Lysine-T - Breeding and Young Horses

Vetpro Lysine-T for Young and Breeding Horses provides the two limiting essential amino acids, lysine and threonine, to help maximise the use of digestible protein already present in the diet. Rather than simply increasing the amount of protein fed, Vetpro Lysine-T for Young and Breeding Horses is designed to improve protein quality, supporting healthy growth and muscle development in young horses, while also helping pregnant and lactating mares meet the increased nutritional demands of reproduction and milk production.

Young horses and brood mares have a greater nutritional demand for high-quality protein than mature horses. During growth, pregnancy and lactation, ensuring an adequate supply of the essential amino acids needed to utilise dietary protein is particularly important for healthy development and optimum performance. Vetpro Lysine-T for Young and Breeding Horses provides lysine and threonine, the two limiting essential amino acids that help maximise the use of digestible protein already present in the diet.

Protein is in every cell in the body, muscles, tendons, organs, glands, hooves and hair.

Protein is a collection of amino acids, much like bricks in a wall. There are two types, essential and non-essential. The latter can be ingested or mainly created within the body of the horse. The essential ones must be taken up from the diet.

There are only two limiting amino acids, these are Lysine and Threonine. A limiting amino acid is one that if not present, will prevent protein from being made, even if other amino acids are present in adequate quantities.

Therefore, protein quality can be improved (released) by supplementing with these two limiting amino acids. So just increasing the quantity of protein fed to a horse will not improve the uptake and increasing the amount of protein (or a protein supplement) can be detrimental to the health of the horse.

It is sometimes considered that the growing horse needs extra protein to maximise condition and muscle. In particular, young Thoroughbreds are fed high grain diets to maximise growth for the early demands of racing.

Overfeeding this protein has negative influences on the health of the horse (Mok & Urschel, 2020). Also, overfeeding protein has an acidogenic effect, it results in an increase of lactic acid in the system (Graham-Thiers & Kronfeld, 2005).

Acidogenic means a lowered pH level of the blood resulting in compromised health of the horse.

Amino acid balance/protein quality is especially important for growing horses and pregnant/lactating mares, while adult horses are less sensitive to protein quality (National Research Council, 2007).

Scientific studies on young horses have shown that supplementation with Lysine and Threonine safely optimised growth rates (Staniar et al., 2001).

It was found that lysine intake appears to be a greater factor than energy or protein in influencing bodyweight gain of weanlings (Ott & Kivipelto, 2002).

Fortification of the diet with Lysine and Threonine can allow the total quantity of protein, and in particular grains, to be decreased while still promoting optimum growth and muscle mass (Graham-Thiers & Kronfeld, 2005).

It has been scientifically shown that Lysine and Threonine supplementation in grazing lactating mares enhanced milk production and improved milk protein and fat quality (Lin et al., 2024).

Foal growth during lactation is influenced significantly by the quality of protein ingested by the mare.

The dietary protein intake of the lactating broodmare should therefore contain sufficient high-quality protein to prevent depletion of her body reserves (van Niekerk & van Niekerk, 1997).

Vetpro Lysine-T also contains a yeast culture and yeast extract to aid with palatability and digestibility. It also enhances the activity of fibre digesting bacteria which increases nutrient availability and absorption.

In summary where to use Vetpro Lysine-T:

In the young growing horse to maximise growth rates.

In the active horse used for moderate to heavy work.

In horses where the increase of protein may result in the horse blowing, overheating and producing high ammonia in the urine.

A measure for the daily requirement of lysine for a 500 kg horse is 27 g (National Research Council, 2007) and it has been calculated that threonine is 0.62 of that. So ideally 16–17 g (Mok & Urschel, 2020).

It is important to check the amount being fed in premix feeds and adjust the amount being supplemented accordingly. Adjust for the amount stated in the premix feed compared to the recommended amount as it shows a total amount.

Every 50gm dose delivers:
20gm Lysine
15gms Threonine
15gms yeast extract/culture

Dosage: The daily dose rate is 25gm for foals and yearlings and 50gm for mature and older horses (500 kg LWT).

Available Size: 1.5kg foil bags