11/09/2024
๐ด ๐๐ฎ๐๐-๐๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ ๐ก๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ถ๐น๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ ๐๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฑ
๐ชฃ Spring means your horse doesnโt need to be fed, right? Wrong!
It is incredibly common to come across instances where easy-keeping, fat, or obese horses receive zero in the form of a hard/bucket feed because "they don't need it."
๐ Sure, they don't need the additional calories that a lot of feeds offer, but what they do need at minimum as domestic horses is minerals and electrolytes (salt).
๐ฑ "My horse will get fat if I give them ANY hard feed."
๐ Without wanting to offend anyone here, but no, your horse will get fat because their forage intake is not restricted or managed appropriately or they are not exercising enough.
๐ A 500 kilogram horse at maintenance has a digestible energy requirement of approximately 70 MJ per day.
๐ Let's assume the pasture or hay this horse has access to provides 7 MJ per kilogram, which is probably conservative.
๐ If this same 500 kilogram horse has unrestricted access to pasture or hay, they have the ability to consume 3% of their body weight in forage per day, which = up to 15 kilograms!
๐ 15 kilograms of pasture or hay at 7 MJ/KG means this horse has the ability to intake up to 105 MJ of energy in a 24-hour period.
๐ 100 grams of Speedibeet (beet pulp) to carry a mineral supplement, some salt, and maybe some linseeds would give this horse a whopping 1.1 MJ of energy.
๐ 100 grams of Copra Meal as a supplement carrier would provide (I hope you're sitting down because it's shocking)... a whole 1.5 MJ of energy.
๐พ So tell me... is the hard feed component of this horse's diet the issue or is it the poor forage management practices?
๐ฑ Easy keeping horses should not be deprived of the basics just because they look fat and shiny on the outside. They should receive something like the following once daily:
โ A mineral (and sometimes vitamin) supplement with high concentrations of what their base diet is lacking. This could be something like a powdered mineral mix with a low daily feed rate, or a pelleted ration balancer (such as Stable-Ised Equine PractiBALANCE) that provides the necessary additives in pellet form that technically doesn't require a carrier ingredient such as beet pulp, copra meal, legumes, legume hulls etc.
โ Sodium and chloride, or better known as salt. The drive to drink is triggered by sodium, which makes salt an incredibly vital component of any and all equine diets. At minimum, loose salt should be left out free choice, but my preference is to add it to a token meal.
โ An omega-3 fatty acid source is often necessary if pasture quality is not good or if the horse is on a predominantly hay reliant diet. Super easy-keeping horses often do better on linseeds rather than a flaxseed oil to keep their calorie intake further restricted.
๐ฟ Providing an easy-keeping horse or pony with the basics in a token meal (and by token, I mean token. You don't need to feed a kilogram of chaff or a big dipper of sweet feed because you want them to know that you love them) will not promote unwanted weight gain. Forage control (limiting intake to 1.5-2% as opposed to 3%), lower calorie pasture or hay, and exercise, movement, and circulation will do much more for your equine's waistline than anything you put in their bucket.
๐ Food for thought!
From Karly Eldridge, Equine nutritionist - Stable-ised Equine
