Nutrition And Feeding Of Performance Horses Educational Package

Texans spend over $950/yr./horse in feeding and emergency health care, related to nutrition and health programs, for their performance horses. Performance horseowners want to decrease the money and time spent on non-productive practices and many want to increase the level of performance, longevity and earnings of their horses. Excellent horse nutritional technical publications are available for study. Individual consultations are offered by feed company technical representatives and veterinarians. County Extension Agents (CEAs) and feed company representatives conduct educational meetings focused on feeding performance horses. High school agricultural science teachers and college instructors teach performance horse nutrition in equine science classes. Association education coordinators seek horse nutritionists as speakers at their performance horseowners meetings. With these educational efforts ongoing, costs and problems should be reduced; however, it appears that many science-based feeding practices still aren't being implemented to their fullest. Horse owners have expressed their educational needs. Coordinators, teachers and facilitators want to better serve performance horse clientele, but have less time to plan, prepare, teach and evaluate their programs. CEAs face the difficult task of measuring the economic impact of their horse programs.To address these needs, an educational package for performance horse owners plus teachers was developed. The package was offered to six target audiences plus horse owners. Utilization of the package, plus its impact on money and time saved, as well as feeding confidence level changes, was measured. The Basic Nutrition and Feeding of Performance Horses package includes three videotapes, an owner self-study booklet and a teacher supplement. The package was developed in 1995, pilot tested and initially implemented, through 1996 in six target audiences. From October 1, 1995 through February I, 1997 package material(s) were used at 44 performance horse activities and were viewed by 2,858 persons (owners and target audience coordinators). One thousand fifty-nine (1,059) adult horse owners, owning an average of 3 to 4 horses, increased (or clarified) their knowledge and skills in feeding performance horses by 44%, as a result of being trained with the package material(s). Package implementation will continue in 1997, with the continued focus being on impact measurement.