[Lucky Duck]

My senior mare is getting Corn Oil now... I was told it had the highest fat content.

Is there anywhere that I can get the nutrition analysis/info on different oils?

[Sue B]

In general, oil is oil....exceptions fall only to speicalized oils such as fish/flax. But, oils made for "cooking" are all 100% fat (others are generally around 95-98%. Since oil is simply the fat extracted from the plant product, there is little to nothing else in it. They are generally all considered to be 100% even when they have things added. Additives are vit E as a preservative, and sometimes other vitamins. In general, oils are considered "empty" calories...that is, there is no significant nutritional value except the fat content.

Here is a site that has nutritional values for foods....the link will go diredtly to corn oil, you can compare other types of oils by typing them in the search. You will notice that all of the oils....corn, veggie, all purpose cooking/salad...are all lumped together because the nutritional value is the same.
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c209M.html

[Dawn]

As Sue said, they all have the same. I base mine on what's cheapest (currently paying about 3 cents an ounce).

[ejforrest]

"Fats, such as corn oil, soybean oil, or the fat contained in stabilized rice bran(rice bran is 22% fat-while fat oils are usually 100% fat), are the most common sources of fat in the horses diet. On a weight for weight basis, fat contains roughly 2.25 times more energy as corn, oats, and barley. In particular, vegetable fats are very palatable and highly digestible".
"Fat is particularly useful for horses which cannot or will not eat enough of the more tradidtional feedstuffs(hay and grain), the result being a steady decline in body condition and performance. Adding fat will increase the energy densisty of the diet so that a lower feed intake is required to maintain body weight."
"Adding fat also allows you to feed less grain, therby helping to reduce the risk of colic, founder, tying up, diarrhea, and ulcers associated with excess grain feeding".
"The practice of providing supplemental fat to the equine diet has become increasingly popular in the horse industry".
"In addition to increasing the energy density of the ration, fat supplementation has been shown to have various positive effects on exercise metabolism and other physiological parameters".
More on feeding fats:
www.thehorse.com/printarticle.aspx?ID=3895

[luvs2ride79]

Just look on the bottle. It will give you the percentage of fat content. Go to the grocery store and look around!

Now, if you're looking for a specific type of fat, you'll need to do some research. Like Corn Oil is high in Omega 6, but has virtually no Omega 3. Omega 3 is what is really good for their hooves and coat. The oils that have the highest Omega 3 levels are Sunflower and Flax. Fortified Wheat Germ oil is also very good.

Of course, you can same some money and feed just the seeds themselves (for Sunflower and Flax). The horses seem to really like both and they are high in fat and fiber on their own. They pass the shells easily and digest the "meat" of the seed. Black Oil Sunflower seeds are cheap and come in 50lbs bags at almost any feed store. Flax can be a little harder to find and more expensive, but they seem to be higher in fat, so you can feed less. At least, this has been my experience.

We had our "hard keeper" on various kinds of supplements to put weight on. What finally worked was Flax Seeds (about 1lb a day) and VERY GOOD hay. Now he's off almost all of his grain and keeping his weight nicely.

~Barbara