Ask The Vet: Equine Nutrition - September 07

It sounds like Montana Travler is lucky you took him in. Being that he is 3-years-old and has been through a period of inadequate nutrition, he is still growing and has not received the nutrition needed to support that growth. Oats and grass hay will provide calories and some protein but not enough good quality protein or enough vitamins and minerals for optimum health and development. I'd suggest you gradually change his diet over to a good quality, well balanced horse feed that is 14 percent protein and is fortified with vitamins and minerals. This will help with his muscle development. If you want to stay with oats, then I'd recommend a concentrated protein, vitamin and mineral supplement be added.

Loose stools can be caused by a number of different things and sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what specifically is the cause. I would recommend a veterinary exam to make sure the deworming program is being effective and that there is no other health problem causing the loose stools.

When an older horse loses the ability to effectively chew and digest long-stemmed hay, or the hay quality is inconsistent or not adequate to properly maintain good body condition, then it is time to use a completely pelleted diet with quality hay built in to replace long-stemmed hay in the diet. Sometimes horses with dental problems may appear to be eating hay, but are actually quidding, or chewing, but not swallowing hay. As horses get older and begin to not hold their body condition on a ration that used to do the job well, then it is time to begin considering a change in diet. Many people feed a diet designed for senior horses along with hay in the early stages of aging while the horse can still eat hay, then over the years, gradually increase the amount of senior feed to replace the hay as well. When used to replace the hay and grain, a completely pelleted feed with hay included, should be fed at a minimum of 1.3 pounds per 100 pounds of body weight in most cases.

A horse's frog is sloughed off and replaced about twice a year. In a horse that is regularly trimmed, this might not be noticeable because a little of the frog is trimmed each time. I would trust your veterinarian to let you know if this mare's feet sloughed an abnormal amount or if there was any indication of a health issue here. If there is no health issue, then the frogs should grow back normally.

A mare raising a foal on good pasture is possible, although maybe not optimal. I would recommend at minimum putting out a free-choice horse mineral and a salt block for the mare and foal. On really good pasture, you may can get by with only that. However, it is usually best to feed a prescribed amount of a good quality feed formulated to meet the demands of lactation for the mare and the nutritional needs to support the growing foal as well. Any changes in the diet should be made gradually.

If her teeth are in good shape and she is eating at least 7 to 10 pounds of good quality hay per day, I would choose a product with a higher calorie content than Equine Senior, such as Strategy or Ultium. Equine Senior is very helpful for horses that can't effectively chew hay and are having trouble getting the nutrition out of hay and grain or can't eat hay at all. Those horses eat Equine Senior in amounts to replace both hay and grain. If you are feeding good quality hay and your horse is being able to chew and digest that hay, then a higher calorie grain could help because you could get more calories into the horse in a small feeding rate.

For instance, Ultium contains 34 percent more calories per pound than Equine Senior. So, if you feed the same amount of feed, you increase the calorie intake by 34 percent. In a healthy horse, it takes about 3000 to 4000 calories above those needed for maintenance of current condition to result in a horse gaining about 1/2 pound per day. To gain one body condition score, from a 4 out of 9 to a 5 out of 9 score, is roughly 50 lbs. Depending on the calorie content of the 12 percent feed you are mixing in, you are providing roughly 6600 calories per day from your current grain. If you fed five pounds of Ultium, you'd be close to 3000 additional calories per day.

I would wonder if this was a problem for this mare always or just recently. If she has been on an adequate diet for a long time, was in good condition before and just more recently lost condition, I'd be inclined to have a complete veterinary exam. Also, if there has been any change in her behavior or attitude, such as more nervous, grouchy or irritable, that along with the difficulty maintaining good condition might indicate problems with gastric ulcers. Also, you might want to check with your vet about the possibility of this mare being infested with encysted small strongyles. I have seen horses this year on good deworming programs, that were just not doing as well as they should for the diet they were eating. A veterinarian recommended deworming specifically for the encysted small strongyles and the horses improved after that. So, with horses not keeping adequate condition, check the hay quality, whether you're feeding enough of a higher calorie grain to meet the energy demands of the horse's work load, have a veterinarian check generall health and teeth and check for gastric ulcers or any other health issue that may contribute to a horse being a hard keeper. You also may consider feeding her in a larger trough, at or near ground level. This way she may chew more naturally and effectively and the feed she drops would end up back in the trough. This might help her waste less grain.

