Feed & Your Horse (and what they wish you knew...)

*This is the start of what I hope to be many educational and informational posts to come. I've learned a lot in owning horses and being in school for them has only added. The work of a horse owner is never done, in my eyes: there are always new things to learn, and I want to share the many lessons I've retained. Please keep in mind, while I have plenty of sources (which I will often give) for this information, I do insert my own opinion, beliefs and practices on a regular basis. If you've found a better way to do something, please share! We all could benefit from more honest, good information and healthy discussion. With that said, here we go!

I've tossed around a lot of different feeding programs for Stella, and did so for Ernie when he was alive, especially as a senior horse. I've done hours of research, spent entire classes studying just feed and nutrition, and gone through multiple feed changes to see what would work. Obviously a lot of horse owners recognize that a good feeding program is pretty essential, but what exactly does a "good feeding program" mean? It can vary pretty intensely from one horse to the next: you don't want to be feeding your 20 year old, founder-prone school pony the same diet the Prelim level eventer who is stabled next to him gets. And that horse shouldn't be fed the same as the weanling draft cross in the end stall.

It can be really, really nightmare-ish trying to sort through feed labels and research protein and carbohydrate and fiber requirements and then come across scary new research that suggest that this, this and this could be detrimental to your horse's health. Feeding program and suggestions change about as often as the weather (and in Vermont that happens, um, every 5 minutes. If it's sunny where you are, you can bet 10 miles up the road it's raining...) and most vets are not feed experts: it's not something that is covered extensively in veterinary school, if it's covered at all.

Basically, creating a feed program is a science AND an art. You can't be afraid to try things, but everything has to be done slowly and gradually, the latter being really key.

Some Simple Do's & Don'ts

Easiest way to start analyzing your horse's feed program? Check through this list. Many previous ways of feeding have gone the way of the dodo, and for good reason.

• Get rid of that corn oil bottle. Corn oil has extremely high levels of Omega 6's and virtually no Omega 3's. Both of these are fatty acids, and important in normal body function, but introducing high levels of Omega 6 into your horse's diet (remember, horse's don't get a lot of fat grazing in the wild) can trigger chronic inflammatory responses in your horse's body. If you must supplement extra fat (which is necessary in some cases, for senior equines or poor condition horses) choose a Rice Bran oil, which has less Omega 6's on average.
• Check your horses hay/pasture ration. If you horse isn't nomming on some sort of fiber 17ish hours a day, his gut is probably being stressed. Unlike people, the equine gut produces stomach acid 24/7, which means they are a much higher risk for stomach ulcers if food is available sporadically.
• Are you feeding the grain rations based on what it says on the grain bag? If you are, chances are you're wasting your money and giving your horse way more than he or she needs. Grain companies assume you don't feed forage, and also want to make a few bucks, so the rations they give on the backs of those bags are what you would feed if your horse ate nothing else...most horses don't fit into this category. In fact, that vast majority of horses don't need grain at all. A ration balancer will easily fill in nutritional gaps and you'll still have something to give your horse at dinner time. Stella only gets ration balancer and a little alfalfa pellet to act as a buffer against stomach acid.
• Trying to put weight on your horse? Reach for the hay before the feed scoop. Horses do the vast majority of their digesting in the hind-gut: the stomach is just a storage container until space frees up in the intestines (in fact, the only thing the stomach has any actual involvement in is the denaturation (or breakdown) of proteins...no other substances are affected). If you think of your horse's hind-gut as a big furnace, a flake of hay will go a lot farther in keeping that furnace going than extra grain will.

That's just a starter. Entire careers have been spent studying feed and digestion in horses, so there's no way I could cover everything in one post. However, I compiled a list of (what I feel, anyway) are the most asked questions by horse owners about what their beloved companions eat, and what I feel is the best/most correct answer to those questions (I've asked a lot of these questions myself: asking questions is a good way to get answers!)

I'm afraid my horse has a ________ deficiency! What do I do? Should I add a supplement?

Do not fear, for true deficiencies are FAR more rare than most people seem to think. Deficiencies for vitamins and minerals, which are usually the biggest concern for horse owners, only tend to happen in the following situations, if at all:

1. Horse gets absolutely no fresh pasture/grass (and this is combined with crap hay and no grain or ration balancer)
2. Horse is located in area of the country with documented soil deficiencies in particular minerals (and this is combined with crap hay and no grain or ration balancer)
3. Horse is a nursing foal whose dam is in either of the above situations (and this is combined with mom getting crap hay and no grain or ration balancer)

So unless your horse is eating straw and lives in a dirt paddock year round, chances are he's getting most of what he needs just from his hay and grass pasture. If you have doubts, it's a pretty easy fix: the words "ration balancer" probably appear a dozen times in this post, and I will continue to preach them. Ration balancers are irreplaceable in terms of providing straight nutrition without adding protein, fat or extra calories. AND, you horse will think he's getting grain! Muhaha!

I need to get my horse to lose weight, but I don't want he/she to starve! What's the best approach?

