Q. I am an avid event rider and enjoyed watching the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event. What kinds of nutritional support can you give horses competing in this level of competition to help them recover?

A. This is a great question. Any post-competition recovery effort starts with the base diet, which meet the horse’s daily requirements leading up to the competition. No long-term deficiency is going to get fixed in the short period during competition, so a balanced diet appropriate for the horse’s discipline and work level is crucial.

Part of that is ensuring the horse is getting the right kind of fuel to support the type of work that he’s asked to do. Event horses won’t only be utilizing stored carbohydrate on cross-country day but hopefully their reserves of fat stores, as well. Cross-country efforts will deplete glycogen stores (stored carbohydrates) in the horse’s muscles. The horse will need glycogen again for the show jumping phase, so restoring those stores is an important component of recovery.

Horses don’t restore muscle glycogen after heavy work particularly quickly, however—it can take up to 72 hours to fully replenish this important fuel source. The tactics human athletes use—such as “carb loading”—don’t work particularly well in horses. Not only has research found carb loading horses relatively ineffective at increasing muscle glycogen, loading with carbs such as starch could lead to colic.

Hydration

One thing that does help improve glycogen replenishment is making sure the horse is adequately hydrated. Muscle glycogen requires water for storage, so a dehydrated horse is less able to generate new muscle glycogen stores.

Hydration measures should begin well before cross-county day. Many horse travel long distances to events, and these long journeys cause surprisingly large amounts of sweat loss. Even when you can’t see the sweat, horses can lose very high levels of electrolytes during transportation. This puts them at a disadvantage before the competition even starts. Feeding salt every day and adding a well-formulated electrolyte while traveling will help horses remain hydrated. Consider arriving a day early if travel is particularly long, so your horse has time to fully rehydrate and recover from the journey before competition starts.

Horses that drink saline solution after exercise have been shown to consume more water in the subsequent hours than those that drink plain water. Consider acclimating your horse to drinking water after work with either salt or electrolytes so this is a normal practice at events.

Muscle Recovery

Hard-working horses might be muscle-sore after cross-country, and supporting recovering muscle might help your horse come out on Day Three with a little more spring in his step. Vitamin E is an extremely important antioxidant for muscle health. Oxidation of glycogen and fats to create energy for muscle contraction causes the formation of free radicals. These oxidizing compounds are unstable and damage cell walls if not removed. Vitamin E helps stabilize them by donating an electron so that a cascade of free radical damage is prevented.

Horses need to get adequate vitamin E every day and, because of individual variation, some horses—even when receiving enough vitamin E to meet the National Research Council guidelines—are vitamin E-deficient. The best way to know your horse is getting enough vitamin E is to ensure his base diet is meeting the stated requirement. Then have your veterinarian test his serum vitamin E levels. This will tell you whether you need to supplement additional vitamin E daily. Providing extra natural vitamin E after particularly heavy work such as cross-country day might aid in recovery.

During recovery from exercise, muscle protein synthesis increases in order to repair muscle tissue damaged during work. If adequate dietary amino acids are available in the 24 to 48 hours post work, a net protein gain might occur. The most important amino acid for this process is leucine, which is a branched chain amino acid (BCAA). For this reason, administering a supplement that provides BCAAs after especially heavy exercise might help shorten recovery.

Take-Home Message

In general, after strenuous exercise, ensure your horse has access to good-quality forage (this is a safe way to replenish carbohydrates and encourages water intake), increase electrolyte intake to replace losses and encourage water consumption, ensure adequate natural vitamin E, and provide BCAAs. Incorporating these into your program will help your horse be at his best for the third day as well as recover from the overall event as quickly as possible.

Q. How long does it take for pasture grass sugar levels to drop after the sun goes down?

—Debra, Texas

A. The level of sugar in pasture grass varies due to several factors, including the weather, how stressed the grass is, its maturity, the time of year, and the time of day. As sun shines on pasture grass, the plants photosynthesize. This creates sugar stores the plan uses overnight to keep growing. Therefore, grasses tend to have higher sugar contents later in the day compared to earlier in the day.

Time Pasture Access Carefully

Generally, veterinarians and nutritionists recommend horses sensitive to sugar in pasture grass (such as those with insulin resistance, equine metabolic syndrome, or a history of laminitis) graze very early in the morning. It takes several hours after the sun sets for sugar levels to drop, so ideally try to avoid grazing before 3 a.m. And, because sugar levels start to build up again with sun exposure, it’s best to remove sensitive horses from pasture by about 10 a.m. If there’s significant cloud cover, you might be able to leave horses out a little longer, because photosynthesis (which relies on the sun) will be slower and therefore the amount of sugar will be lower.

One exception would be if the temperature drops below about 40°F overnight. At this temperature and below, the plants’ growth rate slow, which means stored sugars aren’t used up. As such, they’ll still be high in the early morning. In this situation, potentially at-risk horses should not have pasture access.

And, you must consider that some very sensitive horses might never be able to graze safely, while others can with careful grazing and pasture management. It all depends on the individual horse. Grazing muzzles are a very useful tool to help limit grass intake but still allow pasture access. Studies have shown that some muzzles can limit intake by as much as 80%.

Proper Pasture Management

Another important consideration is that most of the sugar in grasses tends to be in the bottom 3 to 4 inches of the plants. While it might be tempting to think that a very short, overgrazed pasture is safe because there’s “nothing out there,” such pastures present several risks—grasses are very stressed and only the lower inches of the plant are available, meaning these pastures can be very high in sugar.

As such, proper pasture management is very important to keep grasses from becoming stressed. This means horse owners need to properly fertilize and irrigate (if necessary) pastures.

It’s better for the plant and safer for the horse to stop grazing when the pasture has only about 3 to 4 inches of height left. This not only reduces sugar intake by your horse but also leaves some leaf for the plant so that it can regrow without having to dip in to root stores too heavily.

Take-Home Message

With an understanding of pasture grass metabolism and careful pasture and grazing management, many horses should be able to safely graze for at least part of the day. But, always consult your veterinarian or equine nutritionist before turning out your potentially sugar-sensitive horses on pasture.

Q. Does dressage have a positive or a negative effect on a horse’s neck and back and his comfort and overall health?

A. As most dressage trainers know, the answer depends on the skill and fitness of both the horse and the rider. With dressage, the rider is trying to accentuate natural movement patterns, while at the same time inducing head and neck positions and collective movements though set gait patterns. This can appear to be quite easy for some horses and their riders but much more problematic for others. Physical fitness requirements for both horse and rider include strength, core stability, and flexibility. Neck and back pain have negative influences on these attributes. Repetitive-use injuries are common in any equine athlete. Excessive caudal cervical extension can predispose to cervical osteoarthritis. Heavy or unstable riders can aggravate existing impinged thoracolumbar spinous processes and hind-limb lameness. The improper use (of tack) or ill-fitting tack also contributes to neck and back problems. In any athlete the constant reassessment of equipment, modifications in training, and use of preventative care is needed to maintain athletic conditioning and performance.

In general, the horse-rider skills required in dressage provide a good foundational training across all equestrian disciplines. No matter the ridden activity, dressage provides the basic skills required to develop healthy horse-rider interactions, coordinated movement patterns at controlled speeds, and induced collected movements. Conversely, a lot of horses used in dressage can also benefit from cross-training during extended hacks, long-line work, or exercise over ground poles and small cavalletti.

Where we get into problems is when riders do not put in the required time or incorporate the needed skills for proper training. Several studies have reported that most owners do not recognize neck or back pain in their horses and are not able to determine if their saddle fits appropriately or not. If these common issues are overlooked or not recognized, then continued ridden exercise can be detrimental. While this problem is not limited to dressage, asking horses to work through their pain is not productive and is often harmful. Any activity that is done too long, too intense, or too frequent can predispose a horse to fatigue and injury. Like us, a good balance between work and time off is needed to maintain health and well-being.

Q: I often hear the term “essential nutrients” from equine professionals, but I’m not sure what that means or how it affects the way I feed my horse. Can you explain what essential nutrients are and how they should factor into my horse’s diet?

A: Essential nutrients are those we need to provide in a horse’s diet because his body either cannot synthesize them or cannot produce them in adequate amounts. These nutrients support overall health and help prevent deficiencies.

Horses need essential nutrients from six categories: water, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. Authors of the Nutrient Requirements of Horses, 2007 (NRC) detail the recommended amounts of each essential nutrient to prevent deficiencies, based on the current scientific knowledge.

For example, nutritionists consider vitamin E essential because horses cannot synthesize it in the body, so owners need to supply it in the diet. In contrast, vitamin C does not have a defined dietary requirement because horses can synthesize it from glucose, which experts assume meets their needs.

Following the NRC guidelines will help ensure your horse’s diet meets his nutritional needs. However, it can be confusing and overwhelming to calculate these numbers for your horse’s feed. Luckily, equine nutritionists have already done this work for you.

Nutritionists designed commercial feeds from reputable companies to meet these requirements if fed at the manufacturers’ recommended rates. Ration balancers, performance feeds, and lifestyle feeds can meet your horse’s nutritional requirements when you feed them alongside adequate forage and salt.

Start formulating your horse’s nutrition program by feeding forage at about 2% of his body weight on a dry matter basis. Then choose a fortified feed to cover any nutritional needs the forage doesn’t meet.

The type of concentrate feed you choose depends on your horse’s body condition and workload. For example, a mature horse that readily maintains his weight on forage would be a candidate for a ration balancer. However, a performance horse that is a harder keeper might need a concentrate that also provides supplemental calories. Again, always feed the product at the recommended rate to ensure it meets your horse’s nutrient requirements. If you feed less than the recommended rate, check the label for instructions on combining it with a ration balancer or consult a qualified equine nutritionist to adjust the diet appropriately.

Researchers continue to investigate and define the full range of essential nutrients horses need. For example, horses need amino acids, or the building blocks of protein. There are 21 amino acids, 10 of which are essential. However, researchers have only established a documented requirement for one essential amino acid—lysine. Ideally, we’d have established a requirement for each of the 10 essential amino acids, but that research has yet to be done.

Take-Home Message

To support your horse’s health, feed the recommended amount of each essential nutrient daily as described by the NRC based on the current scientific understanding. Feeding adequate forage, providing salt, and offering a commercial feed at the manufacturer’s recommended rate can effectively meet your horse’s essential nutrient requirements. An equine nutritionist can also help you balance your horse’s diet and be sure his needs are met.

Q: My horse will be turning 20 soon, and my barnmate told me I need to be more cautious about how I feed him vitamins and minerals to ensure I meet his daily requirements. Will his requirements change as he ages? Are there any specific vitamins he might become deficient in? 

A: Just as a human’s nutritional requirements change as they age, so will your horse’s; however, working with your veterinarian and an equine nutritionist can help you ensure he is getting the nutrition he needs during his senior years. 

Vitamin C can be particularly interesting for senior horses. In a study that looked at physiologic differences between young horses and older horses, researchers found that older horses had lower vitamin C levels overall. Of course, horses are a species, unlike humans or guinea pigs or any other animals, that can actually synthesize their own vitamin C, so we don’t know if horses just can’t produce enough vitamin C, or perhaps they use more of it because it is a pretty powerful antioxidant. This might mean that it’s necessary to supplement vitamin C if you have an older horse. 

Just like if a child ate too many vitamin C orange-flavored vitamins, oversupplying most nutrients, including vitamin C, is not a major concern because these can be excreted through the urine. However, there are some theories that oversupplying some vitamins, such as vitamin C, could inhibit the horse’s innate ability to produce them, making continued supplementation necessary. 

As horses get older, they might also become deficient in vitamin E and require supplementation, especially if they have little pasture available to them. When evaluating your horse’s vitamin E levels, it is important to analyze your horse’s diet. However, you can also ask your veterinarian for bloodwork to ensure that your horse’s vitamin E status is good.

Vitamin E is relatively safe, even in higher doses, but it can potentially prevent the absorption of other nutrients if overfed in excessive quantities. Ultimately, working with an equine nutritionist to regularly evaluate your horse’s diet, and with your veterinarian to test your horse’s blood levels will help ensure that they receive proper nutrition as they age. 

Q: My horse pastures have not been as healthy as I’d like, and I must feed my horse more hay than most people living in my area to be sure he’s getting enough forage. I know soil health is the first step to cultivating healthier horse pastures. How can I be sure my pasture soil is healthy and can support the grasses I want growing?

A: Healthy soil in horse pastures can allow grasses to function to their highest potential with minimal support, says Brad McIntyre, a farmer in Southwestern Idaho with productive organic pastures and an interest in soil health.

“Soil is part of a natural system, created way before us,” says McIntyre. “Animals are part of that natural ecosystem (too),” he adds, noting that their manure and urine help build a healthy pasture environment.

Here are McIntyre’s Top 4 tips for creating healthy horse pastures.

1. Grazing Height

Keep pasture grass at least 4 inches tall; don’t let horses graze them any shorter. Grasses shed roots—the roots change color from bright white to gray, then brown, and eventually black as the plant tissues die—and their roots are typically as long as the plant stand. If horses overgraze plants every day, the grass constantly sheds its roots, making it shorter. When horses overgraze a pasture, they often wipe out the desirable grass species, leaving room for undesirable species to take over.  

2. Compost

Compost provides a rich source of nutrients and beneficial microbes. Composting involves encouraging microbes to break down organic material into a soil amendment that acts as a long-term, slow-release fertilizer. On horse farms this typically includes animal manure, stall waste, and dead plant material. Compost manure and other organic matter on your farm and reapply it to your pastures to encourage beneficial plant growth.

3. Water

Water and sun can go a long way in improving horse pasture soil health. If you live in a hot and dry environment, you might need to irrigate your pastures to improve growth. But, if you add too much water, you might essentially drown the desirable grasses in your pasture. Plants prefer a heavy amount of water, then a period of rest to regrow. Typically, McIntyre irrigates for 24 hours every seven to 10 days.

4. Rest Pastures

Let your pasture rest and your grasses seed out after grazing periods. Then turn your animals back out to graze; as they move and eat, they’ll press the seed heads into the soil. In effect, you get a free reseeding. McIntyre aims to do this every few years.

Take-Home Message

Healthy soil drives better horse pasture growth. To protect it, make sure your grass stays a few inches tall. “Work with what’s free. It’s a natural system,” says McIntyre. Healthy soil leads to healthy pastures and, in turn, healthy horses and a healthier planet, he adds.

Q. This spring, I moved my horse to a new barn with grass turnout. My horse hasn’t been on pasture since I got him, and I’m unsure how to make this transition. I know it needs to be gradual, but how gradual, and how do I make it work?

A. I’m sure your horse will appreciate the opportunity to be turned out and have pasture access. But you are correct: Sudden dietary changes, whether it’s the introduction of grain, a hay change, or a move to pasture, can lead to colic and laminitis if done abruptly, whereas a gradual transition allows the digestive tract to adapt. The types and amounts of enzymes the horse’s digestive system secretes are diet-specific. This is also true of the bacteria composing the horse’s hindgut microbiome.

When equine diets change suddenly, feed components that should be digested and absorbed in the small intestine might not be. They might instead reach the hindgut, disrupting the microbiome microbial population. This can result in gas production, hindgut pH reductions (becoming more acidic), as well as die-offs of certain bacterial populations, causing toxin release. All of this can contribute to colic and laminitis.

Early spring pasture contains a lot of moisture, protein, and nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC). NSC includes sugar and starch, as well as more complex fructan sugars. High-NSC diets have two problems:

1. A sudden transition to a diet high in NSC can cause the hindgut disruption already mentioned, because sugar and starch that should be removed in the small intestine are not; and
2. For horses with metabolic issues such as insulin dysregulation and equine metabolic syndrome, NSCs can induce laminitis and founder.

To minimize hindgut disruption, a slow introduction to pasture is necessary, especially for sensitive horses with metabolic conditions. Understanding that these individuals might not be good candidates for any pasture is important. Before you embark on this project, make sure your horse is a good candidate for pasture.

If the barn manager expects pasture to provide real nutritional benefits, fields must be well-established before introducing horses. Putting horses on new pasture too early and before the plants are well-established can be tempting. Wait until the pasture has at least 6 inches of grass before grazing. A safe rule of thumb is that the bottom 4 inches always belong to the plant. If pastures are grazed below that height, you start to rob the plant of its ability to maintain itself, and ultimately your pastures will become overgrazed and plants will die, leaving bare patches and opportunity for weeds to take hold.

Assuming you have the minimum 6 inches of growth, introduce your horse to the pasture initially for just 15 minutes. This might require hand-grazing, because not all horses are going to want to come back inside after only 15 minutes on such a delicacy as spring grass! Then increase the grazing time by about 15 minutes every day until your horse is grazing for about four hours total. Stay at four hours per day for at least a week before granting unlimited access.

Clearly this process is labor-intensive, so it can be helpful to get creative about how you pull it off. The initial 15-30-minute periods can be fairly easily achieved before or after a ride. Allowing 15 minutes before a ride is a great way to get some forage in the stomach. If time is short, do your grooming while your horse grazes, or just hang out and enjoy his company. Then add some time after your ride as a reward. Schedule grazing so longer turnout periods happen on weekends or when you have more time. Ask a friend at the barn to help you out. With some teamwork and creativity, you can transition your horse to pasture safely.

Q: What are the best feeding practices to ensure a smooth weaning transition for the foal?

A: Suckling foals grow rapidly, with most reaching 30-40% of their mature weight by weaning. Development at this rate requires a steady supply of good nutrition. Mare’s milk primarily supplies a foal’s nutrition until weaning, after which the diet transitions to some combination of feed, supplements, and hay or pasture. You can make this transition easier by introducing appropriate feeding practices prior to weaning. What and how you feed the suckling foal will impact not only his overall growth and well-being but also how well he handles weaning.

Feeding Suckling Foals

Suckling foals show interest in eating within the first weeks of life. A foal feed should be formulated with high-quality protein to supply essential amino acids and be adequately fortified with the proper balance of vitamins and minerals. The goal of supplemental feeding for suckling foals is to bridge the gap between what the mare’s milk provides and what the foal needs to grow and develop to his full genetic potential. Feeding 1 pound of a well-formulated foal feed per month of age daily will help accomplish this. For example, a 2-month-old foal should eat 2 pounds of feed per day, or roughly 1 pound of feed per 100 pounds of body weight.

