Curriculum Vitae Paper – Harold F. Hintz (1937-2016)

The Journal of nutrition, 1998

In the first part of this century, there was little advancement in horse nutrition and little research was undertaken. However, in the last few years, there has been a great increase in interest in this whole area. This review surveys some of the more recent developments and how they have influenced feeding practices and also compares these with those feeding practices found at the start of this century. The review concentrates on the nutrition of the adult horse in work, exploring in particular what they are fed and how the nutrient value of these feeds is evaluated.

Annals of Animal Science, 2014

The aim of the review is to present mechanisms of digestion in horses through a functional description of the digestive system’s structure with emphasis on nutrient digestibility. In the era of an increasingly intensive and specialised sport usage of horses, also the significance of balancing their dietary nutrient value in accordance with individual requirements of these animals is gaining in importance. At the same time, it is not possible to meet nutritional requirements of a sport horse without knowledge about feed utilisation. In many farm animal species, digestibility is measured postmortem or via complicated and expensive cannulation of the digestive system. In horses, these methods are not applied due to ethical approaches or other limitations (e.g. sport horses); therefore, the importance of marker-based techniques is growing, although not much data is published in the available literature (Sales, 2012). Moreover, in contrast to other non-ruminants, horses are naturally ada...

2017

Master of Science in Animal and Poultry Science. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2017.

Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, 2018

Equines are faced with digestive disorders derived from abrupt feed changes from mainly forages to high-starch cereal grains. This diet change aimed at meeting the nutritional requirements to optimize the horse's performance causes microbial imbalances in the gut, which results in unintended but inevitable health problems such as colic, diarrhea, gastric ulcer, and laminitis. Several strategies are recommended to control these problems. This review is meant to offer plausible and adoptable solutions to digestive disturbances in equines. High-forage diets seem to be the primary solution. However, there are other options such as feeding horses with alfalfa hay for gut pH modulation and gastric ulcer management, avoidance of the off-feed for long periods within a day especially between 01:00 AM and 09:00 AM, yeast supplementation, feeding equines about 2e3 times a day without increasing the quantity of the daily ration, and dietary fatty acid supplementation such as eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid to increase insulin sensitivity. Protozoa and faunation seem to be a good modulator of gut pH because they help to control the rate of starch degradation without generating methane in horses because acetogenesis is the main hydrogen sink in equines. An appropriate grain mixture of barleyecorn or barley eoat avoids gut pH depression. Furthermore, the use of crop by-products such as soybean hull and pectin are good alternative sources of energy for equines. Therefore, the use of some sources of fiber in the diet of equines can replace high-starch cereal grains in equine diets because they are capable of providing the required energy to support the energy demands during work.

Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, 2014

There is little published work comparing digestibility in healthy adult versus healthy aged horses. Researchers hypothesized that there would be no differences in macronutrient digestibility between eight adult (5-12 years) and nine aged (19-28 years) horses fed three diets in a Latin square design. Seventeen stock-type mares were randomly assigned for a 5-week period to one of three diets: hay only (HAY), hay plus a starch-and sugar-rich concentrate (CHO), or hay plus a fat-(oil) and fiber-rich concentrate (FF). Each diet period comprised 3 weeks of outdoor group drylot feeding, 2 weeks of indoor stalled individual feeding, followed by a 72-hour digestibility trial including total urine and fecal collection. Feed, fecal, and/or urine samples were analyzed to determine dry matter, crude protein, fat, energy, calcium, and phosphorus apparent retention as well as apparent digestibility. Neutral detergent fiber digestibility was also determined. Mean body weight was lower in aged than in adult horses (455 AE 12 kg vs. 500 AE 13 kg; P ¼ .02), but body condition score (BCS) did not differ between groups (aged horses, 4.8 AE 0.2 BCS and adult horses, 5.1 AE 0.2 BCS; P ¼ .20). No age differences in digestibility, apparent digestibility, or apparent retention were seen for any of the variables measured. Based on the results of this study, total tract macronutrient digestibility appears to be similar between healthy adult and aged horses.

Advances in Equine Nutrition IV

Adult yearling Two-year-old racehorse Training No No Light Moderate Heavy Heavy Age (months) 18 24 24 24 24 Mature BW (kg) 425 485 485 485 485 500 ADG (kg/d) 0.40 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0 DE (Mcal/d) 20.6 21 24.9 28.9 36.9 32.8 CP (g/d) 925 890 980 1070 1160 906 Lysine (g/d) 39 36 39 47 61 32 DIGESTIBLE ENERGY The energy requirements of horses are generally expressed in terms of digestible energy (DE) as either Mcal/day or MJ/day. For growing horses, the DE requirement is the sum of the maintenance energy requirement (DE Mcal/d) = 1.4 x (.03 x BW) plus a

