar and reduced plasma BCAAs. Three major factors in improving athletic performance in the horse are muscle development, muscle recovery and glycogen availability. Faster glycogen replenishment in the horse could lead to increased muscular performance.

As horses work, ATP or energy enables their muscle fibers to quickly contract and relax. Each muscle cell contains only enough ATP for a few contractions. This means horses must continuously resynthesize ATP during exercise primarily via stored glycogen. The more glucose we can make available to the cells in the performance horse, the better able they are to quickly replenish glycogen. The unique ingredient combination found in Rebound Technology™ optimizes opportunity. Opportunity being for these glycogen and glucose levels to rebound after work.

The essential BCAAs leucine, isoleucine and valine help to decrease muscle fatigue and improve muscle recovery¹⁹. Research with BCAAs has demonstrated that leucine infusion along with glucose infusion appears to increase whole body glucose availability. Also potentially increasing glycogen synthesis in horses¹.

Oral leucine supplementation has shown increased markers associated with protein synthesis in the post-exercised horse. Providing an increased rate of protein synthesis would increase both muscle mass and muscle recovery. Both of which may improve athletic performance. In humans, BCAA supplementation prior to exercise appeared to reduce delayed onset muscle soreness. Also muscle fatigue, increased insulin response along with increased post-exercise rates of glycogen synthesis. Increased availability of amino acids and glucose demonstrated in research shows an improvement not only in protein synthesis, but also a decrease in protein breakdown.

Chromium’s Role in Recovery and Protein Synthesis

Recently FDA and AAFCO approved chromium propionate as a feed ingredient. It’s in Rebound Technology™. It supports glucose getting to the cells. Glucose provides energy to repair. As well as to replenish after work. Chromium is involved in carbohydrate metabolism and other insulin dependent processes such as protein and lipid metabolism. As horses exercise, increased levels of cortisol work against insulin as insulin attempts to move glucose and nutrients into muscle cells.

Chromium supports more efficient insulin function. It does this by stabilizing insulin receptors leading to more efficient movement of glucose from the blood stream. Subsequently, reducing the negative impacts of exercise stress. Additionally, increasing the body’s physiologic ability to move nutrients into muscle cells to function efficiently during exercise and rebuild muscle broken down following exercise¹³. Research in Thoroughbreds during exercise has demonstrated blood glucose was controlled on lower insulin levels versus control. This demonstrated higher insulin sensitivity when they were supplemented with chromium.

Another potential benefit to the improved insulin sensitivity demonstrated in horses supplemented with chromium propionate? Supporting the signaling pathway for protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is the re-building of structures. When insulin sensitivity is improved, glucose can more readily be available for protein synthesis. Insulin infusion in mature horses was shown to stimulate whole-body protein synthesis and activate the upstream and downstream effectors of mTor signaling in the gluteus medius muscle. Simply put, this means is there was an increase in protein synthesis, or a re-building of muscle.

Glucose – An Important Component for the Working Horse

Glucose is the key energy source for every cell in the horse’s body and BCAAs stimulate protein synthesis. The proprietary BCAAs and chromium in Rebound Technology™ make this key energy source more readily available to horse’s cells. Rebound Technology™ can be extremely important. Especially for the performance horse needing muscle repair and remodeling to rebound in between shows and workouts.

Here at Kissimmee Valley Feed, we are happy to lend our knowledge to maintain the perfect diet for your horses.

Source: Amanda Zenczak at HorseFeedBlog.com

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Managing Feeding Programs on the Road for Show Horses

Tuesday, August 10th, 2021

Managing feeding programs on the road for show horses is a necessary skill. The show season is in full swing. Subsequently, horses are subjected to the stress of going down the road on a regular basis. This travel schedule imposes additional requirements for managing the feeding program.

Horses like consistency. Changes can cause emotional and physical stress. The more we can keep the routines the same, the easier it is for the horses to cope with the challenges of travel and competition. The following are some suggestions that may be useful to help maintain the body condition, appearance and performance that is required to maintain the competitive status of the horse.

Management Tips:

Water Intake

First and foremost, it is critical to maintain water intake. While traveling and while stabled away from home. The water may taste different at different locations. Horses should have fresh clean water available at all times. They should be offered water as needed between classes. Additionally, when stabled at shows.

When traveling, horses should be offered water on a regular basis. I recommend offering water every 2 hours while hauling and others may have different schedules that work for them.
If horses are reluctant to drink water that smells different due to chlorination or water source, it may be useful to flavor the water at home with something like wintergreen or vanilla so that you can do the same when traveling.
You need to make certain that whatever you use does NOT contain caffeine or anything that will trigger a positive drug test!
If you are going to flavor the water, do it well in advance of travel so that the water at home smells and tastes like the water while traveling.
If horses get dehydrated (especially during a show), the risk of impaction colic may increase, particularly during hot weather. The horses may also not perform up to expectations, particularly in multiple day or multiple event competitions.
As a judge and as an announcer, I can see the difference in some horses from day 1 to day 3 of an event.

Routine Feeding

Secondly, maintain your feeding schedule as close as possible to routine followed at home. You may have to adjust slightly to accommodate classes.

If for some reason you have to miss a feeding, do not double up at the next one!
Use the same forage as you feed at home. A sudden change in forage can be a potential cause of colic.
Offer salt. (Free choice while traveling.)
Additional electrolytes may be used prior to, during, and following a competition. However, they should not be added to the water as this may impact water intake.

Thirdly, monitor body condition carefully and adjust feeding rates to avoid excess weight loss while traveling. A horse can tuck up badly if it goes off feed and water.

Lastly, select a horse feed that will help reduce the risk of metabolic issues and will help maintain intake to maintain body condition and bloom. Added fat, controlled starch & sugar products with balanced amino acids and added key vitamins work well for virtually all classes of show horses.

Pre-season preparation involves achieving desired body condition, coat condition, hoof condition and the required training. Managing feeding programs on the road for show horses is essential to maintain the competitive edge!