SPRING FEEDING TUNE-UP
Valerie Gaudette Cole
Spring is coming! Yes, I know it’s still early, and we will likely deal with mud, wind, maybe more snow and ice, but it will happen. Nice riding weather will return. Whether you ride for pleasure, are a trail rider, a competitor, instructor, or breeder, now is a suitable time to evaluate your horse’s diet as you make plans for the upcoming season.
First, let’s talk about pastures. They can take a beating over the winter, especially a winter like we just had. When growing season is over and the ground is still soft, grass suffers. Here in the southern part of the state, we had a very mild start to the winter. The ground didn’t really freeze until January, and we had rain instead of snow until mid-January. It was great to be able to run water hoses to the stock tanks, but it was the worse possible scenario for our pastures. Horses want to graze, and if allowed out to pasture, they pulled up dead grass by the roots. Their constant moving and searching for grass also compacted the mud around the remaining grass roots. I don’t expect the pastures to be in good shape this spring. So, what can you do? First, keep your horses off small pastures and paddocks, if you can, and let the grass get a head-start. Remember though that you will have to be extremely careful when you start allowing him to have grass. If you don’t give him time to adjust to this change in his diet, you have the risk of laminitis and colic. The microbes in the horse’s GI tract need time to adjust. Too much rich spring grass leads to an overload of sugars and starches. This starch overload gets moved to his hind-gut, where the microbes are overwhelmed. They may produce gas, leading to colic, or may outright die, releasing toxins that can lead to laminitis. Talk with your veterinarian if you are unsure how to gradually introduce your horse to grass.
Perhaps you have large pastures and aren’t worried about the horses overgrazing, or you are unable to commit to the time needed to introduce your horse to pasture slowly. (I have vivid memories of years when I lived by the clock, going home to put horses out or take horses in. Worse than juggling a school schedule!) If you allow your horse to eat the grass as it comes in, you still need to monitor him. Grass can grow very quickly in the spring, faster than his gut microbes can adjust. Perhaps you can divide your pasture into smaller areas with temporary fences so that his grazing is restricted. Watch carefully though, as this can lead to overgrazing and damaged ground. If the ground is especially muddy, the grass won’t grow anyway, so try to keep your horse off that part.
Sounds like a no-win situation, doesn’t it? We want to grow healthy pastures. We want to keep our horses safe and healthy. We can’t control the weather nor can we control the sugars and starches in the grass. And every year presents a different scenario because the weather changes and our horses change too as they age. What can we do?
We can practice both pasture and feed management. It’s great if you have enough room that you can rotate pastures and give some areas time to recover while your horse grazes other patches. If you have a place for winter turn-out, even better. Your summer pasture can rest and recuperate while your horse alternately compacts and churns up the sacrifice area. If your pasture is limited and you want to make the best of it, consider not turning your horse out while the ground and grass are vulnerable. Yes, this is more intense management, and you will have to determine what works best for you. And, of course, if your horse isn’t on pasture, he’ll need some other food source. What do we do about that?
To answer that, let’s look at what the horse needs and how we manage it. First and foremost, horses are grazing animals. They need forages. They need a large amount over the course of the day but can only eat a little at a time. Consequently, they need to cover a large area to find this forage. It is common for wild horses to cover 20-30 miles a day, over hundreds of acres. We don’t have that kind of open land here in the east. If we have a hundred open acres, we produce hay, not pasture. We put up fences and confine our horses to small areas. They may have ten acres; they may only have a few hundred square feet. This puts the responsibility on us to make sure that they are eating a proper diet. That diet should be based on forage, which means grass and/or hay. When we confine them, we also reduce their ability to eat different grasses and take in a sufficient variety of vitamins and minerals. They can only eat what is in their pastures. If we ask them to work harder than they would like, then we probably need to give them additional calories too.
So here are the basics of horse feeding. Forage first, as in pasture or hay. Have your hay analyzed so that you can determine the protein, calories, carbs, vitamins, and minerals that it contains. It likely won’t meet all of your horse’s nutritional needs, so you will need to add to it. If your horse is in good weight, has a low metabolism, or doesn’t do much work, a good quality ration balancer will likely suffice. Remember though, ration balancers don’t add weight. If he is active, works hard, is part of a breeding program, or has a high metabolism, you may need to add more calories in the form of fats and/or carbs. This will likely be in the form of a commercial or concentrated feed. Talk with your veterinarian about your horse’s specific needs, as each horse is an individual and should be fed as such.
