Feeding Horses In Winter

Winter can be a tricky time of year for feeding horses, especially if you have older horses or horses that lose weight easily. Feeding the right diet during winter will help keep your horses healthy and in good body condition.

Here are some tips on how you can do it: 1. Prepare for Winter Early
Use late summer and autumn while the temperatures are still comfortable and the pasture and hay quality still high to get your horse in good shape for winter. All horses during this period need to be fed a balanced diet (more on this soon) to make sure they are generally healthy and their immune systems fully functional. If your horse tends to lose weight over winter they can be fed a little more than normal during this time to get a bit of extra condition on them, so if they do lose some weight during winter they won’t end up being too skinny. You should also be looking to buy hay in summer as availability and quality are high, but demand is low meaning you will get a good quality product for less than you will pay in winter when the quality is also often lower. 2. Feed plenty of forage
Forage (hay, chaff and pasture) provides your horse with many of the calories they will need to maintain weight during winter. Aside from that, forage will keep your horse warm in winter. During the digestion of forages in the horse’s gut, bacteria ferment the fibrous portions. One of the ‘by-products’ of this fermentation is heat, and it is this heat that really helps a horse to stay warm during winter. In very wet, cold weather your horse will benefit more from an additional feed of hay than an extra feed of grain, pellets or sweetfeed. 3. Condition score your horse regularly
NEVER throw a rug on your horse in winter and leave it on for weeks on end without taking it off to check your horse’s body condition (and of course that it doesn’t have any injuries or sores that are covered by the rug). Condition scoring involves looking at areas on your horse’s body such as the top of the neck, the wither, over the ribs and over the loin to assess the amount of body fat (which we call body condition) your horse is carrying. For information on how to Condition Score and what body condition your horse should be in, go to FeedXL Condition Score. At the very least rugs should come off every week so you can check to see if your horse is losing, maintaining or gaining weight. 4. Adjust your horses diet to control body weight
Because you will be condition scoring your horse regularly you will know if your horse is maintaining, gaining or losing weight. Depending on what you want your horse to be doing, you may need to adjust the diet to keep your horse at the bodyweight and condition you want. If your horse is gaining unwanted weight, you will need to reduce or remove any high energy feeds like grains, pellets, sweetfeeds or oils in the diet. If your horse is losing weight that you don’t want him to lose, you may need to feed more calories in the diet. You can do this by: 1. Feeding more hay and if you’re not already doing so feeding some lucerne hay which has more energy and better quality protein than grass or cereal hays. A horse that is losing weight should have access to as much hay and/or pasture as they can eat.
2. Add high energy feeds to the diet. Feeds like pellets and sweetfeeds contain more energy than pasture and hay and will help your horse to maintain or gain weight. Use the best quality feeds you can afford and if using a Sweetfeed look for one that contains either extruded or micronized grains as these are more digestible for horses.
3. Add high energy fibres to the feed – if you don’t like to feed grain based feeds, high energy fibres like sugarbeet pulp, soybean hulls or copra meal can be used to increase your horse’s calorie intake.
4. Add oil to the diet – oils are very rich in calories so adding them to the diet will increase your horse’s calorie intake without really increasing the amount they need to eat. This is important, especially if your horse is a fussy eater. 5. Feed a balanced diet
An unbalanced diet that doesn’t meet your horse’s requirements for energy, protein, vitamins or minerals will mean your horse won’t be as healthy as he could or should be. Deficiencies of nutrients in the diet can lead to:
• Weight loss
• Muscle wastage
• Increased susceptibility to diseases like greasy heal and respiratory disease
• Dull, dry coat and skin
• Brittle and slow growing hooves
• Suppressed immune systems While traditionally, knowing if what you are feeding is meeting your horse’s requirements was quite hard, the online FeedXL Nutrition Software (www.FeedXL.com) makes it very easy to see if what you are feeding is the right thing for your horse. You just have to tell FeedXL about your horse and give it details of what you are feeding and it will show you which nutrients are missing from your horse’s diet. It will also allow you to compare various feeds and supplements and see which ones are best. 6. Beware of laminitis
The cold overnight temperatures of winter and the sunny but cold days can lead to sugars building up in pastures and particularly temperate pastures like ryegrass. For horses susceptible to laminitis (including overweight horses, horses with Cushing’s Disease or those who have previously had laminitis) winter can be a danger period. If your horse is at risk you should:
1. Restrict your horse’s access to pasture to only the very early hours of the morning up until about 11 am as this is when pasture sugar levels will be lowest.
2. Feed a low sugar hay and avoid hays made from ryegrass or cereals like oats or wheat.
3. Avoid all feeds with grain or grain by-products in them. {sidebar id=2}Beware: Most feeds that claim to be grain free are NOT. Read the label of all feeds carefully. If they contain anything like bran, pollard, millmix or millrun do not feed them to a horse prone to laminitis. If you are in doubt about a feed you can email info@feedxl.com for help. 7. Add a little oil to the diet
A horses coat can become dry and dull during winter. To help keep the coat and skin healthy, add ¼ of a cup of oil to the diet. Cold pressed canola and soybean oils are particularly effective. And Finally ...
All the normal rules of good horse husbandry apply in winter. Feeding a well balanced diet in conjunction with good dental, hoof and veterinary care as well as a strict worming regime will help keep your horses in top shape over winter. See more Feed Room articles.