E-Vet Clinic - Horse Health Care

I find many horse owners are unsure on the basic essentials for nutrition for their horse. There are thousands of supplements out there and many, many different types of complete feeds - which ones are the best, what should you be feeding your horse?

Well lets start out simple and easy and forget all the hype. I will not mention any products in this post. I will at a later time so that some specifics are filled in, but here I want to be general and simple so you get the basic concepts of what you should be feeding your horse.

Basics -
• Water
• Pasture/Hay
• Salt
• Minerals
• Fat
• Grain, only if needed

Water - 24 hour access to fresh clean water. An old farmer chore was to water the horses. They would bring the horses twice a day to the water trough to drink and that was all. Now we know better. We know now that to prevent impaction colic and improve horse health, it is much better to have fresh water available at all times for horses. An average horse will drink 10 gallons of water a day, some less and on hot days some more.

Pasture/Hay - This is otherwise know as forage and it should be the base of your horses diet. A horse is a grazer, built and designed by God, or nature if you wish, to eat grass roughage to sustain life. Grass hay or pasture should still be the foundation of a horses diet why go against the horses own blueprint, it is by far much more healthy for the horse. The best hay to provide is one that has a little alfalfa in it. And when I say a little I mean only a little somewhere between 10 and 20% and that is all. If you provide more than that the type of protein in the alfalfa produces much more ammonia in the urine which can lead to health problems and a very smelly barn. Also an important thing to note is that forage needs to be at least 2 inches in length or longer to provide adequate fiber to maintain the horses digestive tract health, so most hay cubes do not qualify as proper forage.

Salt - Salt is an important compoinent of the horses diet. It is ecessary to provide the electolytes that a horse uses for all of its body functions. Now the most common way to provide a horse with salt is to provide them a salt lick block. Now just because it is the most common does not mean that it is the best way to provide salt for your horse. The best way is to provide you horse with salt crumbles as a top dress to the food and you do not need very much.

Minerals - Minerals especially Calcium and Phosphorous are extremely important for a horse; on top of this there are many other macro minerals and micro nutrients very important for sustaining the horses’ health and body functions. And although I am OK with providing a horse a salt block to provide salt, I am not OK with providing a horse minerals through a mineral block. This is the worst way to provide such an extremely important element in the horses nutrition. It is vital that you provide a mineral supplement or top dress mineral crumbles, if you are feeding grain. If your grass hay has some alfalfa mixture in it like we do here in the midwest then you need to provide less calcium and phosphorous, so you may want to check with a nutritionist to balance your vitamin and mineral rations based on the hay you are providing.

Fat - Fat is not a fad for the horse’s diet. It is a very good source of energy and fatty acids. Many different diseases can be prevented or controlled by adding fat to the diet. Some people add corn oil or some other oil to the diet, unfortunately this is not the best way to provide this nutrient. The best way is to provide it using flax seed and/or rice bran. Now there are many different ways to provide flax seed and rice bran, however there is a lot of disagreement as well. The best way is to actually have it processed, which I know is not the typical thing for me to say as I usually dislike processed feed stuffs. However, for this type of supplement, it is much more convenient and you do not lose the important fatty acids in the stabilizing process. You can keep the flax and rice bran for longer periods of time without it becoming rancid and un-useable and you can feed it straight from the bag without having to grind it or soak it or prepare it before feeding.

Grain - Your horse only needs grain if it is pregnant, nursing, or working hard enough that it can not maintain its weight. Grain or Concentrates goes against the natural nutrition for the horse and over graining does contribute to many health disorders and diseases in the horse including behavior problems, urinary tract problems, and digestive disorders which the worst of which is colic. o if it is necessary to feed grain I would advise to stay away from corn and sweet feed, because these provide the horse with a rapid rise in glucose and subsequent crash from the rise in insulin levels. this can be a contributing factor in insulin resistance or pre cushings disease in horses. It is much better to provide straight oats or rolled oats to the horse. Now rlled oats will lose some of its nutritional value over time however since this is not the main base of the horses diet that is OK. You are using this more as an energy supplement and since the majority of your energy with vitamins and minerals is coming form your forage (pasture/hay) and fat (rice bran/flax seed) the samll amount of nutrient deterioration from rolled oats will be of very little importance.