Feeding mares and foals individually—not in a group—offers the most precise method to feed the foal. However, many farms don’t have the staff or the facilities to do this. Creep feeders are an option but must be monitored to make sure mares cannot get the feed and to prevent injuries around the equipment. Creep-fed foals should be grouped and fed amounts appropriate for their age. If allowed free-choice feed, foals often overeat and gain weight too fast, putting undue stress on immature bones and joints.

Mares and foals are often fed together, which can work well. As the foal gets older and needs more supplemental feed, the mare’s nutritional demands for lactation begin to decline. When feeding mares and foals together, place feeders at a height the foal can comfortably access and be sure to allow plenty of space.

Feeding Foals After Weaning

Following weaning, feed foals the same concentrate they were eating prior to weaning, but increase the feeding rate to 1.25–1.75 pounds per 100 pounds of body weight to replace the mare’s milk. If possible, divide the daily ration into smaller, more frequent meals to help with the transition from having free-choice access to the mare’s milk and nursing over 70 times a day. Weanlings have small digestive tract capacity and benefit from smaller meals.

Forage quality is also important for weanlings because they have less capacity and ability to digest hay and pasture than an adult horse. If weanlings have free-choice access to excellent pasture or hay and would become overweight eating the recommended amount of the foal feed, you might need to transition them to a ration balancer.

A ration balancer is designed to be fed to foals as well as adult horses and will provide appropriate nutrition to support lean tissue development without unnecessary calories. Routinely assess your weanling’s body condition and adjust the amount of feed offered or transition to a ration balancer if needed to support moderate body condition. This will help ensure the nutritional requirements for growth and development are met without the youngster becoming overly fat.

Take-Home Message

Suckling foals grow rapidly and need a carefully managed feed program to support healthy development and ease the transition to weaning. While the mare’s milk is the primary nutrient source early in life, introducing high-quality foal feed helps fill nutritional gaps and prepares foals for weaning. After weaning, increase feed amounts as appropriate and offer frequent meals to ease the transition from nursing, support continued growth, and improve digestive health. Monitor your weanling’s body condition and adjust his diet as needed to help him grow correctly without becoming overweight.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q. My horse gets frequent bouts of cellulitis. I work closely with my vet to treat and prevent this medically, but is there anything I can do to support our efforts through his diet?

A. Cellulitis is a bacterial infection that involves both the connective tissue and the fat tissue, most frequently presenting in the lower limb of the horse, and can be a challenging health issue. There are multiple causes of the condition; however, the infection normally enters the body through small (often undetectable) microtraumas on the skin surface.

Medical management is critical to resolving these cases, so it is great that you are working closely with your veterinarian. For treatment, the goal is to reduce the inflammation, eliminate the infection, and reduce the likelihood of the infection recurring.

A Balanced Diet for Horses With Cellulitis

Although nutritional management is not a cure for cellulitis, there are some dietary changes you can make to support your medical efforts. A balanced diet is imperative to maintaining both skin health and the immune system. Providing your horse with a feed or ration balancer (fed at the manufacturer’s recommended amount) is an important factor. Inadequate protein (amino acids), vitamin deficiencies, and unbalanced minerals can all negatively impact the health of a horse’s skin and hair coat, so pursuing a balanced diet for your horse with appropriate levels of vitamins, minerals, protein, and energy is important to promote optimal health.

Vitamin E & Omega-3s to Reduce Inflammation in Horses

When inflammatory issues are present, adding vitamin E and a source of omega-3 fatty acids is also a common recommendation. For your horse, if he is on a balanced diet, I recommend having his vitamin E levels tested via blood serum. If the levels are adequate, then there is no need for additional supplementation but, if he has a deficiency, supplementing with a natural source of vitamin E can help support your efforts to prevent cellulitis. 

When adding omega-3s, opt for a fat source that is greater in omega-3 content than omega-6 content (while one omega-6 type has been studied for its beneficial effects, omega-6s are generally considered to have pro- rather than anti-inflammatory properties; the ratio of the two seems to be what’s important). Oils such as flax or camelina are good options and can be fed at a rate of 1-2 oz per day to start and increased to 2-4 oz per day if your horse needs additional fat. Adding fat to the diet can help your horse maintain the protective barrier of sebum on his coat. This is especially important if your horse has dry skin and is prone to cellulitis. If your horse is not overweight, adding an omega-3-rich fat source to his daily ration can be a good way to support the prevention of cellulitis.

Digestive Support for Cellulitis

Because the cellulitis episodes are frequent, you could try a digestive support supplement for your horse. Regular administration of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and/or antibiotics can disrupt his gastrointestinal tract. Of course, a balanced forage-based diet will be a key factor in maintaining your horse’s gut health, but adding a pH control supplement for the gut could provide extra support. When choosing a supplement, evaluate the research on the product to ensure what you are investing in will support for your horse.

Take-Home Message

When cellulitis bouts occur, seeking medical management and guidance on optimal treatment from your veterinarian should be the first step. However, there are some nutritional considerations that can support your horse in addition to the medical efforts. A balanced diet that provides your horse adequate nutrients is imperative to his overall health. Adding a fat source that is rich in omega-3s and investigating digestive support supplements to use when your horse is on NSAIDs or antibiotics could reduce the negative effects these medications might have on his digestive system.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q: With summer approaching, I want to be sure I’m prepared to minimize unpleasant odors on my farm that are always worse during the warmer months. What can I do to eliminate those odors or prevent them altogether?

A: During the warm season horse properties can develop odors—between muddy turnouts, stockpiled manure, and urine buildup in confinement areas. These spots attract pests such as flies and rodents and can raise concerns among neighbors. Inhaling ammonia in stalls, barns, or confined spaces can also harm a horse’s respiratory tract. Here are five tips to help you reduce odors on your horse property.

1. Start With Healthy Soil

Odor control starts with a step many people overlook: Start with healthy soils and slightly sloped ground. If you confine horses in a low, wet area you will end up with mud and odor problems. Make sure you have a good, even slope (about 1-2%) away from stalls or shelters. Be sure to grade the ground, making it even before putting gravel or another type of footing in these areas. Otherwise, any depressions in the underlying soil allow water (and urine) to pool under the gravel, potentially causing odors.

2. Develop a Manure Management Program

A solid manure management program goes a long way in solving odor issues. Begin by picking up manure every one to three days in confinement and high-traffic areas. Establish your manure pile far away from streams, ditches, rivers, or other bodies of water to prevent runoff contamination, and cover it with a tarp (to keep it from getting soaked by rain).

Let’s say you’ve picked up manure and you still have odors. The simplest and cheapest solution might be to drag or harrow the paddock. This helps get beneficial aerobic microbes back in your soil that break down tiny, odor-causing organics. It also helps the ground dry faster.

3. Minimize Moisture

Keep your farm as dry as possible by removing opportunities for standing water to form. Keeping shelters, stalls, and barns dry, or at least well-drained, goes a long way in reducing odors. Moisture often triggers odor problems; wet areas release more odor-causing compounds than dry ones. Consider doors, screens, or roof overhangs for shielding barn openings from rain. Invest in good working gutters and downspouts, which divert rainwater away from buildings and confinement areas. Ventilation also helps dry the barn area by releasing and not trapping moisture and allowing odors to dissipate. Stall windows, open doorways, cupolas and vents in roofs, ceiling fans, etc., can all improve ventilation in your barn.

If a horse perpetually urinates in one spot in a confinement area, you might have to occasionally dig out and refresh footing in that spot to help it dry thoroughly.

4. Use Microbial Sprays to Minimize Odors

A variety of microbial spray products are available, which you can use on urine spots and across confinement areas to neutralize odors. These products contain different types of beneficial bacteria, enzymes, and/or fungi. They come in highly concentrated solutions that you dilute and spray on paddock areas with a garden sprayer. The beneficial microbes break down ammonia and organic material that cause odors and attract flies. Use these animal-safe solutions as often as needed to control odors. You can commonly find these beneficial microbial sprays at organic garden supply companies or feed stores.

5. Use Zeolite Products in Stalls

Zeolite products remove odors effectively when you sprinkle them in stalls or other areas of your barn. These naturally occurring minerals have a highly porous structure, which binds with ammonia molecules in urine, eliminating odors. You’ll find zeolite, which looks like finely ground kitty litter, in several stall deodorizer products.

Take-Home Message

Starting with healthy soil, developing a manure management program, minimizing moisture, and using microbial sprays and zeolite products can all help reduce the odors on your horse farm. In turn, this will minimize pests and support your horses’ comfort and well-being.

Q: I have a 20-year-old Arabian/Paint gelding that I’ve had since he was 3 months old. He was always an easy keeper and I realized when he was around age 4 or 5 that he had equine metabolic syndrome (EMS).

From that day on, he’s consumed low-nonstructural-carbohydrate (NSC) hay and grain. Because he is an air fern, I’m always careful about what he eats and severely limit his grazing time; I keep him on a dry lot most of the time. At age 14 he developed pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID, formerly called equine Cushing’s disease). My veterinarian put him on 1.5 Prascend (pergolide) pills per day, which I administer in addition to Thyro-L (levothyroxine sodium).

Somewhere during all of this, my gelding started losing weight. He had a mild gastric ulcer attack a few years ago, so my veterinarian prescribed ranitidine, which she later replaced with cimetidine. Recently, he had another ulcer attack and currently has omeprazole added to his diet. My question is, how do you feed PPID, EMS, and ulcer-prone horses that need to gain weight? I already feed every four to five hours. Consuming oils never helped him, but soaked beet pulp has helped some.

A: Hello, I am sorry you’re having to handle these difficult issues. The first thing I recommend is having a good discussion with your veterinarian about your horse’s conditions to determine whether the current medications should stay the same or be adjusted. Veterinarians often prescribe Thyro-L to help horses regulate glucose and insulin and treat EMS. They also commonly prescribe Prascend, which you also mentioned, for horses with PPID. Both medications can cause weight loss—a side effect that usually benefits horses with EMS and PPID. However, your veterinarian might want to monitor the dosage and make adjustments if needed.

I am glad to hear your horse receives omeprazole for his ulcers. Currently it is the only FDA-approved medication for treatment and prevention of gastric ulcers in horses. I recommend talking with your veterinarian about whether you can discontinue this medication or reduce the dosage once management strategies help get the condition under control.

I would like to address feeding management of the three distinct disorders you mention—EMS, PPID, and gastric ulcers. Fortunately, some of the recommendations for managing these conditions overlap, which can make caring for your horse easier.

EMS

Horses with EMS tend to be easy keepers and carry extra weight, but you need to make sure you aren’t “starving” them to get them to an ideal weight. Forages low in NSCs should be the base of their diet. Typically, they should have only hay with little to no access to pasture, especially in fall and spring when pasture NSC levels tend to be higher. On a per-pound basis you’ll want to avoid feeding less than 1.5% of a horse’s body weight in hay. A low-calorie/low-sugar ration balancer can help you make sure you meet all his nutritional requirements. To help keep glucose and insulin levels steady, provide small, frequent meals and/or use a grazing muzzle to slow down feed intake.

PPID

Pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction cannot be managed with diet alone (hence, giving pergolide), but it can help. Overweight horses should receive a lower-calorie diet to promote weight loss, and horses with insulin resistance or insulin dysregulation (often referred to together as EMS), need a diet low in NSCs. If a horse with PPID has not been diagnosed with EMS, you can generally feed a balanced diet of forage and concentrates or a ration balancer, while monitoring weight to prevent excessive gain.

Gastric Ulcers

For horses prone to gastric ulcers, feeding recommendations try to decrease acidity (low pH) in the stomach. Horses are designed to be continuous feeders; some type of feed is in the stomach almost constantly. We can mimic this by providing horses with multiple small meals throughout the day and allowing free-choice access to forages. Nutritionists also recommend reducing the amount of concentrate a horse receives to address gastric pH. Higher-fat feeds tend to slow gastric emptying rate and are not as acidic as more traditional concentrates. Experts also suggest offering some feeds on the market that contain more complex carbohydrates. Adding a forage higher in calcium might also be beneficial, because it works as a natural antacid.

With both PPID and EMS the goal is to keep insulin levels regulated and maintain a horse’s body weight at a level that won’t predispose him to bouts of laminitis. I recommend you feed a good-quality mostly grass hay with an NSC level of less than 10%. If you can’t find hay with NSC levels below 10%, soak the lowest-NSC hay you can find for about 30 minutes prior to feeding to help reduce the sugar and starch content. Remember that you should not give your horses access to the soaking water because it will have all those undesirable carbohydrates in it. You should feed your horse about 2% of his body weight in forage daily—so about 20 pounds of hay for the average 1,000-pound horse.

I would also recommend a ration balancer if your horse maintains his weight on forage alone. Essentially, manufacturers design balancers to work as a vitamin and mineral supplement to ensure your horse gets the correct levels he needs. Make sure it is low in soluble carbohydrates. If he cannot maintain his weight on forage alone, then I recommend one of the higher-fiber feeds available. You mentioned your horse has consumed beet pulp, and it helped, whereas fats did not. Fortunately, many of these feeds have a beet-pulp base. These recommendations also work for the ulcer-prone horse, so they might help there as well.

It sounds like you are already taking many of the right steps for managing a horse with these three issues. Keep feeding meals more frequently and make sure you’re using low-NSC forages and feeds to maintain an appropriate body weight for your horse. I would be interested to hear what your veterinarian recommends related to the medications, and I wish you the best of luck.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q: This time of year, my horse’s mane and tail get very dry, and even his coat seems dry. I use coat conditioners when I bathe him, but I’m wondering what I could do nutritionally that might help?

A: If you live in a hot, dry climate, preventing a dry mane and tail and coat can be challenging. I find this to be especially true of horses living in dry lots or with dirt runs where they are basically rolling in dust.

Other than using topical products to try to maintain coat quality, the best you can do is to give the horse’s skin and coat a fighting chance by ensuring you’re feeding all the building blocks needed to maintain skin and coat health.

Minerals

Key nutritional players in this arena are zinc, copper, fatty acids, and biotin. Zinc is vitally important to a number of enzymes in skin. Epithelial cells that make up skin require zinc for reproduction, maintenance, and repair. Additionally the synthesis of keratins (proteins that protect epithelial cells and that are found in hair) and other associated proteins rely on zinc for proper function. While zinc is found in forages, the amounts present might not meet your horse’s needs.

Copper is generally in even shorter supply in forages than zinc. Copper is necessary for the enzyme lysyl oxidase, which in turn is required to maintain the structural integrity of the cross-linkages that provide strength to collagen in the skin.

Together copper and zinc impact melanin, the protein responsible for hair pigmentation. Therefore, inadequate copper and zinc status might not only impact the keratinization of hair but also its color. Hair is at greater risk of oxidative damage if melanin is inadequate.

If you’re just feeding forage, consider adding a source of copper and zinc that provides about half of the National Research Council’s daily requirement, which for a 1,100-pound horse is 50 milligrams of copper and 200 milligrams of zinc. My preferred method is using one of the quality ration balancing feeds and supplements available on the market because they also supply other essential nutrients that might be missing in a forage-based diet.

If you’re already feeding a commercial feed, make sure that you’re following the feeding directions and offering adequate amounts, otherwise your horse might have deficiencies in nutrients key to coat quality.

Fat

The cell membrane layers that connect the cells that make up hair contain large amounts of fatty acids. The fat in the cuticle cells make them hydrophobic, meaning they don’t attract water. This acts to make them waterproof but also keeps moisture in. Cuticle cells should lie flat like shingles on a roof, but if they become damaged, they peel away from the hair allowing internal moisture to escape.

Therefore, ensuring adequate amounts of essential fatty acids in the diet might help improve coat quality. I particularly like sources of supplemental fats that provide more omega-3 fatty acids than omega-6, such as flax or camelina. For coat improvement purposes, I find plant-based sources to be more than adequate, and about 4 ounces of flax seed or 2 ounces of the oils should be enough for you to see an improvement in an average-sized horse.

Biotin

While we typically think of biotin in relation to hoof health, biotin also plays a role in skin and coat. Biotin is a B vitamin that is actually made by the bacteria in the horse’s hindgut making biotin deficiency unlikely.

However, in other species inadequate biotin results in poor quality skin and coat. This makes sense when you consider that biotin involved in fatty acid synthesis, amino acid metabolism, and a range of other metabolic pathways. While there are no guidelines for how much biotin to supplement to see improvement in coat quality, research suggests 20 to 30 milligrams for and average-sized horse to aid in hoof quality and we can assume similar levels are necessary to see coat improvements.

Take-Home Message

Ensuring that your horse has the building blocks necessary to create a healthy coat from the inside is your best way to defend against a dry coat. However, make sure that you are not shampooing your horse too frequently as this can remove naturally occurring oils. Additionally, look for simple shampoos that contain few detergents and avoid those with alcohol as these can strip the oils from a horse’s coat.

Q: I have a smaller horse farm with five horses on it. What can I do to reduce the amount of manure on my farm so it doesn’t create an eyesore or attract unwanted insects?

A: According to the USDA, one horse produces 50 pounds of manure per day. If you add spent bedding to that equation, you can have a huge mountain of stall waste daily just from one horse, not to mention several horses. However, you can find ways to use that waste, turning it into a resource for you, your community, and the ecosystem around you.

For horse owners with pasture or cropland, composting is the No. 1 recommended manure management option by agencies and industry professionals. Before fertilizers were readily available and popularized, farmers composted livestock manure and food scraps and spread the finished compost on pastures, crops, and gardens. Experts typically do not recommend spreading fresh manure because of the risk of spreading parasites, pathogens (disease-causing organisms), and weed seeds. Spreading compost is excellent for soil health and pasture productivity. You can apply a thin layer of compost to pastures, lawns, gardens, and crops during the growing season.

What if you don’t have enough pasture to apply compost? Or maybe composting isn’t your thing? In that case you might need to explore off-site options.