If your horse is eating hay, feed small amounts frequently. If you put out his day’s supply at one time, he’ll likely drag it around, stomp it into the mud, poop on it…you know. Horses can waste an incredible amount of hay which translates into dollars out of your wallet. It’s more natural for him to have several feedings of hay throughout the day. I know that is difficult to do if you are at work all day, so consider ways to help slow him down and make his morning hay last longer, such as slow feed hay bags. Just make sure that they are securely attached so that the horse can’t get himself into trouble. They are experts at that! I prefer the hay bags that are rectangular with a solid back and small openings on the front. They are easier to fill and much safer than the traditional rope bags.
Perhaps you have the room to put out a round bale. That is ideal, if your horse isn’t a glutton, because he can come and go as he pleases. To help control the waste, consider a round bale feeder (a large metal ring that goes around the bale) or a hay hut. You can also cover round bales with slow feeder nets to help control waste and slow down eating. Nets help to keep horses focused more on pulling the hay out through the openings, and less on driving their pasture mates away from the food. If you are considering a round bale feeder, look for the horse-specific feeders, also know as tombstone feeders because of their shape. Cattle feeders will also work but they aren’t as safe for horses. Some horses stick their heads through the openings and scare themselves, and the height and placement of the openings aren’t quite right for a horse’s long neck. Also, horses seem to damage the cattle feeders more than the heavier tombstone feeders.
By the time you are reading this article, you are likely nearing the end of your hay supply. Perhaps you have enough to get you to the start of the next haying season, perhaps you don’t and are looking for hay, perhaps you buy hay weekly from a supplier such as a feed store. Regardless, it’s important to remember that the hay has been losing nutrients during storage. Some, like Vitamin E, are likely to degrade within hours of cutting and drying. Others, such as Vitamin A, have a longer life but still aren’t as potent as when the hay was first cut. Other than storing it in a clean, dry space, there isn’t anything you can do to prevent this. It’s estimated that hay has the largest nutrient loss during the first year. I don’t know if anyone has done extensive research on that or not. What’s important to us at this point is the transition to the new hay. Ideally, you would have some of last year’s hay to mix in with the new hay to help your horse’s microbes adjust to the newer, richer meal. At least a couple of weeks’ worth would be great. Makes sense, right? We know that any changes in the horse’s diet should be made slowly. And forage should be the largest part of his diet, so we want to give him time to adjust.
This is the season when most of us schedule a visit with our veterinarian for vaccines and tooth floating. This is a good time to discuss diet and other health concerns too. Talk about body condition and whether your horse’s current diet is suitable or whether you should be considering changes. If you aren’t sure how to check for your horse’s pulse or how to monitor other vital signs, ask your vet. And then practice. These are skills that every horse owner should have in their toolbox. Why? If you know what is normal for your horse, then you will recognize when something isn’t normal. A great example is gut sounds. Maybe your horse is a quiet rumbler, or maybe his gut sounds are normally so loud that you don’t need to press your ear to his abdomen to hear him. If you loud guy is suddenly quiet, there may be something wrong. And if your quiet rumbler is silent, you definitely want to monitor him and maybe call the vet. Horses are all different, and it is never safe to assume that what is normal for one is going to be normal for everyone in the barn.
Another way in which horses differ is their ability to utilize Vitamin E, and this is a good time to talk with your veterinarian about whether a blood test for Vitamin E is advisable. This vitamin is critical to the horse’s immune, nervous, and reproductive systems, and for muscle recovery. The primary natural source is in forage, yet it degrades quickly in hay. Your horse may need more Vitamin E, or you may be supplementing his diet and feeding more than he needs. Luckily, horses tolerate an abundance of Vitamin E well, but you are wasting money if you are feeding too much. More isn’t better.
Of course, if you are going to talk with your veterinarian about all these different subjects, you may wish to mention it when you schedule your appointment. They can plan to take the extra time that you need, and you won’t feel like you are getting rushed answers. If your veterinarian makes specific recommendations regarding feed, be sure to ask why. You may not be able to get the feed they suggest at your local feed store, but you should have the information you need to help the store match the vet’s recommendation as closely as possible.
