Posted: 13th June 2019 | Back to news feed
Statement from Sandra Murphy, CEO Equidiet (UK) Ltd
Having had a very exciting and successful first phase (five years of intensive Market Research and Development), we at Equidiet (UK) Ltd have identified where our innovative Equine Nutritional Hydrotherapy concept sits in the industry; we have also had the opportunity to carry out an in depth analysis of our unique formulation.
During this five year period, we have received excellent results, feedback and testimonials from clients in every discipline in over 25 countries. Horses fed exclusively on our products have become Supreme Champions in Endurance, European Gold Medallist’s in Dressage, International and National Champions in Eventing and in the world of Show jumping. We have also seen significant growth in successes across the clinical nutrition field with several veterinary practices, equine hospitals, and universities routinely using our formulations in their clinics. Our formulations work in synergy with the natural digestive function of the horse and we are pleased to announce that these have now gone from Patent Pending to Patent Granted across the UK and Europe.
The definition of healthy diet is ‘one that helps to maintain or improve overall health’.
A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition; fluid, adequate amino acids from protein, carbohydrates, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, fibre and adequate calories. All of our formulations provide a ‘healthy natural wholefood diet’ when fed alongside forage which is how it has been designed to work.
The development of EquidGel® over the last 6 years has been in response to the difficulty experienced when attempting to hydrate horses during times of heat or exertion stress. Because of feeds high in Non-structural Carbohydrates, stress and management techniques there has been a dramatic increase in horses prone to equine gastrointestinal and metabolic disorders such as Equine Metabolic Syndrome, Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome, Laminitis and stereotypical behaviours.
The reluctance of horses to drink has been evidenced to cause many problems throughout history; therefore we saw this as a key area to address and to develop a method of uptake of fluids to satisfy the horse’s metabolic needs and to replenish nutrients and fluid lost whilst working. Our formulations are highly palatable, natural alfalfa based, liquid feeds that appeal to the horse’s very powerful instinct to forage rather than the regulatory thirst response. Traditionally, electrolytes have been used to increase water uptake, however our concept uses a very different approach; the natural taste encourages uptake, and as a result, higher levels of electrolytes are not necessary if horses are drinking voluntarily. The water bound to the soluble fibre acts as a feed and is compartmentalised to the hind gut creating a reservoir for storage of water for use as and when required.
The development of this innovative, revolutionary formulation as an alternative natural whole food has been targeted at those who want to move away from additives, chemicals, GMO and bulking agents in their horse’s daily ration. We believe that horses should be fed as close to ‘Mother Nature’ as possible and therefore their diet should consist of forage and forage based concentrated feeds; however these have varying levels of nutrients according to the growing seasons and because our formulations are from grown crops, the nutritional values may differ from batch to batch.
Our extensive examinations have found that there are minute variations of certain nutrients that occur naturally in forage and forage based feeds that are highly unlikely to cause any detrimental effects when fed alongside forage (See tables below). Following scrutiny of our results from two independent laboratories, we have decided to place our formulations in the complimentary feedstuff category to be fed alongside forage. We are reluctant to include any unnatural chemicals, premixes or additives in any of our feeds and are very proud of our ‘free from’ status and the fact that our quality products are made from the finest, top grade ingredients using quality UK suppliers.
Table 1. Shows the minuscule variation in amounts explained above, in a ration of 10kg of Hay and 2.5kg of EquidGel against the RDI from the NRC 2007.
Table 2. Variations in Amounts (The highlighted area is a ration for a typical 500kg horse).
|
Nutrient |
Amount variable in 12.5kg (as 100% ration as a complete diet) in grams |
Amount variable in 300g of EquidGel (Typical 500kg horse) |
Amount variable in 1 kg of EquidGel |
|
Sodium |
5.3g |
0.0126g |
0.42g |
|
Manganese |
0.0625g |
0.00015g |
0.005g |
|
Zinc |
0.1g |
0.00024g |
0.008g |
|
Vitamin A Retinol (0.3ug/1IU) |
0.003g |
0.0000072g |
0.00024g |
|
Vitamin E Tocopheral (0.67mg/1IU) |
0.36g |
0.000864g |
0.0288g |
Phase 2 will commence with the reformulation of our existing products to meet all EU Regulations, UK Accreditations and to continue to meet all EU labelling and packaging standards. We are all excited and look forward to the prospect of the commercial stage and re-launch in April 2020, when the products will be manufactured under license by our accredited production partners.
Equidiet (UK) Ltd will concentrate on marketing and distribution moving forward. We would like to thank everyone who has supported us up to this point and hope that all our hard work developing this new concept will see Equine Nutritional Hydrotherapy launched as a pioneering step forward for Equine Nutrition as well as contributing to the health and welfare of Equines across the world.
For more information contact:
Sandra Murphy BSc (Hons) Equine Sports Science
Equine Nutritional Hydrotherapist
+44 (0) 1472 859593
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