🍏🍏🍏HAY, YOU!🍏🍏🍏
Have you had a think about the body score of your horse lately? How does it relate to this diagram? (Diagram from Hygain)
There can be a huge number of factors that go into your horse’s weight. Are they being fed enough roughage? Are they getting a balanced diet? Are their nutritional needs being met? Do you understand what is in their pellet feeds? Do you know what quality your grass or hay is?
Feeding your horse can be a nightmare. There’s no one set menu plan we can make up for our horses, each and every one of them is different with a variety of needs and issues.
What we do need to understand is how a horse’s body works. They need to be able to access some kind of feed at all times, whether grass or being able to have hay constantly. We as humans have taken many of our horses out of their natural environments and put them into smaller and smaller yards and given them regular twice daily meal times. But what happens for the other hours in between? Their stomach acid builds up and causes ulcers! Horses need something ticking over in their bellies to stop this from happening.
Also, when they have almost nothing to graze on in the yards they will pick at new shoots of grass or weeds and ingest more sand and dirt than they should. This can result in colic. With the rain we have lately it’s really important to be aware of this. If we provide more hay, they’re less likely to forage for the new shoots (you’ll never stop them entirely) but it can be a good preventative. Feeding psyllium husks to remove the sand once a month can also really help with sand removal.
There are feed companies who will do free diet analysis and give you suggestions and recommendations of what you should feed your horses to make them happy and healthy. There are horse nutritionists, herbalists, dieticians who can give you an even better understanding of what to feed.
A thin horse can have many problems, they can have health issues that cause them to be thin, or they could have inadequate food to keep them well, thus in turn causing health issues, ulcers being a major one. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle really.
Don’t forget that a thin horse won’t be comfortable under saddle either, without some fat along their backs you are really just perching on their rib cages. I see many people ask what they can feed their horse for top line, but in reality top line is a combination of fat and muscle along their backs. You need a bit of both!
The best advice I can offer you is seek veterinary advice to make sure your horse is healthy if you are in doubt. Following that, make sure you are feeding enough roughage of hay or pasture. Your horse may also need a hard feed to supplement anything they may not be getting in their roughage.
Too much feed can make for a fat and unhealthy horse, sometimes resulting in behavioural issues.
Not enough feed can also make for an unwell and uncomfortable horse that also will result in pain and behavioural issues.
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I spent several hours with a nutritionist the other day, for me, for my health. I’ve been aching all over. My body hurts from the moment I get up to the moment I fall asleep. I just thought this was an occupational hazard and I kept on at my job and ignored my body. I was happy about it. Sometimes I complained but mostly I just did my thing.
Well one of my lovely clients is a nutritionist (ask for her details if you like, she’s sensational) and I decided to go and see her to see what she could suggest. Turns out I’m significantly lacking in magnesium and vitamin B12, which would make me tired and achy.
I’ve spent years ignoring my body. It’s not great, but it could be better! I found it absolutely fascinating that a lot of things I lack are things I make sure that my horses have because I know they need them, but never paid too much attention to myself because hey, I’m young and I’ll work it off with riding right? I know on the body scale I’m not too thin, but I’m not too large either, so I should be about right? Wrong. It’s not just about the body score, not just about the outside when it comes to nutrition.
My point is here, that many horses are just like us, they keep going with their job, they don’t complain until things get too unbearable. Then it might present itself with a health issue or behaviour resulting from a health issue, but our horses can’t just decide to see a doctor or a nutritionist or a physio or chiro. We need to be on top of this for them. We need to be more in tune with our horses.
So do yourself a favour today, have a think about your horse, look at them with a fresh set of eyes. Are they of a good weight? Have they bones poking out? Are they obese? Check the body scale chart attached. Have they got behavioural issues? Do they bite at their bellies, lift a leg when saddled up? Is something about your horse telling you it’s just not quite comfortable? Is it something you could fix and adjust yourself? Or do you need a professional to help reassess.
I’m always more than happy to have a chat to you about these things when I come out to your horses, and point you in the direction of any health professionals you might need to get your horse back on track.
Here’s to our happy, healthy horses!