Horse Waste for Dairy Farms

You can investigate whether you have a local dairy farm or other livestock operation that will accept horse manure. Dairies are often willing to take horse stall waste that contains bedding, viewing it as a highly absorbent, free material they can reuse as bedding for dairy cows. Most parasites and pathogens found in spent bedding are species-specific, so those affecting horses typically do not affect ruminants.

Horse Manure Compost for Landscaping

Compost tends to be much easier to rehome than straight manure. Creating nicely composted stall waste doesn’t take much more effort than stockpiling manure. With a little advertising and an easy-to-access location, you might attract enough people to take all of it—composted or not—particularly in urban areas with avid gardeners or landscapers. If you can help others load it with a tractor and bucket, that also makes it more appealing. You can also spread the word to local flower and garden clubs, nurseries, and native plant clubs, or post on Craigslist, Facebook groups, or other social media platforms.

Hauling Horse Waste Off-Site

If you choose to haul your horses’ waste off-site, you can either hire someone to haul it for you or you can get the equipment to do it yourself. Some of these businesses might take it for free or charge a tipping fee. Paying to dispose of manure off-site might be the easiest way to go if you have a mountain of manure, lack of storage space, or don’t have the time to research or implement other options. These businesses often take horse manure:

• Compost or topsoil companies; 
• Nurseries and flower gardens;
• Tree farms;
• Crop farmers;
• Organic growers; and
• Flower gardeners.

Check with your local garbage hauler or shavings supplier because they might be able to haul off manure for a fee and take it to a composting facility or topsoil company. Some compost or topsoil facilities rent drop boxes they deliver and empty. They usually charge pickup, rental, and disposal fees.

Take-Home Message

Smart manure management on small horse farms often involves using a mix of strategies. From composting and reusing stall waste to connecting with gardeners, farmers, or haulers, the right combination depends on your space, time, and goals. With a little planning and creativity, you can turn manure into a useful resource rather than a problem.

Q: Can a nutritional imbalance or food allergy cause hives? My gelding broke out into hives after I started feeding him pure alfalfa hay, but when I switched him to Timothy grass hay the hives disappeared.

A: Owners often attribute itchy skin, hives, loose manure, and even behavioral changes as potentially being the result of food allergies, and they commonly presume alfalfa is the culprit. Whether these reactions are truly allergies—specifically food allergies—is often a point of debate. A food allergy is defined as an immune-mediated adverse reaction to food, where the body is reacting to a protein within that food or other substance, such as pollen. Allergies are reactions to substances that would not normally be problematic for most individuals.

Food allergies in horses do exist; however, most researcher and veterinarians consider them rare. If a horse has hives because of a food allergy, they would be expected to be all over the body rather than in isolated areas, which would point more toward a contact allergy from something like laundry detergent. The reaction might manifest as itchy hives or be solely in the gastrointestinal tract and result in clinical signs such as diarrhea.

Owners and veterinarians often reach for blood tests to diagnose allergies. These panels often include foods such as hays and common feed ingredients; however, research has shown that these tests are frequently inaccurate. The only true way to diagnose a food allergy is to do a withdrawal diet and then reintroduce the specific ingredients you believe the horse is allergic to. This takes time (often eight to 12 weeks) and dedication, and most owners are not willing to reintroduce ingredients that might be allergens, especially if the horse’s symptoms have resolved.

Horses can also have food intolerances or sensitivities, which are not immune-mediated reactions. They tend to present as loose manure and changes in behavior rather than hives, but hives could be present. Sensitivities might have a threshold such that the horse can handle the feed until consumed at a certain level. This is similar to lactose intolerance in people, where affect individuals might be able to consume small amounts of lactose in ice cream, but if they also eat a cheese pizza at the same meal, they show symptoms of their intolerance.

It is possible that your horse is not truly allergic to alfalfa and could handle alfalfa fed in smaller amounts, but a solely alfalfa hay diet causes issues for him. The only way to know whether that’s the case would be to add some amount of alfalfa back into the ration with the Timothy hay and see whether the hives return. This sensitivity threshold is likely why many horses can cope with supposed problem ingredients when they are in relatively small amounts such as in supplements but cannot cope with them when fed in greater quantities.

Another component of managing allergies is horses with allergies tend to be allergic to multiple things, such as insect bites and certain pollens. If you can control even a few of the allergens the horse is exposed to, you might eliminate or reduce allergic symptoms. So, if you can remove certain allergens that are easier to control from the horse’s environment, the horse might be able to handle exposure to other allergens, such as feed ingredients, without issue.

Q: I am considering producing hay for at least my own horses within the next few years. I’ve heard of sustainable hay production, but I don’t know much about it. What is it, and what do I need to get started?

A: Sustainable hay production refers to practices that protect the environment while producing a high-quality hay crop, says Sandy Young, owner of Treasure Valley Hay, in Nampa, Idaho. Young has been a hay broker since 2008, focusing primarily on providing high-quality hay for horse owners in Southwestern Idaho, but she has customers in all Western states.

“Growers want to produce a high-quality product and feed the world … as well as (understand) what they need to produce it,” says Young. When she evaluates a potential hay grower before agreeing to broker their hay, she looks for “good quality, good color, and fresh smell without mold or foreign objects.”

She also considers the grower’s farming practices. “Is their hay produced as organically as possible, without chemicals?” she says. “If a grower is spraying, what are they using?”

Sustainable grass hay production usually involves growing a variety of plant species in the same field. “It often includes rotating crops, such as with teff hay, which will help maintain soil health,” says Young. “Using integrated pest management strategies (a science-based approach combining different pet control tools) will help reduce chemical use.

“Promoting biodiversity and long-term soil health are all part of regenerative agriculture, the new buzzword these days,” Young adds. This means the grower employs techniques such as planting cover crops, reducing or eliminating tillage (plowing), which disrupts the soil’s ecosystem, and avoiding bare, exposed soil that’s prone to erosion from wind or rain. It also involves using organic fertilizers and trace minerals, and reducing or eliminating chemical inputs to support soil microbes and improve soil structure and fertility, she adds. These practices help the soil retain moisture, which reduces polluted runoff and dust storms.

“Healthy, living soils help plants grow longer, stronger root systems, which in turn allow plants to better utilize minerals and nutrients in the soil,” says Young. “It’s becoming so obvious that soils are deficient from decades of modern farming practices that have depleted our soils of microbes and nutrients.”

Healthy soils are a balance of organic matter, trace minerals, soil life, and the plants grown.

Take-Home Message

Sustainable hay production involves protecting the environment while producing a high-quality hay crop. This can include producing forage as organically as possible, with minimal chemicals and a focus on the long-term health of balanced soils. “Sourcing sustainably grown hay is protecting the environment,” says Young.

Q: I’ve always enjoyed giving my horse a warm bran mash in cold weather, but this doesn’t seem to be something people do much anymore. Is there still a place for wheat bran in my feed room?

A: Growing up I routinely fed a warm bran mash to my horse in the winter, especially on days when he worked hard. However it’s far more unusual now in part because we’ve realized that it might not be as beneficial as we once believed.

In my 1983 8^th Edition of the British Horse Society and The Pony Club Manual of Horsemanship it states that a bran mash is a “very useful warm food after hard exercise and hunting.” It goes on to say that after adding boiling water to the bran, you should add a generous amount of salt along with some oats, and then feed once cool. It finishes by saying “bran mash has a laxative value, and it has everything to recommend it when fed once a week to horses in work and to invalid horses. It is also a convenient way to administer medicines such as worming compounds.”

So how did a feed and feeding practice that were once so popular fall out of favor? To better understand that you need to understand your horse’s digestive tract, as well as the composition of the feed.

About Diet Changes and Digestive Tract Upset

Most of us are well aware that changes to a horse’s diet should be made gradually over several days. The reason for this is that the digestive enzymes, the amount secreted as well as the bacteria in the horse’s hind gut, are somewhat specific to the diet being fed. Therefore, if you change the makeup of the diet the enzymes and digestive bacteria must adapt, and this takes time. In the meantime if too much new feed is fed the horse might not be able to fully digest it and can lead to digestive disturbance (e.g., diarrhea, gas, and colic, etc.).

As previously mentioned, horse people used to routinely feed bran mashes once a week, largely for their believed laxative effect. Since becoming more educated in equine nutrition, it’s fascinated me that—while we take great care not to suddenly change a horse’s diet when starting most new feeds—this logic goes out the window when it comes to a bran mash. Essentially, when you feed a bran mash once a week you’re breaking all the guidelines you typically follow in keeping your horse’s diet consistent. The “laxative effect” might be because the feed change is causing digestive distress! This is probably not the best method of ensuring your horse’s digestive contents stay on the move.

Wheat Bran’s Nutritional Imbalance

Wheat bran has also fallen out of favor because of its high phosphorus level. In fact wheat bran has an inverted calcium to phosphorus ratio, meaning that it contains more phosphorus than calcium. This is actually common in traditional grains such as wheat, oats, and barley. However, wheat bran is particularly high with a phosphorus content of about 1% and calcium at only 0.15%.

Researchers realized feeding diets with a lot of wheat bran increased the risk of developing secondary hyperparathyroidism, a condition that results from a calcium imbalance potentially caused by horses consuming a diet too high in phosphorus. “Big head” or “bran disease” was far more common when horse owners and managers fed traditional grains and wheat bran more commonly than we do today. In reality this condition is unlikely to result from feeding a bran mash once a week. It’s far more likely if bran or traditional grains are fed daily in a poorly balanced ration. Traditionally any number of unfortified grains could have caused a similar issue, but because, proportionally, brans add much more phosphorus per pound than the grains, they are often considered a larger problem. With the concern over big head and potential links to bran, much less wheat bran is now fed and most rice brans are fortified with additional calcium carbonate to neutralize the problem.

So, What’s Right About Bran?

Going back to the quote from my Manual of Horsemanship, if a bran mash has “everything to recommend it,” what’s it doing right, given the two already discussed areas of concern? First, the manual hints that bran mashes are generally welcomed by even the most picky eater. Often, after very long and heavy work such as fox hunting, horses might have a reduced appetite and the goal is to get the horse eating and the digestive tract moving. Some sick horses that have gone off feed can be tempted to eat with a bran mash. Therefore, a bran mash can be a very useful tool when faced with a horse that has gone off feed and will not eat anything else.

Second, adding salt to a bran mash is a great practice, especially when fed after work that might have incurred heavy sweat losses.

Alternative Warm Mashes for Your Horse

So, when you want to give a bran mash is there something else that might be more beneficial? Is there a better way?

If you already give your horse supplemental feed, whether it is pellets or a textured feed, add hot water to make a warm mash just as you would with wheat bran. This way you are creating the mash but using familiar feeds that are less likely to irritate the gastrointestinal tract.

If you only feed forage, purchase some hay pellets that are like the forage you feed and use them to make a mash.

Next add some salt, or if you already give salt every day and your horse has been sweating heavily, add an electrolyte. If you need to entice a picky eater or a horse that has gone off feed, try adding carrot or apple peelings. If you have your heart set on a weekly bran mash, then I suggest adding a small amount of bran to your horse’s every day feed so that the mash is not a novel feed to your horse’ digestive tract. But be careful to keep the amount of bran small and consider discussing with an equine nutritionist how to add bran to your ration while maintaining a balanced mineral profile.

Q. I feed my ulcer-prone horse alfalfa before riding, because I’ve heard the calcium in alfalfa works like a big Tums antacid to keep my horse’s stomach from hurting during exercise. I was recently told that alfalfa pellets don’t work and that I should use alfalfa hay or chop instead, because the alfalfa needs to create a “hay mat” in the stomach to keep acid from splashing up into a horse’s esophagus (basically, causing horse heartburn). Is it true that I need to feed alfalfa hay or chop instead of pellets?

A. You are correct. Alfalfa is typically high in calcium, which researchers have shown reduces stomach acidity due to its buffering capacity. In a study at Texas A&M University, 12 horses were assigned to one of two groups: a 1:1 ratio by weight of Bermuda hay and a concentrate feed or of alfalfa hay and the same concentrate feed.

Treatment periods lasted 28 days before horses switched to the other diet with a 21-day washout period between treatments. At the start of the study each horse went through a gastroscopy to determine whether they had gastric ulcers and, if so, their severity. Horses were rescoped after the 28-day treatment periods to determine whether any existing ulcers had improved or worsened or new ulcers had appeared.

The researchers found that ulcer severity scores were significantly lower when horses ate alfalfa hay compared to Bermuda hay. Feeding alfalfa prevented ulcer formation in 11 of 12 horses that did not have ulcers initially, whereas only three of the 12 horses that did not have ulcers stayed ulcer-free when fed Bermuda. The team attributed these results to alfalfa’s higher calcium and protein content providing greater buffering capacity. The complex carbohydrate fractions found in alfalfa’s cell walls have also been shown to provide better buffering than those found in grass hays.

It’s clear that alfalfa does a good job of buffering the acid in the equine stomach. The question therefore becomes, does it matter what form the alfalfa is in? Long-stem hay requires a good amount of chewing before being swallowed, and chewing results in saliva. Equine saliva contains a good amount of sodium bicarbonate, which will also buffer stomach acid. Pellets take less chewing so result in less saliva and lower buffering from the bicarbonate. So long-stem hay would be preferable from that perspective. But what about the fiber mat?

The equine stomach is not completely full of acid. Large feed particles float on top of the acid, helping prevent it from splashing into the upper portion of the stomach where most ulcers occur. Pellets have a much smaller particle size than long-stem fiber, so alfalfa hay is more likely to make a better mat than pellets. Keep in mind that any forage in hay form—not just alfalfa—will form a good mat and cause saliva production. So if your horse has eaten hay within the few hours prior to your ride, he likely already has a good mat.

The calcium in pellets might buffer more quickly than hay due to the smaller particle size, but the smaller particles might also cause the calcium to move out of the stomach faster than larger particles would. So the question becomes: Which is more important, the hay mat or the buffering? If the stomach’s acidity is low, it won’t matter as much if the acid splashes into the stomach’s unprotected upper region. A hay mat is less important when the stomach acid is less acidic, and depending on when your horse last ate hay, a mat might already exist.

If you’re arriving to ride your horse and he has an empty stomach, and you give him alfalfa while you’re grooming, he might not have time to consume much alfalfa hay, because it requires more chewing. You might get greater buffering capacity more quickly by feeding pellets, although you won’t get a great mat. Most stomach buffers are relatively short-lived, lasting at most a couple of hours. Research has shown that some commercial buffers on the market buffer effectively and more quickly than alfalfa. These can be great options when given before exercise, if you need buffering capacity quickly.

Alfalfa’s ability to help reduce ulcers, and in which form you should use it, depends on a combination of complex interactions. The best solution for each horse might not be completely clear, but what we do know is that giving some form of alfalfa before riding a horse with an empty stomach will likely have a positive impact and could reduce your horse’s risk of developing gastric ulcers.

Q: How can I prevent nutritional deficiencies without causing developmental issues in a growing foal?

A: Developmental orthopedic disease (DOD) is a common concern in young horses, referring to a group of conditions where skeletal growth occurs abnormally. While nutritional mismanagement can be a factor, proper nutrition can help manage the risk of developmental issues.

Feeding young horses requires careful planning, starting before birth. Ensuring the mare’s optimal nutrition during pregnancy and lactation is essential for fetal development and milk quality. Once born, foals should begin consuming concentrates at around 28 days old; a good rule of thumb is 1 pound of feed per month of age per day. Feeding with progressive and consistent increases will encourage steady growth curves associated with optimal skeletal development. Erratic changes, feeding an improper concentrate, offering it free-choice, or making sudden changes to the amount of concentrate, can result in the unpredictable growth curves that are the hallmarks of DOD development. You can design your feeding program to support rapid versus moderate versus slow growth rates depending on the goals for that foal, but make these decisions with few changes occurring during the early growth period.

It’s a misconception that excess calories or protein alone causes DOD. Instead, imbalances in these and other nutrients have been linked to abnormal growth. Think of calories as the fuel for growth and nutrients (amino acids, vitamins, and minerals) as the structural building blocks. Too much fuel and too few building blocks will create rapid, incorrect growth. Too little fuel and you will be missing out on some genetic potential for growth, which could hinder muscle development. In addition to energy and protein, other nutrients need to be maintained in certain ratios to ensure optimal utilization. Calcium and phosphorus are classic examples of nutrients that should remain balanced to a ratio of no less than 1:1 (2:1 being optimal). Similarly, zinc and copper must be balanced in a ratio of around 4:1 in a complete diet. 

A simple way to stay on track is to:

1. Feed to suitable body condition, which is when ribs are not or just barely seen and easily felt, and
2. Use only feeds appropriate for growth. Look for items designated for mare and foal, growth, or all life stages. This means the nutrients are balanced for young horses, and the balance between calories and nutrients is appropriate. 

The key difference between growth and performance feed is that a performance feed for an adult horse has a higher ratio of calories to nutrients, meant to support working horses but not adding structural growth. Growth feeds are available at all calorie levels, so the exact choice of concentrate will be dictated by the individual’s metabolism and forage intake and quality. Ration-balancing feeds are a good option to provide nutrients if your horse receives sufficient calories from forage alone. A young horse should generally stay on a growth-appropriate program until 2 years old, sometimes longer for particularly late-maturing breeds such as some warmblood or draft breeds.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q: My horse has recently been diagnosed with EOTRH and needs some teeth removed. What can I do to support him nutritionally through this process?

A: Dental health problems in horses can be stressful to manage, but working closely with your veterinarian for medical care and considering how to support your horse nutritionally is a great start. Equine odontoclastic tooth resorption and hypercementosis (EOTRH) is a progressive and painful dental condition that primarily affects the tooth roots and surrounding gingiva (gums) in older horses. While the exact cause of this condition remains unknown, multiple factors likely contribute to its development.  

The treatment for EOTRH depends on the stage of disease. For mild cases your veterinarian might recommend more frequent dental examinations, pain management medications, or dietary modifications. As the disease progresses, surgical removal of teeth (typically incisors) and affected tissues might be necessary.  

