From: Paula
Hi Jessica. I moved my horse to a new barn this past spring and I'm starting to have trouble keeping his weight down. He has been kept out on a 20 acre pasture most of the day. When I first noticed him getting a little "plump" in the belly a couple months ago, I had the barn owner move him to a dry lot for half of that time. There's still a little bit of grass in the "dry" lot but not that much.
I've yet to see an improvement. It's gotten so bad that I had to buy a new girth for him. I know that this is not good for his health and well being. I'm hoping with Fall soon approaching that a weight loss program will be easier. My question is, should I take him off of grass all together and just feed him some hay, and if so, how much for a now 1,000 pound (15 hand) horse? There is another dry lot that doesn't have any grass that he could be put in. Do I need to do something like this gradually? Will he get enough of the nourishment he needs in hay? He is fed just a handful of grain once a day. It's basically given just as a reward for coming into the barn at night.
I know he won't be very happy not being out with his buddies in the pasture but I know it would be for his own good. I just need some advice on how to go about it.
Thanks so much! Paula
We tend to think of hay-and-grain as being what horses "should" eat, and we very often focus only on protein levels, and never think about vitamins or minerals. When this happens, it's easy to think mostly about the horse's grain, and see the hay as "just roughage". This is really the opposite of sensible horse-feeding. Hay or grazing IS the basis for a horse's nutrition program: grain and supplements are "extras", added to compensate for deficiencies in the hay or grass. The ideal is complete nutritional balance, which must be based on a comparison of what your horse NEEDS with what the local hay or grazing actually PROVIDES.
Being outdoors provides so many advantages for a horse: good circulation, good digestion, a healthy respiratory system, companionship, sunlight and the chance to move like a horse and "eat like a horse", which really means walking around constantly and eating small amounts of high-fiber feed, all day long.
However, some horses simply "can't stand prosperity", and become dangerously obese if allowed free access to pasture. What's an owner to do?
First, avoid locking the horse into a stall -- that's a last and desperate measure. If there's a drylot area with no grass, use that. You don't have to put your horse into it and keep him there, but if he could spend his nights there, he would still have his freedom of movement, etc., without being able to stuff himself with grass during those hours.
If he is already in the drylot 12/24, make it 18/24. Some horses are remarkably efficient grazers, and some grass is remarkably rich. More time in a drylot with the least nutritious hay you can find -- old grass hay, for instance -- won't hurt his digestion and may help his figure.
Talk to your vet about doing some bloodwork; some horses ARE just "easy keepers", but if your horse is gaining weight on so little food that you are convinced he is really an air fern, check to see whether he may have a pituitary or thyroid disorder. In such cases, supplementation may help his metabolism work at a more normal rate, and then management will be much easier.
If there's nothing wrong with his endocrine balance, you'll need to look at a mechanical means to limit his access to grazing: try a muzzle such as the "Guardian" (made from soft leather) attached to his turnout (breakaway) halter.
One more thing: double-check what he's being fed -- not what you wrote on his stall card, but what he is being given at mealtimes. It's not at all uncommon for feeders to give a horse an amount of grain that does NOT correspond to the owner's instructions. There are barns where no one looks at the feed cards on the stalls, and EVERY horse is given the same amount of feed when the feed-cart goes down the aisle: a flake of alfalfa and a "coffee-can-full" of oats. The only way to keep the grain away from the horse is to nail a board over the feedbox; otherwise, the people who fed will just throw the grain in without thinking. There are barns where the barn-owner likes to see horses "with a lot of condition" (read: FAT horses) and will "adjust" the feed deliberately until all the horses look nice and plump. :-( And then there are individual feeders who feel sorry for the "hungry" horse that isn't getting "its fair share" of grain, and add an extra "coffee-can-full" or two to the horse's feedbox. I know -- I've been at all these barns; as Dave Barry likes to say, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
In these cases, better communication with the barn staff is essential, and you may need to make your point by blocking aisle access to the feedbox.
Good luck -- one of my own horses is an "air fern", so I know the difficulty of managing one. ;-)
Jessica
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