Copra meal consists of the dried, baked, and ground flesh of the coconut. Copra meal’s low NSC content makes it a potentially good choice of additional calories from fat for NSC-sensitive horses. | Photo: iStock

Q. My gelding needs to gain weight. In addition to hay I feed him a ration balancer, and I’ve considered adding rice bran for extra fat calories. However, a friend suggested adding coconut meal instead of rice bran. What is the difference between these two products, and is one better than the other?

A. Rice bran and coconut (copra) meal are commonly added to equine diets for their fat content. Rice bran contains about 15 to 18% fat while copra meal is about 8 to 10% fat. On a calories-per-pound basis both feeds are comparable at around 1.4 to 1.6 mega calories (Mcal) of digestible energy per pound; for comparison, most grass hays typically provide just under 1 Mcal per pound. Therefore, both feeds add concentrated energy to equine rations.

While some high-fat food products are at risk of rancidity, commercial high-fat horse feeds tend to contain perserving antioxidants (such as extra vitamin E), and some rice brans have gone through a process to deactivate the endogenous lipase enzyme, so the fat becomes stable and less at risk of rancidity. Copra meal has a naturally lower risk of rancidity due to the type of fat it contains, but be aware that it can still become rancid