Horses that gain weight easily – feeding them as nature intended®
Nowadays, more and more horses are struggling with being overweight due to misjudgements regarding their feed requirements. This affects hardy breeds, but also, time and again, warmbloods kept for leisure or sport. To prevent secondary conditions such as EMS or laminitis, it is important to take a critical look at your own horse and correctly assess its nutritional status.
The so-called Body Condition Score, or BCS for short, can be helpful here.
When should you reduce the amount of food?
If the neck and hindquarters are already becoming prominent due to fat deposits, the opportunity to adjust the ration has been missed. Even a BCS of 6 should prompt a change to the ration. Depending on the ration, reducing it by half (whilst ensuring adequate nutrient intake) may already be sufficient. Should the horse continue to gain weight, switching to a low-glycaemic feed is essential.
Whilst horses that are not in training are already very well nourished on a fibre-based feed, the higher energy requirements of sport horses should be taken into account. It all comes down to exercise! Adjusting their diet alone will not lead to weight loss.
The cause of excess weight is often a combination of incorrect feeding and a lack of exercise. Competition horses often suffer from excess weight as a result of their energy requirements being overestimated, but are otherwise well exercised. In such cases, adjusting their feed ration will certainly soon prove successful. Leisure horses, on the other hand, are often exercised less and, if overweight, should be put to work more intensively; in the long term, their feed and exercise regimes should be adjusted.
