Intro 0:00
Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Let's get to it!
Dr. Judy Morgan
Hello everyone. I'm Dr Judy Morgan. I'm your host for Dr Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy pets podcast. My guest today is one of my favorite equine people in the whole world, because she's brilliant, and I wish I could just like sneak inside of her head for a little while and get all that information, because I'm a horse girl, and I've been a horse girl for most of my life, and unfortunately, I have not put as much focus on nutrition and care of my equines as I do for my small animals. And thanks to Dr Joyce Harman, I actually now pay a lot more attention to what is going into my equines, just like I do with my dogs and cats. So Dr Joyce Harman, if you have not heard of her, she has been in holistic practice for 34 years, using acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine and homeopathy to enhance performance and help those with a variety of chronic conditions. She is an authority on Lyme disease and insulin resistance and natural nutrition. She has written over 100 papers, textbook chapters and articles for horse publications. Her publications include the Pain Free Back and Saddle Fit books, which are excellent. I've had them since they first came out before I knew Joyce personally, excellent books. If you have horses and you're riding and you are concerned about saddle fit or back pain, which almost all horses suffer with, highly recommend getting those books. And she has created the only complete natural nutrition online course for horses, written by a holistic veterinarian, and that course is available on DrJudyU. It is amazing. Even if you've been a horse person for a long time like me, you can learn a lot. Joyce, thank you so much for agreeing to be my guest today.
Dr. Joyce Harman 2:00
Thank you for having me. We always have a lot of fun
Dr. Judy Morgan 2:05
we do. So our topic today is help my feed shelf is overflowing. What can I do? A common sense approach to natural equine nutrition, and I used to see this when I was showing horses for many years, I would see the same thing in the equine world that I have seen so much in the small animal world. People come in and they bring three grocery bags full of supplements and things that they're adding to the food bowl, thinking that they are improving the health and nutrition of their pets, meanwhile, feeding a highly processed food, not applying good nutrition. And so I used to see this in the horse world all the time. You walk into somebody's tack room, because I used to do a lot of chiropractic and acupuncture on horses, in addition to my small animal practice, and I'd walk into their feed room, and again, just dozens of containers of supplements. And so often they're duplicating so many things. You turn them around and read the ingredients in them, and it's like, okay, well, there's, you know, flax seed 27 different ways.
Dr. Joyce Harman 3:18
Yep,
Dr Judy Morgan 3:21
so why does equine new? So why does equine nutrition seem so complicated, like, Why does everybody think they they need to add all these supplements? And what's wrong with just going to the feed store and grabbing a bag of big name equine feed, and usually sweet feed?
Dr. Joyce Harman 3:44
Well, the the biggest issue is that, well, there's two major issues and a whole bunch of of significant issues. The biggest issue is that it is impossible to put everything a horse needs into a bag of food and heavily process it and be healthy on the other side, because we know we really shouldn't be doing things like eating Hostess Twinkies all day long, breakfast, lunch and dinner, right? I mean, that's just kind of common sense, but
that's basically what is happening with a feedbag. They put all this feed in and put all these ingredients in, and they come up with a formula that says, you know, here's x, y and z, vitamin B or X, Y and Z, carbohydrate or fat or whatever. And they don't necessarily pay attention to the quality of what's gone in there. But even more importantly, if you look at that feedbag, it's going to say, feed four pounds to my pleasure horse twice a day.
Dr. Joyce Harman 5:00
And that is supposed to get you all the nutrients that you need.
Dr. Joyce Harman 5:05
Well, your pleasure horse probably can't eat four pounds unless he's going to weigh 500 pounds more than he should.
Dr. Joyce Harman 5:15
And so what we have in that bag of food is sort of a false sense of security that that that's going to provide everything they need, and in the quality that they need, because many of the supplements that are added to a bag of grain, they still go through the processing, and they aren't necessarily as potent or even in the same format as they were when they went in. And, you know, they put probiotics in, and they put omega three fatty acids in. Omega three fatty acids do not like to be heated. They don't like to be exposed to the air. And, yeah, and what are you going to do? You're going to open the feed bag and dump it into your feed bin, and it's going to be exposed to the air, and it was exposed to heat during the processing of the feed anyway, so you actually don't have the best quality nutrients in that, besides which they're almost all genetically modified. The corn, the soybean, which makes up 80% and the beet pulp all make up 80 to 90% of the nutrients. So what we need to do if we want to actually simplify nutrition,
Dr. Joyce Harman 6:33
is to back off from the bag of food and think about just like you talk about all the time. Dr Judy, Whole Foods, simple foods and having using your concentrate to feed whatever amount of calories, essentially that your horse needs, which for many horses, is two or three handfuls of some kind of very simple natural concentrate, and then spend your money on your high quality supplement to add exactly what you need for your horse. And what you find is that lots of times, we're just adding all of these massive amounts of supplements to counteract what is happening in the feed bag. So the genetically modified, the lack of nutrients, the lack of quality nutrients, we can put that in in a nice, healthy supplement that we give exactly the amount the horse needs, instead of feeding four pounds to attempt to give the amount the horse needs.
