Getting your horse or pony to lose weight can be challenging, as you’re trying to restrict their feed intake without increasing the risk of problems such as gastric ulcers and colic. Finding a balance between their feed intake and calorie restriction is key for beneficial obesity management. So, what horse feed do you give to an overweight horse and how do you manage their weight? We’ve put together some top tips to assist you in helping your horse to lose weight, below.
How Do You Know That Your Horse Is Overweight?
Like taking your horses’ temperature, their weight should be monitored regularly too to ensure that their weight isn’t fluctuating too much and if it is, so you can pick up on it early and act accordingly. It also helps you to manage other issues factors, including supplying the right quantity of wormer. There are a number of ways that you can determine whether your horse is overweight or not, including looking at their body score condition, weighing them and using a weight tape. If you are unable to feel your horses’ ribs and their bottom is rather round, then you definitely need to reduce their feed intake.
Weigh Your Horse Feed
As well as weighing your horse, it’s important that you weigh their feed too. Do you know how much they are actually getting? If you don’t, then this is when portion sizes can begin to gradually increase, especially when you are estimating by scoop or volume how much to feed your horse.
Every horse is different and so it’s important that you know how much hard feed and forage they should be receiving for their size, weight, work done, rider and body score condition. You can start by learning how much your scoop holds, as you will then be able to adjust the amount you are feeding your horse accordingly. If you know how much you feed your horse, you will be able to create a dieting regime that doesn’t restrictthe amount of feed they receive too suddenly. All changes should be done gradually, so the first step is to reduce their intake to 1.5% of their current body weight.
Don’t Forget About Forage
It’s important to remember that forage makes up a percentage of your horses’ diet and shouldn’t be forgotten when looking to manage their feed intake. Haylage can sometimes provide too many calories for good doers, so you may want to consider using a suitable alternative. This could be to replace a proportion of haylage with good quality oat straw, as a lower-calorie source of fibre.
Using Straw In Their Diet
By adding straw into your horses’ diet, you can help to dilute the calorie intake from forage. Providing your horse is able to chew well your horse will be able to digest the straw without causing problems such as colic. You can add up to 30% of straw into their haynet along with hay, so they don’t consume as many calories. If you decide to do this, you may want to consider either reducing the size of their straw bed, or opting for a different type of bedding, such as shavings, so they don’t consume too much straw.
Monitor Their Grass Intake
For some overweight horses and ponies, especially those prone to laminitis, you may want to remove them completely from grass until their weight has been reduced. Alternatively, you can use a grazing muzzle, allowing your horse to enjoy the freedom in the field and some grass, whilst restricting their intake. It’s advised that you only use a muzzle for part of the day. Once you have removed the muzzle, you should take them off the grass and give them access to forage.
Increase Work Load
When you increase the exercise for your horse, this should be done gradually too, especially as an overweight horse will have additional strain on them, making exercise harder work. If you find that your horse is a little lazy, but fit enough for the work you are asking of them, then you may need to alter their feed. You should consider whether their restricted diet is balanced. You may need to top their feed up with additional vitamins and minerals to ensure that they’re getting all the nutrition they require, which they aren’t getting from the grass or other feed.
Problems Obesity Can Cause
- EMS – Equine Metabolic Syndrome
EMS is the name given to describe different symptoms, such as recurrent laminitis, insulin dysregulation or resistance and obesity. Studies have shown that fat tissue (adipose) over time can develop and secrete hormones. Hormones (chemical messengers in the body) produced by the adipose tissue are known as adipokines, which can impact , glucose regulation, inflammation, the immune system and potentially contribute tumour development.For blood glucose levels to remain in a normal range, it involves numerous hormones, including insulin, that respond to the intake of horse feed. If the body no longer responds to insulin in the usual way it is referred to as insulin resistance.
- Insulin Dysregulation
Insulin dysregulation is a collection of metabolic and endocrine abnormalities that are associated with the development of laminitis in ponies and horses, making it a key component of EMS.
Calories vs Energy
A horse receiving more energy than it requires will store the energy as fat, resulting in them gaining weight. In human terms we think of this as calories but this is actually just a way of measuring energy. In order to promote weight gain, you need to feed more energy and so the opposite is true for horses that are overweight – a lower energy horse feed is required.
, What Does DE Stand For?
DE is a term used to measure the energy value of horse feed. Feed manufacturers aren’t obliged to declare it on their bags, as it isn’t a recognised measure for hoses. Despite this, many do give a DE value, as it indicates the energy value of the feed for the horse. Therefore, when buying a suitable feed for your horse, look at the DE to see how much energy it will have for your horse.
In horse feed energy is measured in joules rather than calories as this is a decimal measurement system. A MJ is a mega joule and that is what you will see on a bag of feed. As a guide a really low energy horse feed would contain around 7MJ/kg – these would typically be based on low calorie fibre sources such as straw.
If you would like more information about what to feed your horse and how to manage their weight, don’t hesitate to contact an experienced equine nutritionist. They will be able to help you to create a bespoke feeding plan for your horse, taking weight, temperament, age, work, body condition score, time of year and rider all into consideration.
