Nerida McGilchrist is an equine nutritionist who holds a Bachelor of Rural Science degree with first class honors and a PhD in Equine Nutrition from the University of New England, Armidale, NSW Australia. She is also a registered animal nutritionist (equine) with the Nutrition Society of Australia.

As principal consultant for Equilize Horse Nutrition since 2003, McGilchrist has provided high-level technical consultation services to feed companies, educational institutions, and individual horse industry members. Services she has provided include the development and formulation of new commercial feeds or reformulation of existing commercial feeds for national and international companies; expert witness services; the researching and writing of educational material for national and international companies; providing educational support to schools, riding clubs, colleges, and universities; and assisting with the development of feeding programs for large breeding establishments and racing stables.

As Equilize’s managing director, McGilchrist has also been responsible for the vision, design, and development/management of the FeedXL Equine Nutrition decision support software, along with its successful sales and marketing efforts to date. In addition, she is currently developing a new website at MyHappy.Horse.

McGilchrist has many areas of interest, especially gut health, “the impact of how we feed on the gut microbes, and the flow-on effects to health and behavior in our horses.” She is also passionate about educating horse owners on the topic of stomach physiology and the prevention of squamous gastric ulcers.

McGilchrist’s favorite mission is providing the tools and education that horse owners need to feed properly balanced diets in the face of many potentially confusing options and opinions.

When she’s not working, you can find McGilchrist hanging out with her two children, traveling with her partner Ryan, making bread, cooking (especially Thai food), growing vegetables, or riding one of their six horses.

You may contact McGilchrist through equilize.com.au.

Papers on which McGilchrist was invited to participate include:

Nutritional and Non-nutritional Aspects of Forage  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33820609/ (as Nerida Richards) and

The Fibre Requirements of Horses and the Consequences and Causes of Failure to Meet Them https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37106977/