When a horse has dental issues, evaluate his diet to ensure he can comfortably consume his feed and water. Make sure his roughage requirements are met and that he doesn’t have extended fasting periods.  

Adequate Roughage Intake for EOTRH Horses 

Horses have evolved to consume a fibrous diet with small frequent meals throughout the day. The severity of EOTRH and the number of teeth removed will determine what the horse can comfortably consume.  

A horse’s diet should contain a minimum of 1.5% of his body weight in forage daily. Whenever possible keep a portion of the horse’s diet as long-stem fiber to promote gastrointestinal health.  

Even after the removal of some teeth, horses often return to eating hay. Most can use their lips to eat grass and can grind forages with the molars. When they horse is not able to comfortably consume and chew the long-stem fiber, you need to introduce processed fiber sources . This could be chopped hay, hay cubes, beet pulp, or a complete feed. 

Nutritional Management Before and After Equine Dental Surgery  

When you schedule your horse’s dental surgery, it can be beneficial to add a fiber source that will be easy for your horse to chew. Make feed changes slowly. If your horse currently consumes hay but will be on mashes during his surgical recovery period, add some of those mashes into his program before surgery. This ensures the mash choice is palatable for your horse and his gastrointestinal tract has time to adapt to the changes.  

For example, if a 500 kilogram (1,100 pound) horse consumes 2% of his body weight in hay daily (10 kg or 22 lb), gradually introducing 1-2 kg (2-4 lb) of soaked hay cube mashes before dental surgery can help him adjust. Your dental surgeon can provide more detailed recovery instructions.  

Managing Severe Cases of EOTRH 

In severe cases where the horse can no longer consume hay and pasture is unavailable, designing a safe nutrition program can be challenging. In these cases use a combination of chopped fiber sources and complete feeds, which should be soaked and fed at a rate of 1.5-2% of the horse’s body weight per day (e.g., 16-22 lb for a 1,100 lb horse). 

To maintain digestive health and prevent long fasting periods, divide the daily feed amount into four to six small meals spaced no more than four to five hours apart. Soaking the feed reduces the risk of choke and encourages water intake. Prepare soaked feeds just before feeding to prevent them sitting for long periods of time and potentially going bad or becoming less palatable.  

Other Key Considerations for Horses With EOTRH 

Beyond feed amount and frequency, consider water temperature for soaked feeds and your horse’s feed preferences. Very cold water can cause discomfort to animals with dental issues and, because most of these horses are seniors, keep in mind their nutritional needs and feed preferences could change as they age.   

Outside of nutritional management, know your horse’s normal body condition score and recheck it to make sure he isn’t losing condition. Recognize when something is wrong so you can promptly contact your veterinarian. 

Long-term management decisions for horses that have had EOTRH will depend on whether the horse can go back to eating long-stem fiber. When the disease progresses to a point in which the horse can’t consume hay or even chew chopped forages, you might need to switch him to a complete feed that can be fed in many small meals daily. Consult a qualified equine nutritionist if you have questions about optimizing your horse’s nutritional management through dental health challenges.  

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q. I have an upper-level dressage horse that is in a rigorous training program six days a week. He is currently in good condition with a body condition score (BCS) of 5. Because he is working hard, I’m concerned about his protein intake. What are the best sources of high-quality protein for me to look for or add to his feed?

A. Protein is an important part of your horse’s diet and is one of the six required nutrient classes for horses. Taking a keen interest in your horse’s protein intake is important because when a horse’s workload increases, his or her protein requirement increases as well.

Proteins are a major component of body tissues and play key roles in enzymes, hormones, and antibodies, so consuming a quality protein source is imperative to working horses’ health. Protein is also necessary for muscle development and repair, which is necessary for horses in work.

Amino Acids in Equine Diets

Protein molecules are composed of amino acids. There are 21 main amino acids, 10 of which are essential, meaning the horse cannot synthesize them and we must provide them in the diet. The National Research Council’s (NRC) Nutrient Requirements of Horses, published in 2007, provides a recommendation for horses’ crude protein intake as well as lysine intake. Lysine is the first-limiting amino acid for horses, meaning it is the first essential amino acid in which they become deficient. Although equine researchers do not yet know how much of each essential amino acid horses need, we know that lysine, threonine, and methionine are the first three limiting.

High-quality protein is readily digestible for the horse in the small intestine if the protein source is providing the essential amino acids in correct amounts. A lower-quality protein source might not provide the key amino acids or be as digestible.

Evaluating Protein Content in Your Horse’s Diet

Before you focus on the protein in your supplemental products, you should first look at the hay, which almost always makes up most of the horse’s diet. If you are concerned about your horse’s protein intake, first order a hay analysis. Simply adding more protein to your horse’s diet without analyzing your hay first can eventually have negative effects on your horse’s health.

Excess and Deficiency in Equine Diets

In equine diets too much or too little protein can cause health issues. Performance horses maintained on high-quality hay with supplemental feeds are unlikely to have protein deficiencies.

Excess dietary protein is not typically an issue for healthy horses because they can break it down and excrete the excess, but it can put unnecessary strain on the kidneys and liver. Horses do not store protein for later use the way they do carbohydrates and fats.

When horses consume excess protein for a prolonged period, it can increase the horse’s heat production and urine output and create a significant ammonia smell in the stall that negatively affects the respiratory tract. Additionally, protein is a costly feed ingredient so providing it in excess makes the ration unnecessarily expensive.

Choosing A Quality Protein Source for Your Horse

When evaluating protein in the diet, look at the crude protein your hay and feed supply and evaluate the quality of the protein source. Hay provides protein to the horse, and legumes such as alfalfa serve as high-quality protein sources. Other high-quality protein sources include soybean meal, canola meal, flax, whey, sunflower meal, and a variety of legumes. Equine nutritionists typically regard cereal grains (i.e. oats or corn) as lower-quality protein sources.

When reading the label of the feed you have chosen for your horse, instead of just looking at the crude protein percentage, you should also take a close look at the ingredient list. Take note of the protein sources and be conscious of where they lie on the list. Ideally, the higher-quality sources should be at the top of the ingredient list, meaning they make up most of the product’s protein content. If the higher-quality sources are toward the end of the ingredient list, it indicates they make up a smaller portion of the feed’s protein.

Take-Home Message

The crucial first step in planning an optimal diet for your horse is to pursue a hay analysis, which will help you understand how much protein your forage is providing. This information will help you be confident you are meeting your horse’s crude protein requirement. From there, you can critically evaluate your horse’s feed to ensure there are high-quality protein sources in the ingredient list such as alfalfa, soy, canola, whey, legumes, or even sunflower meal. Choosing a commercial feed that mainly includes high-quality protein sources is a good way to ensure the product is supplying highly-digestible protein to your horse.

Q: My easy-keeper horse had laminitis a few years ago, and ever since then I have controlled his hay intake to ensure he maintains an adequate body condition score. My concern is his hay ration does not last him 24 hours, even with a hay net. I have heard that horses should not go without hay, therefore I am wondering what management tactics could help his hay last longer? And should I be concerned when his hay runs out?

A: It is great to hear your horse has maintained a healthy body condition (which should be 4-5 on the Henneke scale) after recovering from laminitis. As you know, it can be very challenging to manage these easy keepers.

You are correct in that it is important to ensure that horses do not have extended periods of time without access to hay. However, for horses that tend to be overweight, they are typically unable to have free-choice hay because this can result in obesity, which is a serious health concern. 

The Importance of ‘Trickle Feeding’ for Horses

The reason horses need access to hay or roughage for most of their time stems from how they have adapted to eat. Horses are trickle feeders and graze for upward of 18 hours per day. Therefore, their anatomy is designed to support trickle-feeding behavior. For example, unlike in humans, when horses chew, it stimulates salivation. Saliva is important for both moistening feed and as a gastric buffer, so it’s crucial to consider chew time when determining how to feed your horse his hay rations.

Additionally, the stomach continually produces gastric acid—even when the horse is not eating. Lack of forage in the horse’s stomach creates a much more acidic environment and can increase the risk of gastric ulcers developing.

There are many anatomical reasons to support trickle feeding, but it is important to keep in mind that obesity is also a serious health issue in horses. It is not always as simple as hanging a hay net and hoping our easy keepers can pace themselves.

How Much Hay to Feed an Easy Keeper

When restricting forage, you must still meet the minimum hay intake of 1.5% of the horse’s body weight daily. For example, a 1,100-lb horse needs to consume a minimum of 16.5 lbs of hay daily. Be sure you are implementing slow-feeding methods, such as hay nets, and offering multiple feedings so the horse is never without hay for longer than four hours.

If you have an easy keeper and he runs out of hay an hour or two before his next feeding, it is not a cause for concern if he seems content otherwise. However, if he is having any prolonged periods (three to four-plus hours) without hay then you might need to consider management changes such as feeding him more often. Additionally, if the horse is displaying unwanted behaviors—for example, wood chewing—during the hour or two he is out of hay, this is a sign that you might need to adjust your feeding schedule. In situations when labor is not easily available, there are a few different automatic feeders on the market that could be used as well.

Hay Quality for Horses With Metabolic Issues

A commonly overlooked aspect of feeding easy keepers is evaluating the energy content of the hay—that is, the calories it offers. If your easy keeper is running out of hay too quickly, testing it to evaluate the energy content should be the first step. Easy keepers should eat Grade 3 or 4 “utility hay” based on the American Forage and Grassland Council grade scale. This is hay that is lower in digestible energy, with acid detergent fiber (ADF) content of 41-45% and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) content of 54-65% on a dry-matter basis.

When we match the quality of the hay to our horse’s needs, it can make the management much easier. For example, with your easy keeper, if you source lower-energy hay, it might mean he can consume more without gaining excess weight, so his daily hay ration could last longer.

Straw as an Additive for Easy Keepers

Another management tactic for these horses is to incorporate some straw into their ration. Straw is the byproduct of cereal crops (what is left over after the grain is harvested). Horse owners can use it for easy keepers because it is low in nutritional value and, therefore, low in energy. Please note that due to straw’s low nutritional value, you should not offer it as the primary forage for a horse, but it can make up to 25% of their forage.

As with any diet change, introduce straw over a minimum of seven days so that the horse can gradually adjust and to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal upset. Another key consideration you should make for any horse, but especially those consuming larger amounts of indigestible fiber, is water intake. Be sure your horse is receiving adequate salt and has free-choice access to a fresh and clean water source.

The goal of either sourcing lower-energy hay or incorporating some straw into the ration is to increase the amount of roughage the horse can consume, which helps prevent any fasting periods and increases chew time without significantly increasing digestible energy intake. Test both your hay and straw prior to feeding it to your horse to be sure it is safe for them. If you are unsure of the safety of a forage source, consult a qualified equine nutritionist prior to feeding it.

Even with lower-energy forage, and incorporating straw, slow-feeding tactics are often still necessary. If you are using a hay net, and your horse is continuing to eat too quickly, you could reduce the hole size of the net, or even double-net the hay to slow him down.

Slow-Feeding Tactics

Anytime you implement a new slow-feeding tactic, for example, double-netting, observe your horses to ensure they can consume the hay. Occasionally, if it is too difficult for them, they could become frustrated and give up on trying entirely.

Each horse is truly an individual, so you might have to experiment with a few different types of hay nets or slow feeders prior to finding one that works best for your horse. As horses get used to eating from hay nets, they become more skilled with it, and you might be able to gradually work them to nets with smaller holes or double-netting. Slowing down their intake is important, of course, but also consider any ways in which you can increase your easy keeper’s movement. You can use hay balls or play around with the paddock setup. For example, using multiple smaller hay nets so horses must travel between them or even setting up a track system are great options to encourage natural movement.

Take-Home Message

Overall, carefully managing easy-keeping horses and those at risk of obesity is imperative for their health. However, it can be challenging to provide them with adequate roughage while ensuring they do not become overweight. So, if your horse is on a good slow-feeding program and you have tested your hay, rest assured that your horse will be fine if he runs out for an hour here and there. However, if he experiences prolonged fasting periods, investigate the various management tactics you can use to reduce his time spent without forage.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q: I’ve struggled to build my horse’s topline. His loin is under developed despite being in regular dressage training. A friend at the barn suggested that I add whey protein to his diet. I am curious to learn if this is a good idea and why it might help.

A: Having a strong back musculature, or topline, plays an important role in your horse’s ability to carry you as a rider in a way that a) protects his spine and other tissues and b) allows him to successfully fulfill athletic demands.

Horses can struggle with topline development for many reasons and, while nutrition can play a role, it’s important to rule out other potential issues. For example, saddle fit and training methods can impact a horse’s ability to use himself correctly and, thus, develop strong musculature. Similarly, pain associated with joints or conditions such as polysaccharide storage myopathy might also have an impact. For this reason, I strongly recommend your veterinarian assess your horse to rule out any other issues before assuming it’s nutritional.

I also recommend body condition scoring your horse and make sure he’s not lacking in condition overall. If you determine that the horse is generally underweight, you’ll probably need to increase calorie intake, as this is likely contributing to your lack of topline. If however you determine that the horse generally has good fat cover, the ribs are covered, etc., but his topline is still underdeveloped, then this might be associated with insufficient dietary protein.

How much protein does a horse need?

How much protein a horse needs depends on the horse and the physiologic state. I rarely find a crude protein deficiencies in mature horses’ diets; they typically only require about 10 or 11% crude protein in their diets, which most forage sources easily meet. However young, growing horses require 12 to 14%, and this might pose more of a challenge to meet.

Most good grass hays can meet mature horse protein requirements and provide 10% or higher crude protein; alfalfa typically provides 18% or more. Grain hays such as oat hay can fall short, with an average crude protein of closer to 8%.

In reality, though, your horse doesn’t have a crude protein requirement, but rather an amino acid requirement. Amino acids are the building blocks that make up proteins, and there are 21 amino acids of which nine are essential for mammals (histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine with others being conditionally essential). An essential nutrient is one that must be provided by the diet because the animal can’t make that nutrient itself. Each protein contains a range of these various amino acids with some providing a greater proportion of essential amino acids than others. The greater the proportion of essential amino acids in a protein the better quality that protein is said to be.

In an ideal world the amino acid composition of the diet you feed would exactly match the amino acid needs for your horse. Unfortunately, we need more research in this area before we are close to this level of accuracy in equine nutrition, although other species such as swine and poultry, have feeds more along these lines. The amino acid provided in the lowest quantity compared to the animal’s need is said to be the limiting amino acid. For equine diets lysine is typically the limiting amino acid followed by methionine which is why you often see them being singled out on feed labels with guaranteed levels.

Diet Design Tips

Grass hay is made up of medium- or low- quality protein and does not provide a great deal of lysine. This is particularly an issue if you limit your horse’s hay intake. Alfalfa, on the other hand, provides more lysine, so its protein is considered to be of better quality. Many performance horse owners I work with believe that they see a benefit in their horse’s topline when they feed some of the forage ration as alfalfa, and this might be part of the reason.

Another complicating factor associated with hay protein is that the more mature a hay is, the more protein is associated with the structural carbohydrate fractions. This is potentially important because protein digestion and amino acid absorption needs to occur in the small intestine. However, structural carbohydrates require microbial fermentation to be broken down to release the protein contained within. Microbial fermentation occurs in the hindgut, which comes after the small intestine. Therefore, any protein and amino acids released at that point have missed the opportunity to be absorbed and instead are converted by the bacteria to ammonia. So, while a hay analysis can suggest a particular forage has adequate amounts of protein it’s possible that not all that protein is actually available for the horse. This is likely a bigger concern for grass and grain hays because alfalfa has so much more protein and tends to have higher digestibility.

For your horse to be able to synthesize the proteins, he needs the amino acids be present in the right ratio. If one of the necessary amino acids is present at inadequate levels, this will negatively impact protein synthesis. When you combine the issue of protein quality, protein availability, and the concept of limiting amino acids and the need to have the right amino acids present in the right amounts for protein synthesis, it starts to become clear that all these factors play a role in your horse’s ability to generate anything made up of protein.

If your horse’s lack of topline development is due to dietary protein the goal is to improve the overall protein quality of the ration so that more of the essential amino acids are provided in a digestible format. Skeletal muscle is made up of a broad range of amino acids with the greatest being lysine at about 79 mg/g of muscle tissue, followed by leucine at 77 mg/g and the other branch chain amino acids isoleucine and valine.

It might be tempting to supplement individual amino acids; however, I caution against this because amino acids need to be present in a balanced manner. By giving just one amino acid you run the risk of upsetting this balance. Rather, it’s preferable to provide a source of better quality protein that will supply a range of amino acids.

This is why soybean meal is a common ingredient in horse feed. Soybean meal is the highest quality plant based protein source commonly available as a feed ingredient. Soybean meal provides just more than 60 mg of lysine per gram of protein, which is significantly more than a mid-maturity grass hay with 35 mg of lysine per gram of protein, and even alfalfa with 51 mg of lysine per gram of protein. Correctly offering your horse a commercial feed will often ensure he receives adequate lysine, along with other essential amino acids.

So, what does all this have to do with whey protein?

Whey protein comes from milk and is left after manufacturer’s separate curds from it during cheese making. Once carefully dried to a powder, a highly concentrated source of protein remains. The protein is also very high-quality with more than 60% of the amino acids being essential amino acids, in particular the branch chain amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine. With skeletal muscle being made up of a high concentration of these branch amino acids, adequate branch chain amino acid availability is important for muscle repair after exercise. Supplementing horses with whey protein might help support development of lean muscle mass.

However, research in this area is limited and inconclusive. It’s also important to understand that whey protein comes in several different forms. Most commonly available are whey protein concentrate and whey protein isolate. The concentrate is the whey exactly as it was when the curds were removed meaning that it still contains lactose, fat, and various vitamins and minerals. Protein content can vary widely and care needs to be taken as horses over 3 years old are less able to digest lactose, which can lead to digestive distress. The isolate form is a more consistent product and has had much of the fat and lactose removed. As a result, the product is almost pure whey (90% plus) and is considerably more expensive.

Equine whey protein supplements do exist, and I recommend them over those created for people, because those made for people are often for making protein shakes and contain other ingredients and additives that might not be suitable for your horse.