These are the basics. It is simple and uncomplicated. You will find all these components in many complete feeds. You need to be careful because some of these companies do a least cost nutrient composition, which means they find the cheapest grains, forages, supplements that they can find just add them together in the amounts they need to meet the requirements they have set. So you are not purchasing a consistent product like they are promoting. With that said, you will find inconsistencies from year to year and cutting to cutting of hay and grain quality, so an important thing to consider is to have your feedstuffs tested by a nutritionist and a diet set up for the grain and hay by the nutritionist so you are providing the appropriate levels of nutrition for the health of your horse. Lastly when feeding your horse do not just eyeball or just scoop your horse its feed. I know this can be diffucult especially in large barns but it is important that you weight the feed that you feed your horse. Different cuttings or batches of hay weigh differently and provide different nutritional values depending on the weight of the feedstuff. The same with grain. So for your horse’s health actually weigh your horses feed, each time you feed your horse.

On August 15, the Walking Horse Trainers Association (WHTA) Board of Directors and Ethics Committee sent out a press release in regards to an investigation of trainer Dick Peebles for using pressure shoeing. Mr. Peebles did not admit guilt but did accept responsibility for the shoeing violation. He received a five-year suspension, which is the penalty for pressure shoeing under the USDA Horse Protection Act. This penalty does not have a lot of teeth as it is a penalty given by the WHTA and not a legal action under the Horse Protection Act. So although it will prevent him from showing, it will not prevent him from training horses and his clients can show them.

This is more evidence of the story I wrote a couple of weeks ago - www.horsekinetics.com/tennessee-walking-horse-shows-changed-for-the-better

So what exactly did Mr. Peebles do, or had his farrier do, that caused a 5 year suspension? It is called Pressure Shoeing which is a form of torture for a horse. Basically the goal is to put enough pressure on the horses sole to make them high step. In reality, they are causing the horse to be lame and forcing them to perform lame. If that were not bad enough many times they use chemical agents to make the heels sore or use nails to put pin point pressure on the sole. Anything to make them do a quick high step forward. Pretty disgusting for just a ribbon. Yes I realize there is more involved than just a ribbon, such as the recognition and the money that goes with winning all the time, but I still find it abhorring.

Thanks to Fran Jurga of the Jurga Report for bringing this story to my attention. She has an amazing blog - almost as good as this one…LOL Truthfully her blog is one that I read on a regular basis for the news that she finds before I do - Her blog www.equisearch.com/special/blog/horsehealth/ and the soring story - special.equisearch.com/blog/horsehealth/2007/08/walking-horse-trainer-admits-to-illegal.html

One question asked a lot is exactly how much weight should a horse carry? Now usually this is asked by someone watching a larger individual get on a small horse and ride the living daylights out of the poor little thing. Many people promote a rule of thumb of 10% of the horse’s bodyweight, but before I go and promote the same thing lets compare horses to humans for a minute.

How much weight can you comfortably carry for long extended periods of time 1/2 hour or more?

If you are a soldier in the army and you weigh 200 lbs then your 100 lbs rucksack is 50% of your body weight and you will be carrying that all day long!

If you are a 140 lbs Mom you can easily be carrying your 30 lbs 2 year old through a store for 15 to 20 minutes and that is just over 20% of your body weight and it depends on what shape you are in if you can carry that child comfortably or not.

SO what does this mean for a horse? If still means what kind of shape your horse is in, what type of structure your horse is, and if it has any other complicating factors such as arthritis as to how much weight they should be carrying. In my opinion the rule of thumb should be 10 to 30% of the horse’s body weight depending on condition of the horse and how long of a ride and what type of riding you will be doing. A nice easy trail ride on a good conditioned horse (meaning one that has been ridden for a couple months at least three times per week for a minimum of 20 minutes at a time) should be able to carry 25% of its body weight for an hour to two hour trail ride without a problem and with rest stops in between should be able to go all day long. That same horse should be able to carry 25% of its bodyweight in a competition setting say like jumping or dressage for 20 minutes without a concern.

So on average a horse weighs 1000 lbs (Arabs and ponies are smaller more like 700 lbs and Warmbloods and draft crosses are larger more like 1200 to 1500lbs) so that means if you and your tack weigh less than 250lbs and your horse is properly conditioned you should have no problem going for an hour long trail ride or an arena type event.

Now lets go bigger. Lets say you are a Cowboy of a larger stature and weigh 250 lbs yourself and your saddle and gear weigh 50 lbs that is a total weight of 300 lbs. Your horse either needs to be conditioned well and weigh 1200 lbs or needs to be in top condition and weigh at least 1000 lbs. These poor little Arabs that weigh only 700 lbs and have a 250 lbs lets say guy riding them on a 25 mile endurance ride are definitely more like the Army guy carrying the 100 lbs rucksack; oh it can be done but their body sure takes a beating from it.

So to be nice to your horse - if your horse is not conditioned stay at the 10% of the horses bodyweight, if it is conditioned well you can up that but stay below 30% to have a happy healthy horse!