This can be tricky, but it's important to keep horses from getting overweight. Carrying extra fat is a serious detriment to a horse's health, moreso than being underweight.

Biggest thing: more exercise. You cannot get a horse to lose weight without getting them moving more. If this means lunging, riding, ponying, hotwalking, roundpenning, or whatever you have to do, do it, and do it consistently (but gradually). A fat horse is usually an out of shape horse, so start with short sessions and increase slowly as their stamina builds.

The next trick is to feed bulk without feeding a lot of calories. An overweight horse should ideally have all grain cut from their diet, and the majority of their time should be spent eating crap hay. This doesn't mean feed them straw, but a low quality hay will have a lower TDN, or Total Digestible Nutrients. This figure, in a good quality hay, will be around 70-80%. If you're trying to cut weight in your horse, look for something significantly lower, like 40-50% or less. You can get these numbers by sending a sample of your hay for testing or asking for the hay test data (if one is available) before buying. A lot of people will just feed less hay altogether, but the horse still needs to have something in front of him to keep his gut moving and prevent ulcers. He can happily munch on lower quality hay without risking more weight gain.

Lastly, add my favorite thing in the world, a ration balancer. Your horse will then be getting all the vitamins and minerals they need, you'll have cut calories, and the exercise will help bring them to a healthier weight. Once they get there, you may need to adjust their feed program again to take into account the nutrients they use up in exercise.

My senior horse's weight is dropping and I don't want him to lose condition. What can I do?

3 things: add more forage, more forage, and more forage.

Ernie survived his last few years on good quality first and second cut hay (a mix worked best for him, I found), a small portion of senior grain and a lot of hay stretcher and alfalfa pellets. Keep in mind, with senior horses, gut efficiency is often reduced dramatically, so you're going to have to put in a lot more to get the results you're looking for. If your horse's old ration was working before, and isn't now, up it on all fronts before you do anything else. It may just be a simple case of decreased efficiency.

My issue with Ernie was that he couldn't chew a lot of hay. He'd eat a few flakes a day in addition to pasture when it was available, but he lacked adequate tooth and arthritis in his TMJ made a lot of chewing and grinding difficult and painful. His best friend (and mine) became a grain/pellet mush. For senior horses or those with dental issues, mushing up hay stretcher or alfalfa pellets/cubes can make all the difference in whether they gain weight and maintain: it still adds forage to their diet to fuel the hind-gut furnace, but it's more palatable and easier to eat and digest. Ernie got this mush 3x a day, in addition to hay available 24/7. While I still battled weight issues with him due to a host of other factors (Cushings and what I feel was equine depression, to name a couple) his blood work showed he was getting everything he needed to maintain a good weight.

Speaking of Cushings: if you start to see weight changes in your aging horse, consider having the vet out to do some blood work. Cushings and other metabolic conditions can cause weight fluctuations in horses (in both directions, but late-onset Cushings is not the same as the insulin-resistant type, which is what you see in fat, cresty, overweight ponies, Morgans, QH's, and other breeds who tend to be heavier: Cushings in older horses usually results in weight drop) and can be treated with medication in addition to careful diet changes.

I moved to a new boarding barn and they don't feed the grain my horse usually gets. I don't really want to switch to another grain but they won't feed mine, what's the best solution?

Not all grains are created equal, but chances are if the barn you go to doesn't feed your brand, the brand they do feed has a grain that's all-in-all similar or equivalent to the one your horse is used to getting.

Being a horse owner, I know it's a pretty personal thing when it comes to what brand you feed. I've seen owners fight tooth and nail over which is better. Personally, I feed Blue Seal products: they offer a large variety, their product information is all available online in full, and the nutritional information is guaranteed. This is important: you see a lot of grain bags with rip-off tags hanging off them. This is a practice a lot of companies use, and it almost always means that the percentages and measurements they list in their products varies. This isn't good for you as the consumer and it isn't good for your horse.

Either way, regardless of what your barn feeds, you can do some sleuthing of your own and compare brands. If your barn feeds Blue Seal and you feed Purina, first check out the nutritional information on the grain you feed. Get a list of the ingredients and write down the min/max crude protein, fat, and fiber percentages (these are the most important numbers). Then, go to your local feed store or hop online and check out the other brands product offerings. Look for a grain with similar measurements to your grain. There is almost always one or two under a different name with the same nutritional information. If you're willing to switch, make sure to do so slowly, mixing your horse's old grain with the new stuff over a period of a week or so until they're entirely on the new grain.

And if you want to stick to your guns? Ask if your BO would be willing to purchase your grain. If not, offer to purchase it yourself and have it deducted from your bill every month. If they won't do that, and this is just me, but I'd look for another barn. Most stables are willing to accommodate within reason: if the latter suggestion isn't accepted, I'd hate to see what else they won't budge on. But again, that's just IMHO.

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Hopefully this has been of some help. Like I said, nutrition is a lifelong endeavor and can take a lifetime of research to fully understand. But I'm a firm believer that all horse owners can learn a few things ever once in a while and help themselves and their pony friends. After all, who doesn't love a (metphorically) fat and happy horse?