About

Nutri-horse is a family owned business based at East Kurrajong in the Hawkesbury District of NSW. We are the NSW agents for Hi Form Australia and Johnsons Natural Feeds founded and owned by Antoinettle Foster who is based in Victoria. My name is Debbie Stadthaus and together with my daughter Nadine Stadthaus we are the co-founders of Nutri-horse. We promote and sell these high value, nutritionally superior, natural foods and supplements for enhanced well-being in horses. We genuinely love these products and would not consider feeding our horses anything else.

We were introduced to the products in 2006 and bear testimony to their wonderful healing and sustaining properties. Although we believed at the time that our horses had a good, balanced diet, we were amazed at the health improvements seen after using the products. Health and behavioural problems in horses can often be linked to inadequate nutrition. The old saying “we are what we eat” is also true for horses (and other animals). We now know that many of the feeds we used previously contained fillers, chemicals, sugars and other harmful ingredients. Although these feeds seemed relatively cost effective in reality they are more expensive when considering the amount needed per feed and the additional problems they often caused.  

Antoinette Foster is an Equine Nutritional Therapist and Medical Herbalist. Her knowledge of nutrition and herbs, her understanding of the equine digestive system and the problems horses commonly encounter are integral to the unique range of formulas she has developed and continues to do so.

Our vision is to see as many horses as possible benefiting from good nutrition and enhanced well-being whether a child’s pony or a performance horse. We will achieve this through education, promotion of the products and by striving to make them available to all NSW horse owners at an affordable and sustainable cost. I bring to the business many years of experience with horses and a knowledge of complimentary natural therapies. Nadine is a qualified nutritionist who fully understands the importance of a natural, balanced diet and the uniqueness of each horse and its needs. Together supported by Antoinette and the HI-Form team in Victoria we can help you provide your horse with a healthy, natural diet and find the best solution to your horse’s needs.

Why we formed Nutri-horse

We first met Antoinette Foster, the owner and founder of Hi Form Australia at Equitana Melbourne 2006. Antoinette was an Educator presenter and had her Hi Form stand in the pavilion. After listening to her presentation I decided I would seek her advice on our Arabian mare Raine. Raine was constantly presenting with Colic symptoms, some times the colic attacks were quite mild other times a vet was required. I explained to Antonette about Raine’s issues and she suggested it was very likely the feed I had her on as most feed are processed and not natural to the horse. After some discussion Antoinette wrote out a diet for Raine, going back to the basics feeding a natural diet with a HiForm supplement CompletaVite. It is now 2014 and Raine has not had colic since we changed her diet.

Probably the most astonishing result we have had it with our Friesian Warmblood Pixie. Pixie was born unbeknown to us at that stage with a damaged jaw and consequently was not getting the nutrition she needed, she also had no colostrum milk as her mother refused to feed her for the first 10hrs. Pixie’s health started to go down hill dramatically, she walked like a crab and had OCD of the joints while all this was going on her mother had became very aggressive toward us and as a result we could not get a vet near her or Pixie.  At approx. 8 weeks of age her mother trod on her leg while she was laying down and this resulted in a crushed pastern bone and her hock was badly damaged. It was a while before we could get a vet to see Pixie but when we did and she was x-rayed we were advised to euthanize her, it was extremely unlikely that Pixie would ever be able to live a normal life and was very doubtful that she would ever be paddock sound.  Today Pixie is paddock sound and has started a simple ridden career, yes she does have her ups and downs but my proudest moment was when the vet who had been on this journey with me from the beginning came to see her only recently and was astonished at how well she was moving. There is no doubt in my mind that Hi Form products are the reason Pixie is still here with us. To view the supplements Pixie is on go to the Nutri-horse model page.