Take-Home Message

If you’re struggling to develop your horse’s topline and feel that there might be a nutrition issue, evaluate your horse’s diet. Consider the sources of protein in the ration and see whether there are easy affordable steps you can take that will improve the overall protein quality and digestibility of the ration. This ultimately might or might not involve supplementing whey protein.

Q. This year was difficult for harvesting hay, so the only hay I could get for my herd of horses has had preservative sprayed on it to prevent mold growth. Should I be concerned about this? Is it safe for them to consume?

A. Harvesting high-quality hay can be challenging for horse owners. To cut and bale premium hay, it must be cut at the right time, dried quickly, and baled at the correct moisture, then moved out of the elements and into storage. Although this sounds straightforward, it can be challenging because it relies heavily on weather conditions. In seasons that have a lot of precipitation, baling adequately dried hay becomes an issue. However, for horse hay, it is crucial that the bales not contain mold and are adequately dried.

Farmers monitor moisture content of forage throughout the harvesting process—when the hay is too wet mold is a concern and those bales could even become a fire hazard, and if the hay is baled too dry, there is significant nutrient loss due to leaf brittleness. Therefore, a happy medium is key.

Farmers might invest in inoculants or preservative sprays to reduce the likelihood of losing a crop because they allow the farmer to bale a hay at slightly higher moisture levels. For example, if the hay is not quite dry enough, but there is rain approaching in the forecast, the farmer might invest in a preservative spray for that field to ensure it can be baled prior to the rainfall. These products are most commonly used in wet and cool climates.

Manufacturers offer two main types of preservatives: bacterial inoculants and organic acids. Bacterial inoculants are typically characterized by the addition of lactic-acid-forming bacteria such as Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, and Bacillus. These organisms compete with mold-forming organisms in order to maintain forage quality. These products allow farmers to bale the hay at 3 to 5 percent higher moisture.

The other common preservative farmers spray on hay is organic acids (e.g., propionic acid). These products produce an acidic environment that is not supportive of mold growth. Again, this allows the hay to be baled slightly wetter so the grower can reduce the amount of time that it is in the field drying with a risk of it being rained on.

Farmers only use these products when absolutely required because they are an investment; however, without them, more hay would be lost in wet years, which would create shortages and cause hay prices to skyrocket.

Regarding horse health, researchers have shown that horses preferentially eat nontreated hay when given the choice. However, it is safe for them to consume treated hay. In one study looking at feeding hay treated with commercial preservatives to yearlings, scientists found there was no difference in feed consumption or weight gain between the treated and untreated hay groups. When we investigate hay treated with propionic acid, keep in mind that the product is buffered; despite it having a very low pH on its own, it is buffered to be closer to neutral (pH of 7) and will not cause harm to the horse when consumed. Additionally, the horse naturally produces propionic acid in the hindgut when hay is fermented.

Although farmers prefer harvesting conditions that allow for the baling of high-quality horse hay without the use of preservatives such as organic acids and bacterial inoculants, these products are a safe and effective way to reduce the risk of mold development in hay. So, from a nutritional standpoint, hay that has been treated with a preservative such as propionic acid is safe for horses.

Do you have a horse nutrition question?

Q: My trainer suggested I add oil to my horse’s diet to help with her weight and coat. Does it matter what type of oil I choose? Are there certain benefits to feeding corn oil versus canola or vegetable oils?

A: Adding fat to a horse’s diet is a common choice when owners want to improve coat quality or weight gain because fatty acids coat the hair shaft, making it reflect light better so hair shines more and becomes more pliable. Fat also provides 2.25 times more calories to the diet than an equal weight of carbohydrates, which enables you to get more calories into the ration without having to greatly increase feed intake. The other benefit of using fat for weight gain is it is widely considered to be a “cooler” source of energy and less likely to make horses excitable than using higher-starch options.

On face value, the answer to the question of does it matter what type of fat/oil is used to improve coat quality or for weight gain, the answer is no. Corn, canola, vegetable, flax oil, etc., will all increase shine and add calories for weight gain. But there are some additional considerations to make because outside of their abilities to improve coat and increase condition, these fats have other effects within your horse’s body.

The composition of these fatty acids varies, with some containing more omega-6 fats while others contain more omega-3 fats. These differences are important to understand because these two types of polyunsaturated fats play key roles in cell membrane structure, inflammation, and other physiological processes.

The fat in a horse’s natural diet of fresh grass tends to be quite high in omega-3 fatty acids. However, these fats are not heat-stable, so much of the omega fat is lost when grass is dried to make hay. Many of the other common equine feed ingredients tend to be higher in omega-6 fats. This is especially true of high-fat ingredients such as rice bran and the vegetable oils used in feeds. This can result in a diet that provides more omega-6 than -3 fatty acids.

Both omega-3 and -6 fats are essential, meaning horses cannot generate them and, thus, must consume them in their diet. Because the level of omega-3 fats tends to be lower when horses do not have access to good-quality pasture, it is ideal to provide supplemental fats that are higher in omega-3 fats when trying to improve coat quality and body condition. This will not only improve coat quality and body condition but also help the horse better regulate inflammatory response.

Although corn oil is relatively cheap, it has no omega-3 fat, so I typically do not utilize it. Other oils often used for weight gain, where you may need to feed up to two cups a day, are soybean oil and canola oil because while these are both high in omega-6 fats, they do contain some omega-3. Better still, and my choices for coat-quality improvement, are flax or camelina oil because these have more omega-3 than -6. Coat quality might improve with as little as 2 fluid ounces a day. Their high cost could make them a more challenging option when larger amounts are needed for weight gain but, if cost is not a constraint, they would be a great choice for weight gain, as well.

Other good oil options are ahiflower oil, which is also high in omega-3 fatty acids including stearidonic acid. Hemp oil also contains stearidonic acid, in addition to an unusual omega-6 fatty acid, gamma-linolenic acid, which behaves like an omega-3.

Feeding any one of these oils will likely have a positive impact on coat quality and, if fed in enough quantity, weight gain, as well. Selecting an oil with higher omega-3 content might also have other added systemic benefits by regulating inflammation, which can help with joint health, respiratory function, immune function, and a number of other conditions.

Q. My horse is starting to shed his winter coat, and I’m wondering whether there is anything I can do nutritionally to speed up the process and that will also ensure a good-quality summer coat?

A. While most of us look forward to the longer days and warmer weather of spring, shedding horses can leave the barn looking like a yak thanks to shedding winter coats. I don’t blame you for wanting it over as quickly as possible!

Some anecdotal reports suggest that feeding flax or black oil sunflower seeds can help horses shed out more quickly. This is likely due to the oil these feeds contain. However, I have found no scientific evidence to support this assertion. The best way to speed up the removal of old coat is rigorous grooming before and after exercise using a rubber curry comb or similar grooming tool. If the weather is warm enough, a bath will often help loosen hair. So will a good roll in a sandy arena.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that blanketing your horse will help them shed faster. Day length is what triggers hair loss, not body temperature.

Fat and Horse Hair Coat Quality

While feeding fat to speed up shedding might be no more than placebo effect, adding more fat to the diet might help improve the new coat’s quality. The hair shaft is coated in cuticle cells that contain a substantial amount of fat that helps retain moisture. These cells should lay flat, and when they’re flat they reflect light beautifully. However, if damaged, moisture is lost from the hair shaft, and the hair becomes dry and no longer reflects light with the same brilliance. Additionally, pores in the skin release sebum, which is an oily substance that coats the hair shaft and helps maintain shine. Diets that don’t provide adequate amounts of fatty acids could result in a dry hair coat that’s more susceptible to damage and a dull appearance.

Take caution before supplementing fat to ensure it is appropriate for the individual horse based on body condition. However, even relatively small amounts of fat should have a positive impact on coat quality. Try to use fat sources that provide essential omega fatty acids especially those that supply greater quantities of omega-3 than omega-6. Flax and camelina oil are good options, and you only need to feed about 2 to 4 ounces per day for an average-sized horse. If feeding flax seed, either whole or ground, feed about 4 to 6 ounces by weight, which is about 1 cup by volume.

Supplementing oil also supports supple, healthy skin and reduces dandruff and flakiness.

Vitamins

Vitamin A is a key nutrient that plays a role in skin health, and while the equine dietary deficiencies are rare, they can occur if you’re feeding older hay. While the precursor to vitamin A, beta-carotene, is abundant in fresh forages, it is lost from hay at a rate of almost 10% per month. Therefore, by late winter/early spring hay might have lost 50% of its beta-carotene, and by the time hay is a year old it’s likely horses will need an additional vitamin A source to meet their basic dietary requirements.

Protein and Amino Acids

The hair shaft is made up mostly of the protein keratin. Diets that provide inadequate protein or that lack essential amino acids could result in reduced hair growth. This, in turn, could slow down shedding. Look at the quality of the forage you’re feeding. Very stemmy hay, the result of cutting plants when they are mature, might need to be supplemented with feeds that provide quality protein, such as soybean meal.

Copper and Zinc’s Role

Ensuring horses’ dietary copper and zinc requirements are met will also help support coat color. Both these minerals impact melanin, the protein in hair that is responsible for pigmentation. If the hair contains inadequate amounts of melanin, it is unable to resist damage from ultraviolet light. This leads to oxidative damage and fading.
Copper is also needed by the enzyme lysyl oxidase, which is necessary for the maintenance of the cross-bridges in collagen within skin. Without adequate copper these cross linkages are weakened and the skin loses structural integrity.

Take-Home Message

A balanced diet with appropriate levels of protein, trace minerals, and vitamins supports healthy skin and coat. For greatest effect you should make sure that all dietary requirements are met before shedding starts. That way the new coat will be fully supported from the very beginning of its growth. Combine this with rigorous grooming sessions and you will have a fabulous summer coat before you know it.

Q: My mare is due in April. Right now my veterinarian says she’s at a healthy weight, but I’m worried she might lose weight as she gets closer to foaling and once she starts nursing. How will her nutritional needs change immediately before and after she has her foal, and how can I be sure her diet meets her energy needs?

A: Great question, and you’re right to wonder about the nutritional needs of your broodmare because they change as she progresses in her pregnancy and through lactation.

While your vet indicated your mare is currently at a good weight, it is also important to know your mare’s body condition score (BCS). Ideally during late gestation, you want her to have a BCS between 5 and 6 using the Henneke body condition scale of 1-9 (with 1 being extremely thin and 9 being extremely fat). It can be beneficial for a broodmare to carry a little extra body condition during this time, so she has a buffer of body fat stores during the high energy demands of lactation. Being able to recognize and assess your mare’s BCS will help you ensure her diet is adequate in calories. However, just because a mare is in good body condition does not guarantee proper fetal development. Other nutrients such as protein, minerals, and vitamins are also needed to ensure a healthy future for your foal.

Mare Nutrient Requirements in the Second and Third Trimester

Some of your mare’s nutrient requirements begin to slightly increase during her second trimester, beginning around the fifth month of pregnancy. But it’s really in her last trimester, starting around month 8, that her unborn foal begins to develop more rapidly, gaining both weight and body size. In fact, the fetus will gain approximately 1 pound per day in the last three months of gestation and will be approximately 60% of its mature height at birth.

Your mare’s diet should meet her daily nutritional needs because if it does not, her body will deplete itself to meet the demands of the growing fetus. Her increased requirements for energy, protein, and trace minerals—most notably calcium, phosphorous, and copper—are vital for proper fetal development and ensure adequate milk production after the foal is born. Additionally, late gestation mares do not increase voluntary intake to match their higher nutrient demands, so simply feeding more is not necessarily a viable option to give her additional nutrition.

Feeding the Late Gestation Broodmare

Forage should always be the main component of the diet, but even high-quality forages lack the protein, vitamin, and mineral fortification the mare needs during late gestation. For example, high-protein forages such as alfalfa are not well digested in the small intestine and could result in inadequate intake of amino acids. Supplementing with a high-quality concentrate feed designed with broodmares in mind and fed at the appropriate amount will ensure you are meeting her nutrient needs. If your mare is an easy keeper, a ration balancer would be appropriate if she is getting enough calories from her forage to maintain body condition.

Feeding Lactating Mares

Once your mare begins lactating, her nutritional needs for energy, protein, minerals, and some vitamins will increase significantly. For example, her energy needs are double that of her maintenance requirements.

While mares in late gestation might not increase their feed intake, lactating mares tend to have much greater appetites and your feeding program should reflect this. Lactating mares can consume up to 3% of their body weight in dry matter intake and at least half of this should be in forage. Once again, good-quality hay or pasture is recommended due to high nutrient demands. Feeding rates will vary depending on the quality of your hay or pasture and whether your mare is a heavy milker or a hard- or easy keeper.

Most lactating mares cannot meet their high energy and nutrient demands consuming forage only. I recommend feeding a concentrate designed for broodmares to support milk production, provide essential nutrients for the foal, and help maintain your mare’s body condition. Feed according to manufacturer’s instructions for her weight and stage of lactation. Always increase feed gradually to the full feeding amount over a seven-to-10-day period to prevent digestive disturbance.

Take-Home Message

The best start for a foal begins with proper nutritional management of the mare. Broodmare owners benefit from learning body condition scoring and recognizing their mares’ specific nutritional needs before and after foaling.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q: I’ve always heard horses are more prone to impaction colic during winter, especially if they don’t drink enough water. Is this true? If so, what can I do to reduce my horse’s risk of impaction colic this winter?

A: At its most basic, colic is a term covering a wide variety of abdominal pain and can occur throughout the year. Impaction colic describes an incidence of colic related to a large bolus of feedstuffs or waste being caught (impacted) within the intestines. Impaction colic during the colder months is commonly associated with two dietary changes: an increase in the amount of dry feed consumed (especially hay) and a decrease in water intake.

A quick way to determine if your horse is consuming enough water is to routinely monitor his feces. If you notice dry, hard, and crumbly fecal balls, he is not drinking enough.

What Horses Are Prone to Impaction Colic During Winter?

Not all horses develop impaction colic during winter. Owners and managers can decrease their horses’ potential for the condition by monitoring diets, especially forage quality, water intake, and making sure fresh water is always available.

Horses evolved as animals that spend a significant amount of their time walking around and consuming forage. This almost constant movement helps keep the digestive tract moving feedstuffs and waste through, so we should make sure our horses get exercise. When storms or weather extremes arrive, we often believe putting our horses in stalls is in their best interest. However, researchers have shown equine gut motility significantly decreases the first few days after a horse moves inside for stall confinement, which can lead to an increase in impaction colic risk.

Improving Water Intake to Reduced Risk of Impaction Colic

The average adult horse consumes approximately 1 gallon of water per 100 pounds of body weight, or approximately 10 gallons if he’s a 1,000-pound horse. Horses need water for proper digestion and movement of feedstuffs through the digestive tract; the drier the feed provided, the more water the horse needs for the digestive tract to function properly.

In colder months, be certain your horse has water available that is not frozen. Some horses are willing to break a layer of ice if it forms on top of the water source, while others are more reluctant. Check your horse’s water sources several times each day to ensure they have not frozen. If your horse doesn’t want to drink very cold water, consider adding warm water (even from a thermos if you don’t have hot water in your barn) to bring up the water temperature in his buckets. You can also find ways to insulate buckets to help keep water from freezing if you cannot use heated buckets or trough heaters.

Top dressing either concentrate or flakes of hay with some loose table salt or other electrolytes can encourage a horse to drink. Soaking his feed and making a mash or slurry also incorporates more water into his diet. Although horse owners have historically used bran mashes, suddenly providing a feed like this can cause digestive upset or unbalance the diet. Now researchers discourage owners from feeding a true bran mash.

Take-Home Message

Keeping your horse hydrated is a key step to limiting his risk of impaction colic. Make sure the water you provide him is palatable and not frozen and be sure he has exercise opportunities to improve gut motility. Finally, check his hydration status daily to ensure he consumes enough water.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q: I do not have much space for hay storage on my farm, so I only buy about 10 bales at a time from my local feed store for my pony. They get their hay from various sources so there is little to no consistency. How can I make these constant changes easier on my pony? Should I get my hay tested with each shipment to make sure it is meeting his nutritional requirements?

A: You’re correct in being concerned about the impact of hay variability on your pony’s nutritional well-being. This is an issue I see fairly frequently, even with large boarding facilities, because it can be difficult to source enough hay for the year and have the space to store it.

I have two main concerns with continually changing the forage source in your pony’s diet. First, when you change the fiber type abruptly, it can shock the microbes in the horse’s gastrointestinal tract and cause digestive upset. Second, maintaining a balanced diet that is optimal for your pony can be challenging when you are unaware of the forage’s nutritional content.

Finding a reliable hay supplier is easier said than done; however, if you can travel to pick up the hay, I recommend inquiring with local hay suppliers about purchasing from them regularly. They might be willing to store hay for you, which could increase the consistency of your 10-bale batches.

Testing Hay When Making Horse Hay Changes

If you cannot change hay suppliers or none in your area have a storage system, testing every shipment to make sure it is adequate for your pony is the gold standard. Hay batches often have large variations in nutritional values such as protein, energy, minerals, sugars, and even fiber digestibility. Maintaining your pony on a quality ration balancer that provides a digestible source of vitamins and minerals will reduce the risk of dietary deficiencies from the forage.

Since you are consistently getting new shipments of hay, testing every single batch can become costly. So, despite this being the gold standard practice, it might not be practical. If you cannot test each shipment, at least test a few batches so you can better understand the forage’s variability.

Maintaining Equine GI Health With Hay Changes

As mentioned, one of the main concerns with abrupt fiber changes is the risk of digestive upset. The large population of microbes in the equine gastrointestinal tract gets accustomed and adapts to the day-to-day diet. Therefore, when your pony switches from one hay type to another frequently, it can be challenging to maintain optimal gut health. A simple way to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal upset when switching hay types is to save a couple of bales (even just two or three) to mix with the new batch of hay.