Dr. Judy Morgan 7:53
Well, it's so similar to the processed pet food industry. So, you know we can start well, first of all, they don't even start with high quality ingredients. I don't, I don't think our horses, given the choice, are going to go out in the soybean field and eat a bunch of soybeans. And I don't think that. I mean, maybe they would go eat a bunch of corn if they were given the choice. But given all these genetically modified ingredients, which we now know are so bad for us, so bad for our pets, so bad for our horses, for bad for the planet.
Dr Judy Morgan 8:29
But it's sort of the same thing. You take these low quality ingredients, you heat process them, and then you add these synthetic vitamin mineral mixes to try to come close to getting the nutrition that's needed. So I know with AFFCO regulates all animal feed, so I'm assuming that the and I've never even, I don't know why I've never even looked at this, because I spent so much time playing with AFFCO.
Dr. Judy Morgan 8:59
But the publication that has all the nutrient requirements for dogs and cats also has the nutrient requirements for horse feed, correct?
Dr. Joyce Harman
Yes, yes, that is correct.
Dr Judy Morgan 9:14
Okay, so basically, they're giving us a minimum standard and so these vitamin mineral supplements are added in the hope that it will supply what the horse needs. But again, if the label says you have to feed four pounds of food in order to reach that nutrient level for your pasture potato, horse, they're gonna all be so fat and foundered, they're never gonna be able to move.
Dr. Joyce Harman 9:49
right and and so we have to look for the whole food based quality types of ingredients, so that what We put into our horses actually gets digested, gets assimilated, gets into their system. And what you actually find is you don't need as much in the supplement department when you're actually feeding real food, just like we don't need nearly as many sort of vitamins and supplements and things to try and keep us healthy if we are eating good whole food.
Dr. Joyce Harman 10:33
And so absolutely, what you find is that you add and add and add because you're just never quite there. And you look, you know, everybody wants their horse's coat to look shiny, so we had all these coat conditioners, and then you get all these shampoos, and then you look at a horse that's truly healthy, standing out in the hot sun with a shiny coat because they're getting the nutrients that they need, and they're getting the quality of whole food that they need
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:09
exactly. Yeah, it makes, it makes a huge difference in the the health of the horse in general. And I find that, you know, I'm with with my equines, particularly later in my career,
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:27
I have backed off so much on the over vaccination. I've backed off on feeding processed foods. And it's just so interesting that I feel like the pet people are a step ahead of the horse people with the holistic stuff, I feel like we haven't we haven't cracked the the nut as much with holistic horse care. Do you find that to be true?
Dr. Joyce Harman 12:01
I think I would tend to agree with that. there is part of it is probably because a lot of people are in a boarding type of situation with the horses, whereas most of our pets are are at home. And so we have a lot more control over what is done. And if you are boarding horses, and many, many people board horses, and so you can't necessarily make the kinds of choices that you would make if the horse was in your backyard. So that's a piece of it. So you're kind of stuck. And in the nutrition course I go through, try to go through ways to work around some of the situations you get into in boarding, because you have to, you can only do what you can do. And the reality is, is that we don't always have control. And because so many of the people are sold on the idea of everything comes in a bag, they're happy to feed all your horse's supplements, and often charge you a little extra to add extra supplements to your horse's food, but they don't want to change from the status quo, which is, you buy the big name bags of feed, and they get delivered on a big truck, and you don't really have to think so Even that's confusing these days, because they're each company has 25 different possibilities that you can select from, and in that way, their nutritionist can come in and say, Well, you need this bag versus that bag versus another bag. But they're all internally pretty much the same,
Dr. Judy Morgan 13:41
exactly we need to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT #1 13:48
You're listening to another informative, Naturally Healthy Pets podcast episode because you want your pets to live long and healthy lives. Here's an exclusive offer to our horse people who purchase our course, Horse Longevity: Six steps to improve longevity in your horse with Dr Joyce Harman. Save 15% using the code PODCAST55 when purchasing on DrJudyU.com
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT #2 14:13
we can't forget about our beloved horses. What we feed our equines has a profound impact on their health, well being, temperament and performance. The entire Naturally Healthy Pets team highly recommends the extensive seven hour course Horse Healthmanship, Nutrition, 101 with renowned holistic veterinarian, Dr Joyce Harman. Dive into this informational course and give your horse the vibrant life they deserve. Podcast listeners get a 15% discount using code PODCAST55 at checkout on DrJudyU.com.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Welcome back. I'm your host. Dr Judy Morgan on, Dr Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets. My guest today, Dr Joyce Harman is, I think, an equine guru in holistic equine medicine, and we are discussing equine.
