The Truth About Feeding Horses Corn Oil
Updated June 15, 2023
Adding fat to your horse’s diet is a great way to add calories for weight gain and essential fatty acids to improve the coat. But using corn oil for horses is not the right way to go about it. In fact, you might do more harm than good. That’s because all fats are not created equal.
Corn oil contains almost all Omega 6 fatty acids and very little of the anti-inflammatory Omega 3 fatty acids which have many health benefits. While our bodies need both types of omegas, keeping the proper balance between the two is important.
For horses, experts feel that a ratio somewhere in the range of one part Omega 6 to two parts Omega 3 (a 1:2 ratio) or even a 1:4 ratio is ideal. However, our methods of modern horse keeping have shifted the balance by restricting access to Omega 3-rich fresh grass while providing feed high in Omega 6 fatty acids, such as grain-based concentrates. Corn oil has less than ideal ratios of omegas and therefore it is not the best choice for your horse’s nutrition.
Omega Fatty Acid Ratios in Oils and Feeds for Horses
To help you better understand where these two types of essential fatty acids come from and how the balance easily becomes skewed towards the pro-inflammatory Omega 6 side, here is a chart of the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratios in some common horse feeds:
| Feed | Omega 6:Omega 3 |
|---|---|
| Pasture | 1:5, good |
| Commercial, fortified grain | 8:1 |
| Whole grains: oats, corn, barley, wheat, rice | 24:1 |
| Vegetable oils: corn, sunflower | 87:1, 199:1 |
| Vegetable oils: canola, soybean | 3:1, 7:1 |
| Flax seed | 1:4, good |
| Fish oil (includes the specific Omega 3s EPA & DHA) | Virtually all Omega3 |
In a perfect world, we’d all keep our horses turned out on green grass for its benefits to the body as well as the mind! But since that’s not realistic for most people, try to feed as little grain and grain oil as possible to avoid filling your horse with pro-inflammatory Omega 6 fatty acids. Instead, use a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement or ration balancer to fill any nutritional gaps from your forage. Then if you want to add fat for extra calories or a shiny coat, use flax seed or fish oil and fill your horse with healthy, anti-inflammatory Omega 3 fatty acids.
Ask the Vet Video – Is Corn Oil Good for Horses?
SARAH: "Is corn oil good for horses? I've seen people put corn oil in their horse's feed. What are the benefits?"
I am so excited this question got voted to the top, because at my barn when I was a kid, we used to feed corn oil. And now I'm glad I don't anymore.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And lots of barns still do. I mean, I'm not surprised that she's seeing people do this. It was always sort of the go-to oil. But now we have lots of not only liquid oils but solid products, and--
SARAH: Which are a lot less messy.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah. So let's go first for the reasons you would feed it. And I'm going to back up and say why would you feed fat in general, not just the corn oil. You feed fat for calories, for energy. So you have a horse in heavy work or that is a hard keeper, and you just can't maintain his weight and energy with just hay and whatever concentrates you give him.
So fat is a very calorie-dense nutrient. There are some conditions like PSSM, where we found that when you provide fat as a fuel, they seem to do better movement-wise. Their muscles appreciate that.
Now, we're getting more specific. There's specific kinds of fats-- omega-3 fatty acids-- that have been shown to support really healthy skin. So horses that have sweet itch seem to do better when they have omega-3s on board.
That's the problem with corn oil. Corn oil, as you know now, is really high in omega-6s and low in 3s. So the balance is skewed. The problem with that is that 3s tend to support pathways and processes in the body that cool and calm things down, and 6s tend to be exciting and get the body all ramped up.
And we don't want to do that, because it's not just the skin, it's everything. It's joints, it's muscle, it's digestive system. Those omega-6 pathways are-- I'm just going to go ahead and say it. They're on the inflammatory side. They lead to inflammatory mediators and cytokines, and the omega-3s don't.
So we still use fat, but we've gotten away from corn as the source of it, because that ratio is about-- I've seen anywhere from one part omega-3 to 60 parts omega-6, even 80 parts omega-6. And we look at pasture as the ideal ratio, and it's four parts omega-3s to one part omega-6. So even the opposite.
SARAH: Omega-6s is in pasture, and then corn oil is like this.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yes.
SARAH: So of the opposite way. It's not what you want.
DR LYDIA GRAY: It's very hard to come back from that skewed of a ratio. So your choices for, then, a healthy fat would be flax seed, chia seed-- two of the most highest levels of omega-3s in plants-- fish oil. But the other side of it is, what form of fat is convenient for my horse and tastes good?
Sometimes oils, in the summer, can go rancid if they're not stabilized properly, and in the winter, they can get thick and hard to use. And so a lot of people have gone to solid fats. And not, like, like a chunk of fat. I don't mean that. I mean, like--
SARAH: Like a scoop of Crisco.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, no, I mean, like-- the word is prilled. And they're tiny, tiny little granules of fat. They have a little bit of flavoring in them, and they're quite tasty, and they're convenient for everybody to use. And so a lot of people have gone to that.
SARAH: Around here, we affectionately call them greasy fat pearls, which-- how does that not sound appetizing? But the horses do love the taste.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
SARAH: A lot of people, I think, wonder why there aren't more pelleted fat products, because that is always a challenge, especially with hard keepers. A lot of times they're picky eaters, and that's part of what makes them a hard keeper. But fat is just hard to pellet.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Well you said it. Greasy. Things that are greasy don't stay in formed pellets. They just, bleh, fall apart. So we can prill them into the little pearls, but it's very hard to make a larger pellet-like structure that holds together.
SARAH: Fortunately, we have several powder-based, pearl-based fat products that have terrific reviews, both in terms of palatability. So you guys can read reviews from horse owners right on our website.