Get your new shipment of hay while you still have a couple of bales remaining from the last batch. Then begin to feed the new forage in combination with the previous batch. You can start with 25% of the new forage and 75% of the previous batch. Ideally, you would maintain this ratio for a couple of days prior to moving to a 50/50 split. From there, you would continue to increase the proportion of new hay in the diet as you decrease the previous batch. In a perfect situation this transition would happen over seven to 14 days, but any type of slower transition is better than an abrupt change. The slow transition will reduce the shock on your pony’s gastrointestinal tract and allow the microbial population time to adapt to the new forage slowly.

Take-Home Message

Sourcing hay can be challenging, especially when storage is limited; however, with careful management, you can reduce the risk of gastrointestinal upset for your pony. Additionally, testing hay when possible and using a quality ration balancer can reduce the risk of nutrient deficiencies in your pony’s diet.

Q. My horse tends to be an easier keeper. I have done some research, and it appears she likely only needs a ration balancer. However, when I go to the feed store, there are many options that appear to be quite different. How can I choose a good ration balancer for my horse?

A. Easy keepers can be challenging to manage because they normally maintain weight on a forage-only diet, which could include hay and/or pasture. However, forage alone does not meet a horse’s vitamin and mineral requirements. For example, if your mare is on a hay-only diet, she will be deficient in vitamin E because it is not heat stable, so a significant amount is lost during hay curing. Additionally, the mineral content of the hay or pasture will largely rely on the soil mineral content. Almost all forages will be deficient in a variety of minerals, but this varies by geographical location. For example, in Ontario, Canada, the soils are generally deficient in selenium.

Therefore, easy keepers or overweight horses will need a ration balancer to meet their daily vitamin and mineral requirements. These are concentrated products that supply the horse with vitamins, minerals, and often protein. They are designed to be fed in small quantities to fill the nutritional gaps in the hay or pasture.

When browsing the feed store for a ration balancer, it is important to know which of the two broad categories of ration balancers your horse needs. There are ration balancer feeds, which supply crude protein in addition to vitamins and minerals and have a slightly larger feeding rate, normally closer to 1-2 kg/day (2.2-4.4 lbs) for the average-sized horse. Alternatively, there are ration balancer supplements that are simply a concentrated source of vitamins and minerals and do not provide significant crude protein. These have a lower feeding rate, normally 100-200g/day (.22-.44 lbs).

When choosing a ration balancer for your horse, consider his individual needs and get a hay (and/or pasture) analysis to determine the nutritional content of your forage. If your hay provides adequate crude protein, you can opt for one of the ration balancers that is simply a concentrated source of vitamins and minerals. However, if your hay is low in protein, a product that includes crude protein might be more ideal for your horse.

In cases where a horse is over conditioned (at a body condition score of 6 or higher), avoid supplying additional energy through the ration balancer. Even though ration balancer feeds are low in digestible energy, they do still contribute more calories than the ration-balancing supplements. Therefore, you might have better results with a ration balancing supplement because it provides less digestible energy while still meeting the horse’s vitamin and mineral requirements.

When buying a ration balancer, look for one that will be optimal for your horse’s individual needs and complements your hay analysis. This is a crucial step for ensuring her nutritional well-being. Frequently, horse owners with the best intentions will feed a performance feed designed to be fed in larger quantities (normally 2+ kg/day) and feed it to their easy keeper at a lower rate. Generally, these owners know their horses are easy keepers and do not need supplemental energy but understand that they still need an additional source of vitamins and minerals. However, this practice can be harmful to your horse because it often leads to vitamin and mineral deficiencies due to the product being fed below the recommended amount.

Overall, when choosing a feed for your easy keeper horse, a ration balancer is likely the best option. Be sure you feed the product at the recommended rate for your horse’s workload and size and always test your hay prior to buying a ration balancer so you can choose a product that adequately fills your horse’s nutritional gaps.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q. My mare had her first foal last week—a beautiful filly! Everything started out very well. The filly nursed, and my mare accepted her without issue. However, now the foal isn’t gaining weight. I’ve heard that sometimes maiden mares don’t create enough milk. Should I supplement her with milk replacer?

A. Congratulations on the birth of your filly! Having a foal can be enchanting, although at the same time quite stressful because so many things can go wrong. If you haven’t done so already, I strongly recommend contacting your equine veterinarian, who might want to assess the foal and rule out any medical cause for the lack of growth.

Sometimes a mare doesn’t produce enough milk to support the foal’s demands. Foals of this age are nursing in the rage of four to six times per hour, and this suckling action helps stimulate milk production. The demands made on the mammary tissue early on help set the stage for how much milk the mare will produce later. Plenty of early suckling is important so the mare can support the foal’s needs as she grows. If the issue is that the foal does not have much drive to nurse, a veterinarian will need to determine the cause.

If given your vet’s “all clear” to supplement with milk replacer, you’ll find several good commercially produced ones designed specifically for foals. Use these and not replacers created for other species such as goats or cattle. Every species has a milk composition slightly different and unique to their needs.

Because of the need for frequent suckling, feed the foal ad lib milk replacer is best, making sure it’s constantly available. This is better than meal feeding her at times that are convenient for you but perhaps not in sync with when the foal wants to nurse. Also, presenting a foal with infrequent large replacer amounts at once risks overdrinking, and milk might end up in the hindgut where it can disrupt microbial population development.

Keep track of how much replacer the foal is consuming each day. A foal born to a 1,000-pound mare might consume up to 4 pounds of replacer a day, at which point you can transition to free feeding a milk-based pellet.

Make sure you’re creating the milk replacer with a dry matter content of 10%. Less than this level of dry matter might leave the foal hungry. From month one to four the foal might consume 1 pound of replacer per 100 pounds of her body weight. The amount of milk the mare is providing will dictate how much the foal needs to consume from the supplemental source, so don’t be alarmed if you see some variation in how much she consumes each day. Keep a journal so you can see the daily consumption level and be able to identify when you can transition to pellets or to record signs indicating she needs veterinary support.

With careful management and supplementation, you should be able to ensure your foal is receiving the correct plane of nutrition to fully meet her genetic potential and develop at an appropriate rate.

Q. Do you have advice for those of us feeding performance horses on tight budgets?

—Glen from Trinidad

A. In my job as an equine nutrition consultant, clients commonly come to me with long lists of products they’re feeding their horses. This is particularly true of my performance horse clients. When added together the cost of these products is significant, sometimes exceeding $5 per day. This kind of budget is not realistic for many who own performance horses. So, your question is a good one.

My advice is to start at the foundation of your horse’s diet and to be fastidious about management. Don’t scrimp on quality forage—it’s the best investment for your feeding dollars. The more you can feed your horse like a horse, the less likely you will incur expensive veterinary bills associated with conditions such as gastric ulcers and colic and the less reliant you will be on concentrate feeds. Make sure the forage is clean and as free of dust as possible, as this will protect airway health. Feed as much forage as you can to honor your horse’s digestive tract anatomy and physiology.

Forage, however, cannot provide everything your horse needs all year round. Even if your forage source is pasture, at some point in the year its quality and abundance will likely drop. Neither pasture nor hay typically provides adequate levels of trace minerals, might not provide adequate vitamins such as vitamin E and, depending on the individual horse and discipline, might not provide adequate calories. This makes a concentrate, commercial feed, or a balancing supplement necessary.

Select a feed you can offer properly per the manufacturer’s directions. If you’re only going to feed a couple of pounds a day, don’t be fooled by the fact the performance or senior feed is significantly cheaper per bag than the ration balancer. Those feeds have daily feeding rates typically in the range of 0.5 to 1 pounds per 100 pounds of body weight. Feeding less than this will leave your horse with key deficiencies that over time might cause health issues and have you reaching for hoof supplements, coat products, and additives that support topline development. Paying more per bag for the ration balancer and feeding it per directions will likely save you money in the long run.

Other essentials include:

1. Fresh, clean water;
2. Salt provided daily, ideally in the feed, with free access to an additional source;
3. Omega-3 fatty acids for horses not grazing pasture for 12 or more hours per day; and
4. Possibly additional vitamin E for those same horses.

Vitamin E supplementation is relatively expensive, and not all horses require it. So, put some money toward getting your horse tested to see whether supplementation is necessary. Horses with deficient or marginal levels of vitamin E in their bodies are at risk of developing conditions such as vitamin E deficiency muscle myopathy and equine motor neurons disease, so this is an investment worth making. Ask your veterinarian to take blood during an already-scheduled visit such as spring or fall vaccinations or during a dental check to save on an additional farm fee.

Whether your horse is going to need supplements depends on his individual needs. Does he have underlying health conditions that need additional support, such as allergies, or need digestive tract support? Do you have the budget remaining to add a joint supplement if you want one? If you decide to add other products, have a clear reason for adding them. Don’t add products just because someone else in your barn is doing it for their horse and seems to be having good results. Their base diet might not be as solid as yours, or their horse’s situation might not be the same as yours. Also, don’t feel bad if you don’t have the budget to add more. Very little research exists on the efficacy of many supplements. If possible, try to use products backed by research so you have some peace of mind that the products do what they say they will.

Also consider investing in a consultation with a qualified equine nutritionist when feeding performance horses on a budget. While it might include an upfront expense, if you explain your situation, they should be able to help guide you toward a diet that meets your horse’s needs as well as your budget. That peace of mind can be priceless.

Q. What recommendations do you have for feeding a horse with equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) a low-carb diet, and is low-carb and sugar-free the same thing?

A. This is a great question and gets at one of my biggest concerns as a nutritionist, which is the belief that all horses with EMS need “low-carb” or even “no-carb” diets.

“What?!” I hear you say, “But I thought EMS horses couldn’t have starch and sugar.” That is a truer statement, although not completely accurate either. Now, I know you are probably completely confused! Let me explain.

Understanding Different Carbohydrates

The horse’s body uses types of carbohydrate, and the key is to understand the difference. There’s starch, or sugars such as glucose, and other sugars that break down into glucose in the small intestine; but there are also complex carbohydrates such as hemicellulose, cellulose, pectins, and lignin. These complex carbohydrates are digested in the hindgut by bacteria and don’t result in elevated insulin levels. For horses relying mainly on forage as a large proportion of their diet, these complex carbohydrates provide the majority of their daily calorie intake.

So to say that a horse needs a “low-carb” or “no-carb” diet is false: All horses need carbs, but EMS horses require a diet lower in starch and simple sugars, often referred to as non-structural carbohydrates (NSC).

You might be asking, “Is this sugar-free then?” and the answer is probably not. Most hays, even with low NSC, still contain a small percentage of simple sugars, and many have some level of more complex sugars, called fructans, as well. The goal is to reduce the total intake of starch and simple sugars to below about 10-12%. Research shows keeping NSC at or below these low levels helps maintain more stable insulin levels, which is a key component of managing insulin-resistant EMS horses.

How much each horse can handle is an individual thing. Horses with EMS that are in good weight, currently sound, and able to work might better handle slightly more NSC in their diet than laminitic and/or obese horses.

Finding the Right Forage

Because the foundation of any horse’s diet should consist of forage (i.e., hay, legumes, beet pulp, etc.), it’s important for the EMS horse to consume forage that has a low NSC level. The only way to know for sure is to test the hay at a lab, which is a relatively inexpensive (about $30 depending on the lab). Tests performed need to at least determine the forage’s carbohydrate profile; but it’s also worth having the forage’s mineral and protein levels checked as well. Testing requires taking a proper sample ideally using a hay corer to sample at least 15 bales. If hay changes frequently then testing might not be worthwhile as each batch will be different.

If feeding untested hay to a horse requiring a low-carb diet, you should soak the hay to wash out some of its water-soluble sugars (soak they for 30-60 minutes if using cold water—any longer than that and other nutrients might be lost). Note, however, that while soaking hay will lower its sugar content, it might not lower it to the ideal NSC range of 10-12% NSCs.

Typically, nutritionists and veterinarians recommend grass hays for horses with EMS, even though alfalfa (a legume) has a low glycemic index, which means it doesn’t tend to cause blood-glucose and insulin spikes. Alfalfa is, however, higher in calories than grass hay, meaning easy-keeping EMS horses would require less alfalfa than other forages. Less daily forage intake can have a negative effect on gastrointestinal health and cause well as boredom, so I typically do not recommend alfalfa to horses with EMS.

Instead, mature grass hay is a good option. As grasses mature they develop a greater proportion of complex structural carbohydrates relative to NSC. They’re also lower calorie than less mature grass hays, which means you can feed more before you reach the horse’s maximum calorie intake. For easy keepers who are often having their intakes whittled down to the bare minimum this can be a very good thing.

Make Sure EMS Horses Get the Nutrients They Need

Often, my clients with EMS horses reduce the amount of forage they provide to avoid obesity in their animals. Unfortunately, this can result in diets deficient in trace mineral and vitamins. It’s important, therefore, to supplement for these missing pieces. For horses that can tolerate extra calories, a high-protein ration balancer is a nice addition. These feeds have a small 1- to 2-pound serving per day and insure good quality protein in the diet and provide necessary trace minerals and vitamins. For horses that shouldn’t consume extra calories, equine nutrition companies have formulated heavily fortified supplements fed in 3- to 4-ounce servings. These supplements don’t offer much protein but typically have added essential amino acids.

Omega-3, Magnesium, and Psyllium Supplementation

Horses with EMS might also benefit from omega-3 fatty acids and magnesium supplementation. Some research suggesting that, at least in the short term, omega-3 fatty acids could help improve insulin sensitivity. Similarly, daily psyllium supplementation might also help; however if you feed psyllium daily, it might lose its sand-clearing effectiveness.

Whether magnesium will EMS horses depends on whether the diet you’re feeding is already providing enough magnesium or not. If it is, then supplementing more will probably have little effect. Some magnesium supplements have added chromium, which might or might not be beneficial but is unlikely to be detrimental. However, too much magnesium can result in loose manure, so don’t get carried away.

Take-Home Message

Feeding EMS horses a balanced, low-NSC diet is key to their successful management. Insuring that all nutrient needs are met and means all the horse’s metabolic pathways have what they need to efficiently and optimally function. This will give your horse the best chance of staying healthy, in good weight, and will hopefully help avoid laminitic episodes.

Q: What management changes should I keep in mind for a horse with a history of equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) and laminitis? Is there anything I need to keep a closer eye on than I would with another horse?

A:  A horse that has chronic laminitis will often have thin soles and poor hoof integrity. So chronic horses—those that have already experienced coffin bone rotation or displacement—will be more predisposed to having sore feet. Chronic laminitis cases usually require external appliances (such as shoes) to maintain comfort. If the horse is footsore, make sure to pick his feet out regularly. I know that sounds simple, but make sure they don’t have packed mud, dirt, or rocks that apply pressure to their sole. You would be surprised how many times regularly picking feet does not cross peoples’ minds.

If you have a horse that’s been diagnosed with EMS (characterized by increased fat deposits, insulin resistance, and laminitis risk), be really diligent with watching for changes in the grass. If they are muzzled, make sure the muzzle is staying on, and pay attention to their weight. It is easy to accidentally let them get overweight and not realize small but significant weight increases when you see the horse every day. Watching their overall body condition score and trying to maintain that at a healthy rating (of 4 to 6 on the 1-to-9 scale) is important. 

Any kind of slow feeding option can also help. Haynets can limit the amount of hay they are eating at one time, and paying attention to those small management changes makes a difference. Using a drylot and limiting access to grass is important. Once they are diagnosed with EMS, it isn’t something that ever truly goes away. You can manage it, but as soon as you stop managing it, the primary cause is still there, so the insulin levels just go right back up. That is something we run into a lot—we treat the horse and get the body condition score to a healthy point, and then the owner feels that the horse is doing really well, and they turn them back out in the pasture. And then two months later we are right back to the start, treating the same thing again. They did not fix the horse, they just maintained the horse. Caring for a horse with EMS is a long-term management situation, and staying ahead of potential issues is better than needing to treat problems once they occur.  

Q. My easy-keeper just got put on 30 days of stall rest with 15 minutes of hand walking twice a day due to a possible soft-tissue injury. He’s the kind of horse that requires regular exercise to stay fit and trim and eats on the low end of what’s recommended for his size and activity level. His diet prior to stall rest included orchard grass hay and a ration balancer. He’s bored in his stall and hoovering down his hay and feed. I’m concerned about him gaining weight because that could add stress to his injury. How can I keep him from gaining weight while on rest while also keeping him entertained?

—Nicole, via e-mail

A. Confinement and rehabilitating easy keepers can be a real challenge. You’re right in wanting to minimize weight gain in order to control stress on the soft-tissue injury as well as wanting to minimize the risk of boredom while he’s out of work.

Typically, when calories need to be cut, grain (concentrate feeds) should be the first thing to go. So, it’s tempting to remove the ration balancer. However, this is needed to ensure his diet remains balanced and is providing enough essential nutrients, such as copper, zinc, and vitamin E, which a hay-based diet might lack.

Ensuring adequate copper is important because it’s needed for collagen formation, and that’s the foundation of the soft tissue you want to heal. Therefore, I would avoid reducing his ration balancer amount unless absolutely necessary. Should it become necessary to reduce the ration balancer you could switch to a ration balancing supplement rather than a feed, which will have fewer calories.

Nutrient Intake Matters for Healing

Calorie reduction is going to be from reducing the amount of hay being fed, which I dislike doing. Plus, it sounds as though you’re already feeding the low end. I’d become diligent about weighing the hay you’re feeding, so no extra ounces sneak into his feeder.

Calculate your horse’s body weight, too, and make sure that you maintain a hay intake of 1.5% of estimated body weight. You can go as low as 1% of body weight, but I am always loathed to do that and would not suggest it unless absolutely necessary. I’ve seen horses become destructive and begin stereotypic behavior such as wood chewing and eating bedding at such low intakes. Gastric ulcers and other gastrointestinal issues are also a greater risk on such low intakes.

Slow Down Feed Intake

The trick is therefore to figure out how to make the reduced ration take a long time to eat in order to keep the brain and gastrointestinal tract busy. This is where the numerous slow feeders on the market are very beneficial.