Let’s move into your feed room. This is a good time to evaluate your feeding program and re-visit the commercial feeds and supplements that you are using. It’s not show season yet and for most of us, riding is still weather-dependent, so you could use some of that time in learning more about your chosen feed. (As I used to tell my students, if you can’t ride, you could be reading about riding.) Take a look at your feed bags. Are you feeding the recommended amount by pounds and not by scoops? Not sure how many pounds your horse is eating? Take a typical meal in a baggie to your local feed store and ask them to weigh it for you. You can take it to the post office too, but they may give you funny looks. (For even more fun, take a selection of bits in and ask the postal clerks if they will weigh them. Expect glares from the people behind you though!)
Read the ingredients on your feed bag. Study the guaranteed analysis. Remember that the percentages represent the amount in that bag, not the amount in your horse’s total diet. The guaranteed analysis on a feed bag is not the same thing as the percentage of daily value on your box of cereal. Where is your feed manufactured? Is it a certified facility? Are there any warnings on your bag, such as “Do not feed to sheep” or “Follow label directions” or warnings about selenium?
This leads me to another point. You should keep your feed bag until the feed is gone. If there is a recall, you’ll need the lot numbers on the bag to see if yours is affected. If there is something wrong with the feed, the feed store needs that lot number so they can resolve the problem and report it if needed. It’s good management to keep the feed in the bag until it’s gone. If you dump it into a large bin, it’s too hard to scoop back into the bag later if there is a problem. Plus…let’s be honest…how often are you going to clean the fines and dust out of an old freezer that you use for feed storage? Major source of contamination there.
As another part of our spring tune-up, let’s talk about salt. This is critical for your horse, and he should be consuming an ounce-and-a-half to two ounces per day. (Take a look- is it listed on your feed bag?) Most of us tend to put a salt block in the stall and leave the horse to take it at will. And that’s fine, as long as he is taking it. If you’ve thrown a big 50-pound block in there and it’s covered with dust or bedding or manure, I’ll bet that he isn’t. If you have mounted a brick to the wall, is it at a height that he can easily reach, or does he have to hold his neck at an awkward angle? We are usually told that the horse will take what he needs but it is up to us to make sure that he can easily access it. At two ounces per day, a horse would be consuming one four-pound brick every month. If your horse isn’t, perhaps he needs help or encouragement. You could try offering loose salt, or a Himalayan chunk, which some horses seem to prefer. You can add loose salt to his feed too at the rate of a tablespoon per 500 pounds, if needed. Of course, if he leaves it in the bottom of the bucket, he is telling you that it is too much. My favorite method is to put chunks of salt bricks in the feed bucket. The horse can easily access as much as he wants, it helps to slow down fast eaters, and it makes such delightful noise when they bang their buckets!
Lastly, let’s talk about water. This is the most important nutrient in a horse’s diet. He can live for a few weeks without food, but only a couple of days without water. Horses always need access to clean, fresh water…not ice. And not snow. That doesn’t count as hydration. By the time their body has warmed it up enough to use, it has no benefit. Make sure your buckets are cleaned regularly. If your bucket has an odor, replace it. The horse’s nose is much better than ours…on par with dogs, actually…so if you can smell it, it’s really offensive to him. Remember too that spring is a “shoulder” season, the temperatures go up and down, and it is prime colic time. The fluctuations in temperatures can interfere with the horse’s thirst trigger and he may not be drinking as he should. Again, learn what is normal for your horse. If he isn’t drinking enough, you may want to add loose salt to his feed, or flavoring to his water, or give him mashes made of hay extender pellets (please, not bran mashes.) Many senior feeds can have water added to them and horses seem to like that. If your horse is suddenly drinking more than normal, mention that to your veterinarian, as it can be an early sign of PPID, also known as Cushing’s.
In review, this is a good month to re-evaluate your horse’s diet, talk with your veterinarian about diet concerns, and learn some new and necessary health and management skills. Most of these are easy to put into place and can improve your horse’s overall diet and health. When the nice weather finally arrives, go out and enjoy it with your horse