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:00
Nutrition and why? Why it seems like it's so complicated. And before the break, we were talking about boarding your horses. So I have a story about that. I was so excited when I finally got my own farm and could bring my horses home. And over a series of events, my horses ended up back in boarding, so I had them at home on my own farms for about 10 years, and then we ended up back in boarding. And the boarding stable that I went to was the same boarding stable that I had boarded my ponies at when I was in high school, showing so here I am as a 50 year old woman taking my horses back to that same boarding stable. And my friend, we'd been friends for most of my life, ran the barn, and so she was pretty good about, you know, wanting to do things the right way. And so she had the local feed mill actually making her own mix. And it was, you know, whole grains, you know, more whole foods. It wasn't a sweet feed. It was, you know, you could look at it and say, Oh, I see oats, and I see this, and I see this, and it was great. No problems with it. And one day, I walked in the feed room, and there was a whole big old stack of bags of processed feed. And I went, Well, what are we doing here? And I went and read the ingredient label, and I tore it off, and I took it inside the house at the farm, and said, You will not feed this to my horses. I will go buy my own feed. I, you know, I'm I will pay for it out of my own pocket, on top of my board. But this is not good nutrition, and this is not what we are going to feed. Well, I must not have been the only one who complained. Of course, I had seven horses there, and I had a big mouth, and
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:52
I was brave enough to say that to her, but within three days, all that food was gone, and the other food came back in, and maybe it costs a little bit more. And I was just sort of like, Listen, if you have to raise my board by $25 per horse per month in order to get a better food in here, I want the better food. So I think that, you know, the boarding thing is a huge, huge problem. And I want to ask you a question, dried beet pulp.
Dr. Judy Morgan 17:20
Why do people love adding dried beet pulp? And should it be soaked?
Dr. Joyce Harman 17:26
Beet pulp should be soaked. You can actually get away with adding some dried beet pulp because the volume of the horse's digestive tract and moisture that they take in it will process it and and be halfway decent. However, beet pulp is all genetically modified.
Dr. Joyce Harman 17:52
And so many of our issues beet pulp, I think, became genetically modified in 2008
Dr. Joyce Harman 17:59
and because it's an annual crop that's planted every year, of course, they all jumped on the bandwagon, and everything became genetically modified around the time that we were also starting to feed a lot of beet pulp, because horse owners were waking up to the fact that most horses really don't need grain and they don't need the corn and oats, but we still want to sell a $30, $40 bag of food to these people so they can feed four pounds a day. And so they started using beet pulp as sort of a lower calorie filler, if you will. And beet pulp actually has some really good so short chain fiber. It's good for the the microbiome. But as it became all genetically modified, and at the same time, we are dramatically increasing our use of it in horse food
Dr. Joyce Harman 18:58
that's around. It's not exactly the time that we started seeing more and more issues, but since then, I think we have seen more and more health issues, metabolic issues, digestive ulcers, things like that, which we know are all connected to the GMOs. So there's, as far as I know, only one brand that is non GMO, which is the Speedy Beet. There may be getting to be others, and there may be smaller feed companies now that are making or are having farmers grow non GMO beets for them. So if you're feeding a natural brand or a brand that's claiming to be non GMO, there could be beet pulp in there that is non GMO because you can grow it. Amazingly enough, it does actually grow.
Dr. Judy Morgan 19:56
Isn't that funny how we used to grow all kinds of things that were non GMO, and now.
Dr. Joyce Harman 20:00
yeah.
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:04
So let's talk more about your two courses, at least the two courses that we have on DrJudyU. We have Horse Longevity and Horse Healthmanship. What do you talk about in the horse longevity course?
Dr. Judy Morgan
what are the most important things?
Dr. Joyce Harman 20:22
Is a it's kind of an introduction to looking at your horse holistically. So we talk a little bit about vaccination, we talk a little bit about nutrition. It's, it's a short introduction to my style of teaching. It's a broad but not very deep overview into natural horse care, keeping horses outside, trying to feed Whole Foods, trying to use whole food supplements.
