Do you have a hard keeper? This informative video explains how to effectively increase your horse’s caloric intake and help put weight on him.
Improving Body Condition After Winter
Every spring, we are inundated with a single question from horse owners: “My horse lost some weight over the winter, but I didn’t notice until he shed out his winter coat and I saw his ribs. What do I do now?”
Winter conditions, particularly in locations further north in the country, can definitely take a toll on horses. Bitter cold temperatures, biting winds, combined with the dampness of snow, sleet, and rain, can all cause the horse to require more energy than normal to maintain condition. Cover the body with a fluffy winter coat, and perhaps a warm blanket, and head out to the barn a little less often to ride, and it’s easy to miss the early signs that the cold is causing problems.
So now your horse is in tough shape – what do you do to bring him back to condition safely? Follow a few simple steps, and you’ll have him ready to ride in no time.
- Get an accurate weight and body condition score, and write them down. Keep track over the coming weeks, to have an objective measurement of progress. Consider keeping this going over the life of the horse, too!
- Check to make sure your feeding program is designed to do what you want it to do.
- Offer as much hay as you can.
- Use caution on lush spring pasture growth, to avoid metabolic issues.
- Select the proper feed for your horse’s life stage and activity level. If this involves a change in product, change over to the new product gradually over a period of 5-7 days to avoid digestive upset.
- Feed the selected product according to the directions on the tag, so they receive the full benefit of the nutritional package.
Once the horse has returned to proper condition, check your feeding program again, and adjust as necessary. A program designed to gain weight and condition, may be too rich for long term maintenance, unless the activity level of the horse offsets the calorie intake.
Finally, get out on the trails or the show circuit, and enjoy the ride!
Feeding Tips for Stall Rest
Regardless of the diagnosis, when stall rest is on the treatment list, adjusting your feeding program to match your horse’s lack of activity can improve the experience for both you and your horse.
Whether recovering from an injury, surgery, or other, stall rest is generally prescribed to limit the movement of your horse to aid in the body’s natural healing process. Often times, when a horse’s activity level moves from work or competition to that of quiet stall rest, it takes a period of adjustment for him to settle into the new routine.
Altering his feeding program to match this now sedentary lifestyle will help him make the transition. Please note: all feed and forage changes should be made gradually through a period of 5-7 days so as not to disrupt the digestive system.
For the horse sentenced to a period of stall rest, the name of the game is energy management. If he is an athlete who is used to getting high calorie feed and plenty of exercise, transition him to a lower calorie feed or ration balancer, with a high quality grass forage. Reducing the energy he receives from his feed will help manage his weight and behavior.
Selecting a feed that is balanced for amino acids will offer the body aid in the development and repair of tissues, especially muscle and connective tissue. Fortified, balanced levels of vitamins and minerals will aid in immune response as well as minimize bone density loss. Feed that is fortified with prebiotics, such as yeast culture, and probiotics can aid in the balance of the gut bacteria, overall absorbtion of nutrients and supports the immune system. Omega 3 fatty acids in the feed can also provide support for the immune system as well as help manage inflammitory response in tissue.
Monitor his body condition score and weight throughout stall rest and make feed amount adjustments as needed. If he begins to gain weight, reduce his feed amount to the lowest advised amount from the feed manufacturer.
If he drops too much weight, slowly increase the feed amount, making sure to stay within the feeding directions. Increasing the amount of hay can also provide benefits, though keep watch that he doesn’t start wasting. Health complications or hay quality concerns aside, uneaten hay is an indication that he is being fed too much per meal.
In addition to providing much needed fiber and calories, hay in the stall can also provide a distraction, curbing destructive behavior such a cribbing, weaving and pawing. Consider providing stall toys, such as a ball or treat roller to keep his mind occupied and prevent bad stall habits from forming.
Pending the doctor’s orders, hand walking is a common method of providing limited exercise while reducing the chances of further damaging the injury or wound. Hand walking is also a great way to spend time with your horse, especially if stall rest has taken him away from his normal job.
Once the period of stall rest is completed and he goes back to ‘work’, transitioning his feed back to the ‘normal’ energy levels should be done with even more caution than transitioning the energy down. For advise on your specific situation, please discuss with a qualified feed consultant or your veterinarian.
Feeding Horses that are Hard Keepers
Much like teenage boys, some horses seem to be able to devour every bit of feed in sight, and still not gain weight. Unlike the teenage boys, however, and unfortunately for the owners of these hard keepers, this generally isn’t just a stage that the horse is going through. So, what is the best way to feed a horse to increase weight gain to the desired level, and then maintain it there?
First, start by taking a Body Condition Score and determining the current weight of the horse, and tracking those two elements over time, so you can know for sure if you are making progress or not. It’s easy to fall in to the trap of trying to remember what the horse was like a couple months ago, so a tracking program will help give a fact basis to your feeding program.
Second, weigh both the hay and any grain you are feeding your horse. A bathroom scale can do the trick, or especially handy is a fish or luggage scale that you can hang a bucket from. Every barn has a different scoop, from the old reliable coffee can to a plastic scoop purchased at the feed store. Weighing the scoop, then weighing it with the feed in it, allows you to mark your scoop so you can see where to fill it to for various feeds & weights of that feed. Note that not all feeds weigh the same, either, so measure each one independently.
Third, ensure that the horse is receiving enough forage in the diet. This is the base of any feeding program, and a good target is to be feeding 1.5% of body weight in forages. For a 1000 lb horse, that means at least 15 lbs of hay. Weigh a few flakes of hay and see just what a flake is from your supplier. Not all small square bales are created equally!
Fourth is the grain portion of the diet. A key thing to look at in evaluating feeds for hard keepers is the “Crude Fat” content of a feed. A basic corn/oats/mineral sweet feed mix will likely run around 2.5-3.0% fat, since that is what is naturally present in a lot of grains. These are fine for easier keepers, but many active horses need more – there are a variety of horse feeds on the market today that are in the 5-9% fat range, and some horse feeds are up in the 10-12% fat range. Remember to feed within the guidelines printed on the tag, so that you get the nutrition portion of the diet correct. Start your horse on a higher fat diet slowly to allow them to adjust to the increased fat, and work up to a level where the weight starts to come on. Once you’ve reached a desirable weight and body condition, you can begin to back off the amount fed until you determine the amount of feed that will help maintain your horse for the long haul.