First
and foremost forage is the foundation of every horses diet, so start by
ensuring your hay or haylage is of good quality and fed adlib, ideally in the
field as well as the stable. Far from being ‘just bulk’, forage provides the
lion share of your horse’s energy (calorie) intake and is essential for
maintaining gut health. If your horse is a ‘fussy-feeder’ it may be worth
monitoring how much forage he is ‘choosing’ to eat, aiming for a minimum of 1.5% bodyweight per day, (7.5-8kg/
day for a 500kg horse). Although grass intake is impossible for horse owners to
measure, it can generally be ignored for underweight horses on poor pasture. Haylage
is not automatically ‘richer’ as commonly thought and it is important to
remember that due to higher moisture content, you need to feed approximately
1.2-1.5 times more haylage than hay by weight. Forage analysis is the only way to determine
the nutritional value of both hay and haylage and may be particularly useful
when it comes to calculating haylage rations or choosing the most suitable
forage supply for you individual horse. If your horse or pony has poor teeth,
look for a short chop hay replacer or a cube that be soaked to make a mash.
Although
moving to a ‘conditioning’ feed may seem like the obvious choice, start by
checking that you are feeding the recommended ration of your current feed as a
simple increase may be all that is needed; even if your feed says ‘low energy’
or ‘low calorie’ on the bag. If this doesn’t achieve the desired result; look
for a feed containing higher levels of digestible energy and protein. Choosing
fibre and oil rather than cereal based feeds is the most sympathetic option
both in terms of digestive health and preventing unwanted excitability. However
if your horse is prone to any clinical conditions such as laminitis, colic or
tying-up, speak to a nutritionist before changing his feed. Traditionally sugar
beet has been a common addition to winter diets and although it is high in
calories and fibre, it contains approximately 80% water once soaked, making it
easy to overestimate how much of it you are feeding. Whilst a Stubbs scoop of
soaked beet pulp may look like a significant contribution to your horse’s
bucket, it actually contains limited nutritional value. In fact, just 1 scoop
of Horse of Pony Cubes is approximately 5 times higher in calories!
Finally
make sure your horse is well rugged to help ensure he isn’t wasting valuable
energy from his feed keeping warm. If you are reaching for an extra duvet you
may need to think about doing the same for your horse!