Using small-hole, slow-feed haynets are an excellent way to slow hay intake. There are numerous manufacturers of these nets and they come with holes in an assortment of sizes. You can start with a moderate size hole and get increasingly smaller holes if needed to slow down intake. Dividing the day’s total hay into as may small meals as you can manage will also help. However, this can be unrealistic depending on your lifestyle. For this reason, I like automatic feeders that can be used to feed hay pellets. You could also use one to dispense the ration balancer.

Take-Home Message

Maintaining an easy keeper on stall rest can be challenging. Feeding too little can risk your horse not getting the nutrition he needs and cause stomach issues. Try a vitamin and mineral supplement instead of a ration balancer feed to reduce calorie intake, and use slow feeders to help meals last longer and stave of boredom.

Q: I have a 28-year-old gelding who suffered an impaction colic last week. We’re not really sure why it happened, because nothing has changed in how he is managed. What can I do to help prevent it from happening again?

A: Colic is scary to witness, and not knowing the cause can be very stressful. Of course we all want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Assuming there’s no physical cause for impaction, such as a tumor, which can occur in older horses, common causes include dehydration and poorly digested feed. Therefore, avoiding dehydration and improving digestion are key.

Salt and Hydration

Ensuring your horse is consuming enough water is necessary for avoiding dehydration. Sodium intake each day helps stimulate water consumption, so make sure your horse gets enough salt each day. Many owners rely on salt blocks to provide their horses with a sodium source, but few horses adequately utilize salt blocks.

An average 1,100-pound horse must consume about an ounce of sodium chloride a day to meet maintenance sodium requirements. This would be equivalent to consuming 2 pounds of salt in block form each month. Few horses achieve this intake from blocks. Therefore, I like to feed horses an ounce of salt (which is 2 tablespoons) each day and then provide them access to a plain white salt block, as well. If the weather is hotter, then you can give additional salt or an electrolyte supplement. If your horse does not like the taste of salt, then you can use an electrolyte instead, because sometimes electrolytes are more palatable than straight salt.

Salt consumption should stimulate thirst and encourage your horse to drink. Make sure water is easily accessible. If older horses have joint pain they might be less willing to walk distances to get to water, so consider having several water sources available. When feeding hay, you might find your horse drinks more if water is near his hay.

Soaking Hay

That said, soaking hay is an effective management strategy for horses prone to impaction colic. First, it increases water intake without the need for drinking more water, and secondly it softens the hay and makes it easier to chew. Keep in mind that horses fed soaked hay might not consume as much water from other sources, such as buckets or troughs, so it might initially appear that your horse is consuming less water.

Even if senior horses have healthy teeth, they might not have as much strength in their jaws to grind and chew hay as when they were younger. Inadequately chewed hay creates a greater impaction risk. Soaking hay to make it softer can be beneficial. Feeding softer, less stemmy hays might also help, because they tend to be more easily digestible. Senior horses that can graze pasture grass safely might have a reduced impaction risk when grazing, because fresh grass contains more water and is softer and easier to chew than hay.

Pellets Instead of Hay

For some horses, feeding hay pellets might be a better option than long-stem hay. Once chewed, pellets have very small particle sizes, which reduces impaction colic risk. If desired, you can feed pellets soaked. In fact, you can prepare any textured or pelleted feed as a mash or soup as a way of increasing water consumption.

Hindgut Health

In addition to making sure your horse consumes enough water and chews his forage properly, supporting forage digestion might be beneficial. Research shows supplemental live yeast can help improve organic matter utilization in the hindgut. This improvement in forage fermentation might help reduce the risk of hindgut impaction.

Exercise

Finally, make sure your horse is getting adequate exercise, as movement aids digestion. Senior horses tend to move less due to joint pain or because they have been retired from riding. Have your veterinarian look over your horse and provide him with support for any joint discomfort. If your horse isn’t turned out, consider at least hand-walking or longing him each day.

Take-Home Message

By implementing some of these recommendations and practicing overall careful management you can potentially limit your older horse’s risk of a repeat impaction colic episode.

Q. Can how a horse is shod improve how he moves in the show ring?

A. Shoeing can improve how a horse moves in the show ring in many ways. When we can consider horseshoes’ impact on movement, we must consider three factors: conformation, hoof trim, and type of horseshoe. We should examine them separately so we can understand how each factor contributes to the whole.

Conformation

Once a horse reaches maturity, there is very little shoeing can do to safely alter a gait related to limb conformation. Trying to alter a less-than-ideal gait can add extra stress on joints, bones, and hooves, so any benefit will be short-lived and ultimately not appropriate for the horse’s health. The same can apply to hoof conformation to a certain degree. In these cases, we need to assess the hoof to discover if a hoof abnormality is due to excess hoof length or inappropriate trimming, which are very fixable, or if a permanent conformation problem exists. An example of the latter is a club foot. These horses tend to have one foot at a lower-than-ideal angle and a club foot with a very upright conformation. The difference in angle between the feet makes it impossible for the two legs to move similarly. Trying to alter the angles can lead to similar pressures on limbs, joints, and hooves as we see when we try to alter gait in a poorly conformed horse. We can try to make them closer to ideal, but usually the change is negligible. Many horses do very well with mismatched feet, but the difference in stride length may have negative effects on hunter or dressage scores.

Trim

The key to any shoeing job is how well the hoof is trimmed. The goal is to trim the foot to match the conformation of the leg and offer maximum weight-bearing support under the limbs. Some farriers, usually under the instructions of a trainer, will try to alter the trim (e.g., raising or lowering the heels) to make a stride more appropriate for a discipline. This can give a short-term fix, but when we alter where the hoof should be, we are adding pressure and stress to focal parts of the hoof. This excess force can lead to such problems as quarter or toe cracks, sheared heels, and flared walls. No matter how hard we try, we can’t use trim to overcome the forces of conformation.

Shoe type

That leaves us with the horseshoe type and placement, which is where we can make a safe difference. For example, aluminum shoes are much lighter than steel shoes and can have a significant impact on stride. A heavier shoe causes the horse to raise his knees higher to position to limb to land appropriately. If you desire your horse to have a long, flowing stride, a lighter shoe can reduce knee action. We always have to consider what a horse does for a living, however. Having a jumper land on aluminum shoes might not provide the support he needs, whereas a hunter jumping lower fences might move better with lighter shoes and might not require the hoof and limb support that steel offers.

We can also influence stride by where we position the breakover of the shoe in the toe region. The breakover is the moment the hoof rolls over and the toe is just about to leave the ground. A shoe placed just back of the hoof might break over a bit quicker than one that is flush with the toe of the hoof or slightly ahead of it. A few years back, we used to set hind shoes back on jumpers so they wouldn’t overreach and pull off front shoes. We have since learned that the quick breakover behind can put strain on the stifle, and we have returned to fitting hind shoes to the natural, more pointed toe, which allows the horse to dig in to propel itself forward.

When shoeing horses we need to consider the horse’s job and conformation. We should strive to shoe the horse according to his hoof and leg conformation while considering what he does for a living. Like riding, the more we can get out of the way, the better we can let the horse’s natural abilities shine.

Do you have performance horse health questions? Send them to editorial@thehorse.com. 

Q. I live in an area in which winter is extremely cold and snowy. Keeping unfrozen water available for my horses is a challenge, especially in their pasture. I have noticed my horses eating snow when they’re turned out, even though water is available. Do I need to give them water, or can they get enough water from the snow during turnout?

—Via e-mail

A. As a rule, horses need continuous or frequent access to clean water at all times. This certainly poses a challenge when temperatures fall below freezing. Tactics such as floating tennis balls in troughs will prevent water from freezing when temperatures are at or very slightly below freezing. However, when temperatures fall well below freezing, as we have seen across much of the United States in the past week, these tactics don’t work.

Horses kept on snowy pasture will lick and eat snow, and this certainly provides a source of water. The question is, however, is it enough to meet the horse’s needs and prevent dehydration?

What One Study Found

There appears to be limited research on this topic, but a group of Norwegian researchers studied a group of Icelandic horses on pasture for more than a year to observe how extreme weather conditions affected the horses’ shelter use. As part of that study, they drew blood at intervals throughout the year, which allowed them to compare hydration parameters.

Due to some unexpected extreme weather conditions, the horse’s only natural water source froze for nine days during the second December of the trial. There was approximately 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches) of snow on the ground during this period of time. The researchers drew blood on the horses at the end of the nine-day period to osmotic concentration to samples collected in other seasons, including samples taken the previous December. An increase in the osmotic pressure of the fluid surrounding cells stimulates receptors in the brain, which in turn promote the excretion of a hormone called vasopressin. Vasopressin is an antidiuretic hormone that reduces the amount of fluid lost in urine to help maintain bodily fluid levels. Additionally, studies have shown thirst in other species results after a 3% increase in osmotic concentration occurs.

The horses showed no physical change in appearance after relying on snow as their sole water source for nine days, and the researchers didn’t observe any change in the herd’s feed intake or feeding behavior—their feeders were filled with grass silage at the same frequency whether the horses had water available or not. A veterinarian examined the horses and found no clinical signs of ill health, including response to skin turgor testing (elasticity when pulled, or the “pinch test,” an indicator of hydration).

Also at the end of the nine-day period, the researchers gave the horses access to water from their commonly used drinking bowls and reported that they showed very little interest in drinking—some did not drink, and those that did only drank for a few seconds.

Bloodwork showed no significant differences in osmotic concentration between the samples taken after nine days without free water and the one taken the previous December, when the horses had access to water. With the lack of free access to water in this case, the researchers expected an increase in osmotic concentration; however that did not appear to occur.

The horses appeared unaffected by having only access to snow as a water source for the nine-day period.

Horses Still Need Access to Water

The researchers concluded that horses eating grass silage and adapted to consuming snow can manage for several days with snow as a substitute for liquid water. However, there are some important points to understand about these conclusions when applying them to horses kept in similar, but not identical, conditions.

First, the grass silage had a dry matter content of more than 30%, while a typical grass hay would likely have a dry matter content of more than 80%. Silage is typically quite moist and, therefore, provides greater source of moisture to the horse than dry hay. And, people with experience feeding silage note that in more typical conditions, horses still consume 15 to 30 liters (roughly 4 to 8 gallons) of water a day. This would suggest that consuming silage alone is not an adequate source of moisture, and the snow must have provided a fairly significant hydration source. Also, the amount of water needed from snow would likely be less for silage-fed horses than hay-fed ones, and it’s possible that snow alone might not be able to meet the latter group’s water needs.

Another important consideration: Horses in this study were used to living in snowy conditions and eating snow, and the Icelandic breed is hardy and developed in a country that has cold winters. A horse that’s not as well-adapted to such conditions and isn’t accustomed to eating snow might not consume enough to fully meet its water requirement.

Finally, snow consumed by horses could be contaminated with grit and dirt that might contribute to sand colic.

Take-Home Message

The recommendation remains to always provide horses with a source of fresh, clean, and unfrozen water. Still, this research suggests that it might be possible, in severe conditions, for certain horses adapted to winter conditions to rely on snow as a water source.

Q: This summer I showed my horse in the jumpers, and he was working six days a week. However, this winter, he will have a few months of little to no work. Should I make changes to his diet to support this transition and ensure he maintains a healthy weight?

A: I’m glad your horse is getting some well-earned time off. It is beneficial both mentally and physically for them to get some break in intensity of work, even with today’s year-round opportunities to compete. To answer your question, yes (probably).

Consider the Data When Making Horse Diet Changes

A 500 kilogram horse in heavy work needs to consume 26,600 kilocalories per day. This drops to only 16,700 kilocalories per day when at maintenance (not in work). That is a large decrease and could account for his entire daily grain intake, or more. (For example, the difference here would be equivalent to about 6.5 pounds of an average-calorie performance feed). However, unless you have consulted the NRC’s 2007 Nutrient Requirements of Horses, you will have to make some judgments based on what you know about his typical metabolism and history of weight (and possibly behavior) fluctuations during past workload lulls.

Is he a hard keeper that you had to fight to put precious weight on, or is he an easy keeper that will quickly pack on the vacation pounds? A simple approach to start might be to simply cut the number of calories coming from feed (concentrate) in half while keeping forage calories consistent and observing his body condition over time. You can accomplish this by reducing the feed quantity, switching to a feed with a lower calorie density, or even moving to a ration balancer. A ration balancer will help ensure your horse receives the right balance of nutrients while decreasing calories. In the case of the very easy keeper, you might need to evaluate forage calories as well and consider carefully decreasing the amount or richness of forage you pair with the ration balancer.

Diet Changes for Hard-Keeping Horses

Possible exceptions to all of this would be in the case of a known hard-keeper, one that is going to live outside in a harsh climate for the winter, or a horse that is getting older and showing signs that his ability to extract calories from forage is declining and he needs more special attention. These horses may need to maintain relatively similar calorie intake but there could be an opportunity to shift some of those calories to maximize highly digestible fiber intake.

Consider Supplement Changes

If you have a significant supplement program, now is a good time to reevaluate. Think about what has really made a difference and what you might not need all year. Some items such as calming/focus aids, specific amino acid or muscle builders, or high doses of electrolytes might not be necessary during times of less intense exercise.

Take-Home Message

All horses are unique, and it is perfectly appropriate for them to have different feeding programs throughout the year. This is why it is so important to routinely evaluate your horse’s body condition score and weight. When in doubt, consult an equine nutritionist or veterinarian to develop a plan for your horse’s needs.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q. My horse is 34 years old and has very few teeth left. I currently feed him senior feed, which I make into a very soft mash, in addition to his chopped hay, but he does not maintain his weight well during the winter. Can I replace some of his senior feed with wet beet pulp?

A. How wonderful that your horse has reached the age of 34 and that you are working to keep him happy and healthy! It is better to make dietary changes before the horse starts losing weight, because it can be difficult to reverse the process during winter, when horses use so many calories to thermoregulate and maintain core body temperature.

You do, however, have a few options to help your horse maintain body weight. The first would be to increase the amount of senior feed you’re giving him. Senior feeds are often designed as complete feeds, so they can make up the entire diet. If you don’t see this mentioned on the label, check with the manufacturer to see if your senior feed is a complete feed. Giving a few additional pounds of the feed he’s already on might be the easiest option.

You could also add beet pulp to his diet to help him maintain his weight during the winter. Beet pulp is a great addition because it contains a nice complement of different types of carbohydrates: nonstructural, which horses digest rapidly, and structural, which they digest slower. This gives your horse an immediate source of calories and provides heat during the digestion/fermentation of the nonstructural carbohydrates. Wet or soaked beet pulp can also help your horse stay hydrated in winter, when his water intake might decrease. You might just add some beet pulp to his current ration of senior feed, rather than replacing it. Make sure the diet is still balanced once you make this change—in other words, ensure it provides all the nutrients your horse needs. Protein to maintain muscle mass and a calcium-to-phosphorus ratio of 2:1 to maintain the skeletal system are especially important.

I would still offer the chopped hay because forages help keep the digestive tract healthy and functioning well. When horses consume hay, their bodies digest/ferment it primarily in the hindgut. Similar to beet pulp, this fermentation produces heat internally, which can help keep your horse warm in the winter, and he will have to use fewer calories/energy stores to maintain body temperature.

Monitor the weather throughout the winter and early spring so you can be prepared for changes. Increasing forage intake when you expect colder-than-normal temperatures or snow and cold rain can help your horse stay warm. Keeping your horse dry and out of excessive wind will also help. Maintaining body temperature is more difficult in winter and one reason so many horses lose weight.

Keep an eye on water intake and your horse’s hydration status, because some horses will drink less due to it either being too cold or unavailable (frozen). Low water intake can lead to improper digestion and impaction colic. Be sure water is always available and at a temperature your horse will drink. Frozen water buckets can make it difficult for your horse to get enough water, because not all horses are willing to break ice on the bucket or trough. Consider heated water buckets or a submersible water heater to help keep water at a comfortable drinking temperature, but make sure they are grounded properly and are not emitting a current into the water. 

Make it a habit to routinely monitor your horse’s weight and body condition throughout the fall, winter, and early spring, so when you notice changes, you can adjust the diet quickly.

Q: Is it okay to feed my horse peppermints and sugar cubes? I’m concerned about the amount of sugar they contain. If it is okay, how many is too many?

A: Simple sugars, such as the sucrose found in peppermints and sugar cubes, are absorbed by the horse’s small intestine as glucose and fructose. Glucose causes release of insulin to facilitate the entry of glucose in to cells. Fructose (not to be confused with fructans) is metabolized differently. Only metabolized in the liver, fructose is more lipogenic than glucose, meaning that it’s more likely to lead to production of fat.

Most concern about sugar and starch intake has stemmed from our increasing knowledge about insulin resistance (IR), laminitis, polysaccharide storage myopathies (PSSM), and equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS). Horses with IR release more insulin than is normal in order to remove glucose from their blood stream. As a result, while circulating glucose tends to be normal, circulating insulin is elevated. High circulating insulin creates an increased risk for developing laminitis. Horses with PSSM store glycogen (the storage form of glucose) abnormally in their muscle tissue, and diets high in starch and sugar cause increased production of volatile fatty acids in the gastric stomach causing a more acidic environment and a greater likelihood of a horse developing EGUS

I think it’s important to put the questions of sugar in treats in perspective of a horse’s typical daily non-structural carbohydrate consumption. If we assume a 1,200-pound horse eating 2% of body weight as dry matter from hay a day, and that the hay contains 10% moisture and 10 % nonstructural carbohydrate (NSC) on a dry-matter basis (a value often used as the recommended upper NSC level for horses with metabolic issues, such as IR and PSSM), this horse is consuming 1,090 grams of NSC (starch and simple sugars) per day.

A pure sugar cube weighing about 4 grams is 100% sucrose. The popular round, red-and-white peppermint candies have a human serving size of three pieces (about 15 grams) and of that between 8 and 10 grams are sugar. Traditional peppermint candy canes are heavier at 18 grams and provide about 12 to 14 grams of sugar. You can see that in the context of the above horse’s daily diet these are tiny intakes of sugar. However, there are some important considerations.

