Our guide to what brewer's yeast really does for your horse, where the science is strong, and where the marketing gets ahead of the evidence. Few feed-room ingredients have travelled as far as brewer's yeast. What began as a by-product of beer fermentation has become one of the most widely used supplements in equine nutrition, quietly…
Why the overnight hours matter more than you think We spend a lot of time perfecting the concentrate feeds and worrying about what happens in the day when we're around the barn. For many of us, the ten or twelve hours in between, the overnight stretch, mostly look after themselves. However, new research suggests these…
Welfare and the precautionary principle A University of Guelph review argues that many long-accepted riding practices deserve closer scrutiny, even where definitive evidence of harm is still lacking. A review by Caleigh Copelin and Katrina Merkies, published in the March 2026 edition of the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, makes the case that modern equestrianism is…
It is one of the most unsettling findings to emerge from equine welfare science in recent years: most people, including experienced equestrians, are significantly worse at recognising pain in horses than they are at spotting discomfort in other humans, and in an animal whose evolutionary survival has depended on concealing vulnerability, that gap has serious…
Q: A couple of people at my yard have started feeding turmeric. Why is this and should I be doing it too? A: Turmeric is gaining popularity for horses in South Africa at the moment, and it seems that people are adding it to their horse's feed for a variety of reasons. Interestingly, there has been…
ISES media release The ongoing problem of obesity in equines is not a recent one. However, the increase in the number of obese horses and ponies predominantly found in the leisure industry in some industrialised countries, has now become a globally recognised welfare concern. Carrying excess weight places increased stress on the skeletal system of…
Horses will actively seek out roughage The link between concentrates and behavioural issues – interesting recent research on equine nutrition from Shelhi Horne. Foals weaned onto concentrates have a four times higher chance of crib-biting than those weaned onto forage diets. Horses fed moderate starch levels (22% of the diet) had increased heart rates compared with…