Dr. Joyce Harman 20:52
And it's it. If you have been in the holistic field, it's probably not a whole lot that's very new, but if you have somebody who might be interested or is thinking about learning more, that's a great introduction to just that broad brush of, how do we look at our horse more holistically,
Dr. Judy Morgan 21:16
I have to tell you. I mean, I'm a holistic person. And I've been a horse owner for most of my life. And when I watched your Horse Longevity, which you say, is sort of, you know, a broad overview, there were things that I learned in there, and I didn't think that in sort of that very basic course, there would be a whole lot that was new to me, and there was so, you know, i That's why, with that one, I'm like, You know what? I think every horse owner should, should be watching this,
Dr. Judy Morgan 21:51
because it makes us think differently about things that we just take for granted. I mean, we all just take for granted, because our veterinarian says we we should vaccinate with 27 different things every spring and every fall. It makes zero sense. And you know, if somebody told me to do that with my dogs and cats, I'd say, No freaking way. I'm not going to do that. But for so many years, I did that with my horses. And again, if you're boarding, sometimes it's required, and I think that's where we need to stand up. And so basically, with my friend, with the when I was boarding my horses there, I would say, I'll give my own vaccines, thanks. And then just tell her that I did, because there was no way that my horses needed 27 vaccines twice a year. And since we moved to North Carolina, our animals, our horses, they're outside. They have shelter. They can go to when they want to fresh water twice a day, fresh low carb hay and free roaming on 20 acres. And it's they don't need all these vaccines. They're, they're healthy. They they're, I think that we have, we've especially in the show horse world. Oh my god. I worked at a Saddlebred barn in college. It was my summer. I got, I don't know, seven or eight college credits for working at this Saddlebred farm as my summer internship.
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:16
And those horses were locked in their stalls, 23 and a half hours a day in the dark, they weren't, because when they came out of those stalls, they wanted them to go, uh, because that's the Brio that you look for in a saddlebred. What an unnatural life, not to mention they're, you know, feet are this long, stacked up on high shoes and the tail sets. And I learned so much about what not to do with horses,
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:42
but unfortunately, you know, this is the kind of stuff that you you talk about in horse longevity, like things that should seem like they make good sense, and then we turn right around and lock our horses in a little 10 by 10 box for so much of their life
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:02
not normal
Dr. Joyce Harman
No, it's not. And part of what happens in that not normal life is that we start to need a whole lot more supplements. So how many supplements do you actually end up needing to feed your horses that are now free roaming around 20 acres?
Dr. Joyce Harman 24:20
Not a lot, right?
Dr. Judy Morgan
I have issues, not much at all. The only, the only one on anything is I have a donkey who has insulin resistance, and so she has kind of sore feet, and she came to us from, you know, neglect and abuse situation. So she's on the PEA and she's on an herb for the insulin resistance and a hoof supplement. That's it. That's all.
Dr. Joyce Harman
And there's, you know, one of your more complicated cases, or animals that are out there, and so you can you end up. And the way to think about supplementation and sort of two Sentences is you only add the supplements that you actually need. So here's the donkey that has issues. So you add a few supplements that do the trick, and you don't keep adding, adding, adding, you just that animal needs, right? But not every animal in the field needs that. It's just you. The more you keep them in confinement, the more you actually require the gut supplement, the
Dr. Joyce Harman 25:29
the behavior supplements, the because the behavior is, you know, the behavior is abnormal because they're stuck inside, but you then find yourself adding that, and then you have to add the skin supplements, because they aren't rolling in the dirt and being happy they you know that stress shows up everywhere in the body. So you end up with 25 supplements. But even if you look at that, yeah, you realize that you could pare it down to what that animal really needs.
Dr. Judy Morgan 26:06
Exactly. That's what I want to talk about, because we only have a minute or so left. So Horse Healthmanship that dives a lot deeper into nutrition,
Dr. Joyce Harman
yes. So that's in that course I'm it. And that's a, it's a long course, but it's set up in a fun way. You're only allowed to watch 10 minutes a day. It's each each module comes up as 7 - 10 minutes, because that's a it's a new scientific way of learning, because who's going to learn sitting there listening to 45 minutes of me droning on right, but you can tolerate me for seven minutes, and then I'm going to give you an exercise to go do that you actually are going to learn from. And so the course is designed to be fun and educational and help you sort through all the different aspects and figuring out what it is that your horse needs and what they don't need,
Dr Judy Morgan 27:07
exactly, and that that is just critically important information that I think so many of us are lacking. Dr Joyce, we appreciate you so much. We appreciate the gift that you are to the equine world, I always learn from you when I get to talk to you, and I wish you lots and lots of health and luck on your new adventures that you are undertaking. Thank you so much for being my guest today, and thank you so much for making the Horse Longevity and Horse Healthmanship courses. They are amazing. Any equine lover and owner should definitely take these courses. Listen to what Joyce has to say, because she's brilliant.
Dr. Joyce Harman 27:51
Thank you so much, and thank you for having me.
OUTRO
Thanks for listening to another great Naturally Healthy Pets episode. Be sure to check out the show notes for some helpful links. And if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. We value your feedback and we'd love to hear from you on how we're doing. Visit DrJudyMorgan.com for healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, upcoming events and other fantastic resources. Until next time, keep giving your pet the vibrant life they deserve.
DISCLAIMER
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr. Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