When feeding a horse hay, you’re also feeding it proteins and minerals that help buffer stomach acid. Additionally, hay’s fiber component impacts the rate at which the NSC reaches the small intestine and is absorbed. The sugar in sugar cubes dissolves quickly and will move with the liquid fraction of the digesta, which moves more rapidly than larger fibrous particles. This means that that the sugar will likely be absorbed relatively soon after it is fed. This makes it potentially more likely to cause a spike in blood glucose than the NSC contained within hay.

Feeding a healthy horse three or four sugar cubes is unlikely to cause a significant glucose spike; however, for a horse with uncontrolled IR, PSSM, or a laminitis history, feeding sugar cubes isn’t a risk worth taking. Skip the sugary treats, too, if your horse is overweight, especially if he has a cresty neck. After all, every calorie counts and calories from treats mean feeding fewer calories from “real” food. Human research shows that tissues in insulin resistant people are more sensitive to insulin after exercise. This may or may not be the case in horses, but if it is, then your horse might be better able to handle the sugar in these treats when they are given shortly after work.

For the otherwise healthy horse, consuming a candy cane or a few peppermint candies is unlikely to have any major impact.

This holiday season give your senior horse gifts that cater to his specific needs. Whether it’s a nutritious diet, healthful treats, grooming, or regular dental exams, these gestures will make your senior horse’s holiday season merry and bright.

1. A High-Quality Diet

As your senior horse ages, his nutritional needs change. This Christmas consider gifting him an equine nutritionist consult to be sure you’re meeting all his nutritional needs. The nutritionist will ensure your horse’s diet is rich in easily digestible fiber, essential vitamins, and minerals. A balanced diet can contribute to better overall health, improved coat condition, and increased energy levels.

2. Mindful Treat Choices

Treat your senior horse to delicious snacks, but be mindful of any underlying health concerns, especially metabolic problems. Avoid treats high in nonstructural carbohydrates (NSCs, a measure of the easily digestible carbohydrates, including simple sugars and fructans) in these horses because they can exacerbate metabolic conditions. Even apples supply sugar that can increase sugar absorption in the intestines; many veterinarians and nutritionists recommend limiting apples and carrots for animals with insulin dysregulation. Consult your veterinarian or an equine nutritionist to identify safe treat options that won’t compromise your horse’s health.

3. Extra Grooming Sessions

Even senior horses can benefit from extra grooming sessions. This holiday season, invest in some high-quality grooming tools and spend time pampering your horse with them. Grooming can help maintain his physical health by preventing skin issues and promoting circulation and can provide you an opportunity to regularly evaluate his body condition. It’s also an excellent way to bond with your equine friend.

4. Regular Dental Exams

Give your senior horse the gift of good oral health by scheduling regular dental exams. As horses age, dental issues such as uneven wear, loose teeth, or sharp points can arise, leading to discomfort and difficulty eating. A thorough dental examination by a qualified veterinarian can address these issues, ensuring your horse’s dental health is in top shape so he is able to digest forage and feed optimally.

5. Winter Enrichment Activities

During the winter months, your senior horse might spend more time in his stall with fewer natural enrichment opportunities, which increase variety in an the expression of normal behaviors, promoting interaction with the environment. Give your horse the opportunity for enrichment for Christmas this year. This can include scratching areas, such as a worn-out broom head mounted safely on the wall, turnout with companions (that don’t have to be equids), toys including stuffed animals or treat licks, and treats placed around the stall in various locations to encourage food-hunting behaviors. 

What are you getting your senior horse for Christmas this year? Let us know below!

Q. My horse was diagnosed with equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) and the hay I have is higher than 10% in nonstructural carbohydrates (the recommended, safe level for EMS horses)—but only slightly. Can you explain what this value means and how ethanol-soluble carbohydrates (ESC) and starch play a part in the equation? Could my forage be safe for my EMS horse after all­­?

A. This is a great question because understanding your metabolic horse’s sugar intake is a key step in developing a supportive nutrition program. The important thing to understand is the difference between ethanol-soluble carbohydrates (ESC), water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC), and nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC).

Ethanol-soluble carbohydrates are essentially simple sugars and have a direct impact on blood glucose levels. Water-soluble carbohydrates include both the simple sugars and fructans (the primary storage carbohydrate in cool-season grasses); however, when calculating NSCs you can add WSC and starch (the primary storage carbohydrate in legumes and warm-season grasses) values together but recognize that fructans do not play a direct role in blood glucose and insulin levels.

Microbes in the horse’s hindgut ferment fructans. This results in lactic acid production and, when a buildup of lactic acid occurs, the pH of the hindgut environment drops. This change in the environment negatively impacts the microbes, and many might die off. When this happens endotoxins are released into the bloodstream, which can cause laminitis. Therefore, fructans can play a role in laminitis but, if you are most concerned about blood insulin levels, it might be acceptable to exclude fructans from the calculation.

The most up-to-date recommendations suggest calculating hydrolyzable carbohydrates (HC), which is the calculation of ESC plus starch. The fructans are not included because they are not directly related to a high glycemic response. That being said, if you have a horse that is struggling with laminitis, it is best to avoid any potential triggers, including fructans.

Likely the most important consideration is that the 10% NSC recommendation is simply a guideline. Just because a hay is low in ESC and starch does not mean your horse will not have issues with it. For example, some metabolic horses might be on a diet that is 14% HC and never have issues, whereas others might need less than 8%. It is truly individual; keep this in mind when you are designing a feeding and management program for your metabolic horse.

When choosing a hay for this horse, you will want to test the hay to ensure that the ESC + starch is less than 10% on a dry matter basis. Normally these horses will do quite well on a grass or grass mix hay that is mature. If the hay you can source is too high in sugar content, soaking can be an option. However, the climate you are in can limit this as a practical year-round option if temperatures are freezing. When soaking hay, it should be completely submerged in water for 60 minutes if in cold water, or 30 minutes in warm water.

The other key consideration is the amount of hay you should be feeding your horse. Free-choice hay is fantastic, unless it results in obesity. Many metabolic horses tend to be overweight so reducing their hay intake and using slow feeding tactics might be necessary. If your horse is sound, increasing movement is another positive way to promote weight loss.

When a horse is overweight and needs to lose weight, equine nutritionists recommended feeding hay at a rate of 1.5% of their body weight. It is not recommended to reduce their hay intake below this amount. For a 500 kg (1,100lb) horse this is about 7.5 kg (16.5 lbs). If the horse is not overweight, feeding at 2% of their bodyweight is the usual recommendation. However, remember that each horse is individual so if you are unsure, check with your veterinarian or nutritionist.

Overall, understanding the sugar content of your metabolic horse’s diet is a crucial part of management, but remember it is simply a guideline. When dealing with a history of laminitis, always follow your veterinarian’s recommendations and consult a qualified equine nutritionist if you are looking for help with an optimal diet plan.

Do you have an equine nutrition question?

Q: I have two ponies with metabolic problems. I’ve been researching the best ways to feed them, but there are several terms I don’t understand. I see terms such as nonstructural carbohydrates, hydrolysable carbohydrates, and so many more, but I can’t make sense of them. Help!

A: Carbohydrates serve as the primary energy source for horses and can be divided into two broad categories: structural and nonstructural. The equine gastrointestinal tract is designed to handle large amounts of structural carbohydrates, which are abundant in forages. Sugars are nonstructural carbohydrates (NSCs) and a key concern for owners managing horses with metabolic or digestive disorders.

An important factor when classifying carbohydrates is where in the gastrointestinal tract they are digested. For example, those digested and absorbed in the small intestine provide more energy to the horse than those digested by microbial action in the hindgut, which includes the cecum and large colon (or large intestine). When enzymes break down carbohydrates in the small intestine, the resulting sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream as glucose, stimulating an insulin response.

Common Equine Nutrition Terms

You’ll likely come across a variety of terms when reading about equine nutrition, especially if you research how to manage your metabolic horse’s diet. You’ll likely see the common term NSC, but you might also read about starch, fructans, water-soluble carbohydrates (WSCs), ethanol-soluble carbohydrates (ESCs), and hydrolysable carbohydrates (HCs).

Feed manufacturers use these terms in a variety of places, from educational articles to hay analyses and feed labels, so it’s valuable to understand what they mean and how to navigate the terminology. The authors of Nutrient Requirements of Horses, 2007, propose a three-prong partitioning system for carbohydrates in the equine diet: slowly fermentable carbohydrates, rapidly fermentable carbohydrates, and hydrolysable carbohydrates.

1. Slowly Fermentable Carbohydrates: The horse’s gastrointestinal tract has evolved to consume large amounts of slowly fermentable carbohydrates. These complex molecules are not digested by enzymes in the horse’s foregut (stomach and small intestine). Instead, they are fermented in the hindgut to produce volatile fatty acids (VFAs) as an energy source. Examples include cellulose and hemicellulose.

2. Rapidly Fermentable Carbohydrates: These carbohydrates cannot be broken down by enzymes in the horse’s foregut but take less time to be fermented in the hindgut than fiber, for example. The fermentation process produces both VFAs and lactic acid. Examples include fructans, oligosaccharides, and resistant starch.

3. Hydrolysable Carbohydrates (HCs): Hydrolyzable carbohydrates are made up of the simple sugars and starch that can be digested by enzymes in the horse’s foregut. The body absorbs these molecules as glucose, and they have a direct impact on blood insulin levels. Examples include glucose, sucrose, and fructose. The calculation for HC is ESC + starch.

4. Ethanol-soluble carbohydrates (ESCs): ESCs are the simple sugars (mono- and disaccharides) digested by enzymes in the foregut. Glucose is an example of an ESC.

5. Nonstructural Carbohydrates (NSCs): Nonstructural carbohydrates are calculated values composed of both the hydrolysable and rapidly fermentable carbohydrates. The calculation is WSC + starch.

6. Water-soluble carbohydrates (WSCs): Water-soluble carbohydrates are a subsection of NSC and include the simple sugars and fructans.

7. Fructans: Fructans are a type of nonstructural, or rapidly fermentable carbohydrates. They cannot be digested by enzymes in the foregut and, therefore, pass on to ferment in the horse’s hindgut.

Take-Home Message

Although carbohydrates in horses’ diets occasionally get a bad reputation, they serve as the primary energy source for horses and are critical to balanced nutrition. Understanding the different carbohydrate terms can help you ensure that your horses are on a safe nutrition program if they are sensitive to excess starch and sugar.

Growing up in the United Kingdom, late summer and early fall were the times when  the hay barn was filled with enough of that year’s harvest to get us through the winter. Once we had filled the barn, we always had a sense of relief and a feeling that we were ready for whatever winter might bring. It was a time of year to look ahead to winter and make necessary preparations. Now I live in Arizona. Some would hardly consider our state as having a “winter,” but we do drop 60-plus degrees Fahrenheit from summer temperatures, so some preparation is still necessary.

In no particular order, here are a few of the things I have been thinking about that you might want to put on your getting-ready-for-winter checklist.

Assess your horse’s condition.

Too fat or too thin? If too fat, then winter can be your friend. Cooler temperatures can result in weight loss, even without reducing feed intake, which is ideal. Skip that blanket, and let your overweight horse burn some calories producing heat to stay warm. If your horse is on the thin side, then try to put pounds on him before winter sets in and weight gain becomes harder. Assess the possible cause of weight loss. It’s always a sign that your horse’s calorie level is inadequate. You might already be feeding a lot, but those calories aren’t getting to their destination. Ask yourself why, and what else is going on. Have your veterinarian assess the horse to rule out dental issues, internal parasites, and pain, which can all cause weight loss. Is the horse being bullied in pasture and kept away from hay? Maybe he’s a hard-keeper and needs more than just hay? Perhaps he needs digestive tract support to facilitate hindgut fermentation and better use the forage in his diet? Consider working with a qualified equine nutritionist who can suggest ways to best support weight gain.

Condition tack and send in for repair.

If you ride more in the summer than winter and will be letting horses down, now is a good time to send in tack for repairs, such as stirrup leather restitching or saddle billet replacement. If you won’t be using an item for a few months, condition it and put it in storage. If you ride more in the winter, take equipment out of storage and prepare them for use.

Service clippers and blades.

If you will be body-clipping this winter (and you didn’t do this at the end of last winter), send your clippers to be serviced and blades sharpened. It will make for a much more pleasant job, and your horse will appreciate clippers that run cool and blades that cut well.

Check blanket fit/search for preseason sales.

If you are clipping, you will likely be blanketing. Depending on the weather, you might need to blanket even if your horse is unclipped. Keep in mind that many of us overblanket. Educate yourself on good blanket selection for your climate. Make sure existing blankets still fit, as sometimes blanket fit changes as horses gain or lose weight. If you need something new, now is a great time to hit preseason sales. Mend any blankets you didn’t get mended last year, and consider buying spare leg straps and a rip repair kit so you can keep your blankets functioning through the season. If you live in a dry climate, have static guard (available from the laundry aisle) on hand.

Be weather ready.

If you live in a wet climate, prepare now for mud. If your horses get turned out, what area will you make your sacrifice area? Consider placing fine gravel in heavy-traffic areas such as gateways and around water troughs. Check with local clean water agencies and university extension offices, as they often have excellent resources and help that is appropriate for your area. If you live in a region that gest snow and ice, stock up on vegetable shortening to pack in to hooves to prevent ice balls from forming during turnout. Keep it somewhere where it will be warm enough to scoop out of the container!

Check lights.

Discovering in the dark on a cold night that a bulb has burned out is frustrating. Many of us do not use our barn lights in the summer, so now is a good time to make sure all circuits are working.

Assess pasture condition.

Do your pastures need to be reseeded, harrowed, rolled, or mowed before being shut down for the winter? Now is the time to get out and do those tasks while you can still get machinery into pastures without damaging them.

Buy an electric kettle for your tack room.

Great for defrosting frozen facets and making hot cocoa, every tack room should have one! Unplug it when not in use.

Check trough heaters and buckets.

For those in colder climates where frozen buckets and troughs are issues, check existing bucket and trough heaters to make sure they work. Consider purchasing if you do not have these already, or look online for ways to insulate water troughs and keep them from freezing without the need for electricity. If using electric heaters, be certain your horse will not get shocked while drinking.

Lag pipes.

Nobody enjoys frozen or, worse, broken pipes. Insulate them as well as possible. Have a plan for what you will do if your water supply does freeze. How will you get water to your horses?

Feed salt.

If you do not do so already, add 1 tablespoon of salt per 500 pounds of body weight to your horse’s ration, and provide an additional salt source. As the weather fluctuates through fall into winter, many horses do not drink as much. Add to that the transition from pasture to dry hay and reduced movement once stalled, and it becomes obvious why incidences of colic increase as we go into winter. Keeping your horses drinking is a great insurance against impaction colic, and salt will help encourage them to drink.

Whether we like it or not—and in Arizona I admit we like it—winter is coming. Take the time now to be prepared.

Q: My senior horse is missing most of his teeth and cannot eat hay like he used to. How can I make sure he has enough fiber in his diet now that he eats pellets? Will he still be able to get all the essential nutrients through the pellets?

A: Horses’ teeth are interesting because they erupt over their lifetime similar to lead in a mechanical pencil. The tooth gets worn down but more erupts until eventually there is no more lead in the pencil. Senior horses with few or no teeth find hay-based diets challenging because they do not have the ability to grind the longer stemmed pieces of hay into the small particles they would have created when their teeth were more functional.

An inability to chew forage properly has multiple implications. Obviously, if hay is not being ground down into small enough pieces, the horse is at increased risk of impaction colic. Larger poorly chewed hay pieces might also irritate the intestinal lining, leading to inflammation in the gut lining and colitis (inflammation of the colon). Finally, larger pieces of hay are not digested as well due to their relatively smaller surface area, giving digestive enzymes and hindgut bacteria less room to work.

Substituting long-stem hay with hay pellets is one solution for senior horses. The hay has been chopped into tiny pieces and then reformed into a pellet, forcing it through a piece of machinery called a die under heat and pressure. For horses with no teeth, it is generally recommended that these pellets be soaked prior to feeding so that they disintegrate back into the tiny chopped pieces, reducing the risk of choke.

The particle size of chopped hay is far smaller than that of properly chewed hay when the horse has functional teeth. This greatly increases the relative surface area and often results in greater feed utilization due to improved digestion. This can also be very helpful if your horse struggles to maintain weight.

Fiber is a collective term for several carbohydrate fractions found in various feeds. Some of these carbohydrates, such as hemicellulose, are quite readily fermented and broken down by the hindgut microorganisms. Other fiber fractions, such as lignin, are not. If you take a bale of hay and convert it into hay pellets, the fiber content is the same because fiber is something that exists at a cellular level. The fiber in hay pellets might in fact be more available to the horse due to the possibility of better microbial attachment and fermentation than when it is in its original hay form.

The greater issue is the fiber’s form. Horses typically eat hay pellets faster than hay, which might lead to boredom. They also result in less gut fill and might stimulate the gut lining less. In ruminant animals such as cows, “scratch factor,” as it is known, is important for maintaining a healthy rumen lining. Our knowledge of the importance of long-stem forage on the physical health of the equine hindgut is less well known. However, pellets will not result in the same quality of fiber mat being made in the stomach, and the reduced chew time means less saliva production and less ability to buffer stomach acid. Therefore, horses fed exclusively pellets might be at greater risk of developing gastric ulcers, so feeding the daily pellet quota in as many small meals as possible throughout the day important.

Feeding special needs horses is often an exercise in risk management. While it might be advantageous to feed some amount of the forage as long-stem hay for gut health purposes, if your horse’s teeth are at a stage that this could result in choke or impaction colic, then it’s something to avoid. You might need to accept the possibility that your horse’s chosen diet could increase his risk of other health concerns.

As far as providing all essential nutrients, it is very unlikely that a straight hay pellet will achieve this, which is also true of long-stem hay. Forages are typically too low in trace minerals such as copper and zinc, vitamins such as vitamin E, and sometimes quality protein to meet the horse’s needs.

If your horse can be maintained solely on hay pellets, then adding a quality ration balancer is recommended. However, if weight maintenance is a struggle when feeding only hay pellets, a properly fortified complete senior feed might be a better solution. Complete senior feeds are typically formulated with ingredients that are more readily digestible and might contain more fat to help maintain condition.