Acta Scientiae Veterinariae

Background: There is little scientific data about the effects of continuous supplementation with nutraceuticals over horse's health and performance. Horse owners and veterinarians are still using supplements for horses without any kind of evaluations. At the Brazilian market is possible to buy hundreds of different products, but there is not private or state regulation over production and quality of these products. The absence of information about quality and efficacy of these products may contribute to mistakes in horse's nutrition program. The objective of this research was to determine the effect of supplementation with a combination of nutraceuticals over some blood parameters (red cell count, total plasma proteins, free plasma glutamine and glutamate) and components of body composition in working horses. Materials, Methods & Results: There were 19 gelding horses, divided in two groups: nutraceutical (NUTR; n=10) and placebo (PLAC; n=9). Both groups received equivalent feeding regimens in regard to concentrate and grass, and did similar exercise program. NUTR group received their pellets with nutraceuticals, and PLAC group received a placebo during the morning meal. There is no visual difference between nutraceutical and placebo pellets. Body composition determination and blood collection were taken in three periods: pre-test, after 4 and 12 weeks of supplementation. Body composition was determined after evaluation of horse's body mass by electronic scale associated with measurement of rump fat by ultrasound. Results showed that there were no significant changes in body composition during 12 weeks of supplementation in both groups, which had percentage of body fat around 13%. However, supplementation with nutraceutical produced significant changes (P<0.05) in some blood parameters in NUTR group. This group had large red cell count, hematocrit and blood glutamine concentration when compared with PLAC group after 12 weeks of supplementation. Blood glutamate concentration did not change in both groups. Discussion: Supplementation with nutraceutical or placebo did not produce illness or other nutritional problem in the experimental horses during 12 weeks. Also, because the nutraceutical and placebo pellets were visually similar to horse's grain, the experimental animals did not have problems to eat all feed during 12 weeks. During this period it was observed that NUTR group had some improvement of the blood parameters when compared with PLAC group (P<0.05), without adaptation or changes in body mass. Frequently supplement's advertises use improvement in the body mass as major effects of their products, but some of these effects are subjective because they use body score to show supplementation's results. Increase in hematocrit (>16%), total plasma protein (>7%) and free plasma glutamine (>20%) observed in NUTR group will contribute to horse's performance since it is positive action on red blood indexes and plasma amino acid concentration, contributing to the well-being of this horse group. Increase in blood glutamine concentration observed in NUTR group without improvement of body composition was not expected because this amino acid is produced mainly by skeletal muscle. Increase in fat-free mass frequently is associated with improvement of blood glutamine concentration. Finally, initial elevation in few parameters in PLAC group at 4 weeks of supplementation probably was associated with improvement of general management practices. In conclusion, Supplementation with a nutraceutical combination, for 12 weeks, produces changes in the concentration of some blood parameters, but it didn't modify the corporal composition. The elevation of those components can favor the transport of oxygen and nutrients in tissues leading to improvement in the horse performance.

Italian Journal of Animal Science, 2010

The aim of this study was to evaluate the apparent digestibility of a total mixed ration (TMR) versus a traditional mixed hay/cereals diet. Four adult trained Standardbred geldings-BW = 478±37 kg-were used. The two diets consisted of 20 kg of a commercial TMR-corn silage, alfalfa hay, wet brewers' grain, oat, apple pomace, molasses cane, soybean oil and mineral/vitamin supplement-(Diet 1) or 7 kg of meadow hay and 4.5 kg of cereal-mix-corn, oat, barley and protein/mineral/vitamin supplement-(Diet 2). The trial was conducted according to a Latin Square design (2x2). After an adaptation period of four weeks, total faeces and urine were collected for 6 days. Both feed and faeces samples were analysed for DM, OM, CP, EE, CF, NDF, ADF, cellulose, hemicellulose, ADL and GE. Data were analysed by ANOVA. The apparent digestibility and nitrogen balance of the two diets were compared. DM, OM, CP and GE apparent digestibility were significantly different between the diets, with higher values for unifeed diet than traditional diet. Energy requirement was satisfied by both diets (96.54 vs 95.55 MJ). Nitrogen balance showed negative values in both diets (-61.67 vs-9.05), but the hay/cereals supplemented diet showed the best protein utilisation.

Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition, 2017

Nutrition plays a very important role in the healthy and in the ill horse. Although research in this field clearly shows that incorrect nutritional practices may lead to severe pathologies, inappropriate feeding plans often continue to be used. A clinical nutrition counselling (CNC) service could thus be of great use to both horse owners and veterinarians. The aim of this study was to provide information on equine patients referred to the CNC service of the University of Turin and to provide standard dietary protocols as used in our Veterinary Teaching Hospital for the most common nutrition-related pathologies. The data were obtained by retrospective analysis of the nutritional records of referred equine patients. The data collected included information about anamnesis, nutritional assessment, current diet, referring person and follow-up of each patient. Sixty-one horses were included in the study. The majority were adult males. The most common breeds were the Italian Saddle Horse and the Friesian Horse. Old horses (>19 years) had a statistically lower BCS than brood mares or other adult horses (p < 0.01). The most common nutritional pathologies were chronic weight loss (CWL), chronic diarrhoea (CD) and equine gastric ulcer syndrome. All horses received first-cut meadow hay; 85% also ate concentrates. Young horses (<2 years) received more hay as a percentage of body weight (BW) than old horses or adults. The hay percentage of BW per day given to animals with CWL was statistically higher than those with CD (p < 0.01). The concentrate percentage of BW given to old horses was statistically lower compared to that given to young horses (p < 0.05). The concentrate percentage of BW per day given to horses with colic was statistically higher than that given to horses with CD (p < 0.05). 28% of cases were referred by the owner and 72% by a veterinarian. Follow-up evaluation was deemed to be 'good' in 92% cases and 'poor' in 8%. In summary, the CNC service could provide an epidemiological observatory to study the prevalence of nutritional issues in the equine population.

EAAP Scientific Series, 2012