ECIR/PPID/Cushings Horses

Do you have a horse with a metabolic condition like Cushings/EMS/PPID?

We feel you. 28 year old Alex does too. He is the reason we opened our doors to offer these products!

We, of course, like to test our flax batches to have exact values for various things, like fat and protein percentages, but especially for those important WSC/ESC/starch values.

The newest values that just came back for our flax are just as expected, and are as follows:

• WSC - 3.8%

• ESC - 1.6%

• Starch - 0.2%

Many of our customers come to us on the recommendation of their vet, need to overhaul their horse’s diet after a diagnosis like the above. Fergus is one of them, and I’d like to share his story! His story also helps clear up one of the misconceptions we hear sometimes, that “overweight horses can’t have a fat supplement as they’ll get fatter”.

Fergus is a customer's horse, and he was overweight and had insulin issues. His owner overhauled his diet, and the ECIR team she consulted with recommended flax - yes, *recommended*, even though he clearly needed to lose weight.

These two photos are a year apart, and check out how amazing he looks! Not only has he lost weight, but he has such a beautiful shine.

Certainly having a balanced healthy diet makes such a difference, but saying one "fatty" supplement makes your horse overweight isn't a fair assumption. We know there are essential fatty acids for a reason. This is especially true if your horse doesn't get pasture grazing time. Fergus was not on any flax at the time of the first photo (only on dry hay and a commercial feed), and now gets flax daily in addition to a balanced hay diet. Because of that hay diet, it was important for his owner to supplement those Omega-3 fatty acids, and look how amazing he's done on his weight loss journey!

If your horse is an easy keeper, like Fergus, you aren’t going to probably need the whole recommended daily cup of flax. That is just a guideline after all. We have some customers with easy keepers feeding only a 1/2 cup per day, and some with hard keepers who are getting 1 1/2 cups - it’s certainly not one size fits all, but don’t count out flax just because your horse is overweight.