Everything Explained - Feeding the Stallion
If you've made the decision to stand a stallion at stud your success will largely be determined by your stallion's fertility. As diet is thought to have an impact on fertility and reproductive performance, paying careful attention to what your stallion is consuming could pay dividends.
Energy Requirements
Just as for all horses and ponies, the individual stallion's energy requirements will vary according to a number of factors including breed and temperament. It is suggested that stallions generally have a greater energy requirement than mares or geldings with the same characteristics, probably about 10% more for maintenance in the non-breeding season. Once the stallion starts covering the number of covers he carries out, whether for mares or for collection for AI, largely determines his energy requirements. Covering 12 times a week would be considered as intensive and have an increased energy requirement of 20% over the stallion's maintenance level.
There is little or no data reporting on how common a problem erectile dysfunction is in stallions. The most common causes reported are mismanagement or the association of pain with the covering experience and clearly changing the diet isn't going to remedy these causes. In humans there is a suggestion though, that being overweight can also cause problems and so if your stallion isn't performing and is overweight, a weight loss program should be introduced. As a balanced diet is vital for good health and fertility, stallions that are overweight or good doers should be fed low calorie sources of vitamins and minerals such as balancers or supplements. Dengie Alfa-A Balancer or Performance Vits & Mins supplement would be ideal as they contain optimum levels of key vitamins and minerals for general health and fertility.
Nutrition and Fertility
Relatively little work has been done with horses in relation to the effects of diet on fertility and so most of the information available comes from other species.
Fatty acids are found in cell membranes and studies have shown that essential fatty acids are present in semen in much larger quantities than other mammalian tissues. In other species it is commonplace to feed additional omega 3 fatty acids to try and improve fertility particularly where semen is being chilled or frozen as more robust cell membranes enable the sperm to better withstand the rigours of chilling, freezing and thawing.
Although the horse wouldn't consume high levels of oil naturally as grass is very low in oil, the oil it does contain has higher levels of omega 3 than 6 and so the horse's overall diet would have an higher omega 3 content than omega 6. As omega 6 effectively competes with omega 3, high omega 6 intakes can be detrimental to the horse. Cereals are higher in omega 6 than 3 and so the more cereals that are used in the ration, the more supplementary omega 3 becomes important.
The best sources of omega 3 are fish oil as this contains EPA and DHA which are in the form that the animal needs them. For those who prefer not to feed fish oil then hemp oil is the next best option as it contains stearidonic acid which requires fewer steps to convert it to EPA than omega 3 from other sources such as linseed and soya.
Zinc is a trace mineral commonly recognised as being important for fertility and this is because it is a key constituent of testosterone. Interestingly, the requirements for zinc for stallions are no different whether covering or not which suggests that as with most nutrients, providing enough is crucial but feeding extra may have no beneficial effect.
A study in 2005 on human males showed that increasing levels of the antioxidant vitamins E and C and beta carotene resulted in higher sperm numbers and motility. Beta carotene is a pre-cursor of Vitamin A but is now known to be beneficial in its own right. There are have been many studies in dairy cattle looking at the effect of beta carotene on female fertility but less work done in equines either male or female. The main sources of beta carotene in a horse's diet are green leafy plants and so the horse at grass should be consuming plenty of beta carotene. The stabled stallion however, being fed older or poorer quality forage, may be consuming considerably less. Adding alfalfa to the ration would provide lots of beta carotene as illustrated by its dark green colour.
Vitamin E is regularly included in feeds, supplements and balancers by manufacturers and so using the recommended amount of one of these should supply sufficient for most stallions. However, vitamin C is not routinely added and as the horse's requirements tend to increase at times of stress, sourcing a feed that does contain supplementary vitamin C such as Dengie Alfa-A Balancer, may prove beneficial in relation to fertility.
Practical Considerations
An intensive covering programme can have many effects on a stallion's behaviour and a fairly common reaction is for them to go off their feed. This can obviously have an impact on the weight of the stallion but over a prolonged period could potentially affect fertility as essential nutrients are missing from the diet. As sperm take 60 days to develop, the effects on fertility may only become apparent much later.
In these situations very concentrated feeds may be useful as they supply the essential nutrients needed for health in a small volume of feed. With regard to maintaining energy intake, using high energy feeds such as Fibremix Complement is vital as even a small amount consumed will provide lots of calories. For stallions that are prone to being over-excitable or difficult to handle then using feeds that contain low levels of starch and sugar which are more likely to result in or exacerbate feisty behaviour is advisable. Fibre and oil are both slow release energy sources and feeds such as Alfa-A Oil that combine the two have an energy value equivalent to a conditioning or stud mix. Therefore it is possible to supply enough energy in a slow release form.
