Protein is the third component that will add calories to a diet and they vary in structure, role and efficacy.

What is protein and what does it consist of?

The building blocks for protein are amino acids, 22 in total. A number of those can be produced by the horse but there are 10 amino acids which are essential, which means they have to be in the diet because the horse cannot produce them himself in sufficient quantities to meet the demand for them.

The quality of a protein is higher when all 10 essential amino acids are present and in proper proportions to each other. In order to balance all these amino acids and to have a ‘pool’ of amino acids the body can take from, it is necessary to combine certain feed elements together. To build any protein, all the necessary amino acids for that particular protein need to be present at the same time.