I don't know that I'd say that ribs showing was normal for most Quarter horses, as many of them are easy keepers and often carry too much condition. Depending on the severity of the founder and what may have caused it, I would say it isn't a bad idea to keep a previously foundered horse a little on the thinner side. I would encourage you to weigh your feed and hay to find out exactly how much you are feeding. An average quarter horse would weigh 1000 to 1100 pounds, and should be eating a minimum of one percent of their body weight in hay (10 to 11 pounds minimum), preferrably closer to 2 percent (20 to 22 pounds) and no less than 3 to 4 pounds of Strategy or 5 to 6 pounds of Equine Senior. If she isn't eating that much, you may just need to very gradually increase the amount of feed and hay you are offering to her. Also, hay quality has been a problem in some parts of the country this year and horses may be eating the right amount of hay, but due to the lower digestibility of that hay, they aren't maintaing their condition well and need more grain to compensate. She probably doesn't need a daily electrolyte supplement unless she is being ridden and is sweating quite a bit. Otherwise, a free-choice salt block should be adequate. The oil isn't usually necessary with the right amount of Strategy, but if she is eating at least the minimum recommended amount of Strategy, you can add up to a cup of oil to get some additional calories. If you are just adding a couple ounces, it isn't contributing any significant amount of calories.

As with any horse that had a previous health issue or was having trouble maintaining adequate condition on a good diet, I'd recommend a veterinary exam to see if there is a medical reason that she isn't deriving all the benefit from her diet. I know in many parts of the country this year, deworming programs have been challenged due to the additional parasite infestation and some people are finding the need for additional deworming. Check with your veterinarian to see if you are doing everything you need to from a health and internal parasite control program.

As horses age, many of them lose body condition and muscle tone to some degree, less of a loss when they are on a good diet, but still it's difficult to keep a 28 year-old looking like a 12-year-old. Once they lose weight, it can take a bit of time for it to come back, even when put on a good diet because they often lose muscle mass as well as fat and muscle takes longer to replace than fat. That said, I'd be curious if she is chewing and eating hay effectively or not. I have seen older horses "eating" all the hay they can, standing at a bale of hay all day "eating", but when you look closer, you find they are quidding. This is when they bite off a mouthful of hay, chew on it for awhile and then spit it out because they can't chew effectively. If you find balls of chewed up hay and slobber on the ground, you know she isn't eating hay and then you need to have her on a senior horse feed that has quality hay built in and feed enough to replace hay and grain. That means often 13 to 16 pounds or more for an average 1000 pound horse. So, they will eat more than other horses. If she is chewing and eating hay well, but still isn't gaining the weight back, you could add a nutritionally balanced high-fat supplement at 1 to 2 pounds per day to the senior feed to increase the calorie intake and help her to regain back what she has lost. I would recommend one that has a good protein content as well to help with the muscle building as well.

Another concern would be if she had developed Cushing's. Horses with Cushing's often begin to lose body condition, especially muscle mass over the hindquarters. Your veterinarian may have already considered and ruled that out for lack of other symptoms such as drinking excessive water and urinating frequently, long hair coat that doesn't shed properly, bouts with laminitis, etc. If she is fine other than just some loss in condition, then it may just be a matter of increasing the intake of a very digestible feed such as a senior diet, and giving it time to work.

Any time you are dealing with recurrent colics, regardless if they are mild, I would recommend a veterinary exam for this mare. As you stated, the colic when she arrived could certainly be due to stress and changing diet and environment. Any time horses go through a change in diet, grain and hay, they are at a greater risk for colic. But, with recurrent signs of discomfort, I’d want to have a veterinary exam to help determine what might be wrong.

As far as nutrition goes, all horses need a minimum of one percent of their body weight (1 pound per 100 pounds of body weight) in good quality hay or the equivalent in pasture. Most horse owners feed closer to two percent of their horse’s body weight in hay. Then, I’d suggest either adding a good protein, vitamin, mineral supplement to the oats or gradually changing to a well balanced, nutritionally fortified grain mix, either sweet feed or pelleted feed, so that she receives the proper balance of nutrition. Also, make sure she is drinking at least 8 to 10 gallons of water daily. Sometimes horses moved to a new area don’t like the way the water tastes and they stop drinking well.hey can become dehydrated, stop eating well and colic. I’d also recommend keeping a salt block available at all times, provide plenty of exercise and as little confinement as possible. Exercise stimulates intestinal motility.

You might want someone with expertise to check your hay to make sure it is good quality horse hay and is free of weeds, molds or other foreign materials that could be causing the recurrent discomfort. Good quality hay is the basis for a safe, good ration for horses. If you cannot find good quality hay that is consistent in quality, you may try using a complete feed with the hay built in to replace part of the hay you are feeding.

I would encourage you to keep the foal eating Strategy at the rate of one pound per month of age per day while he is still nursing the mare. This will make up for less than optimum milk production of the mare. Then, I’d plan to go ahead and wean that foal as early as 3 months of age if the mare is still struggling. We have done research on early weaning foals and had them do just as well as foals left on their moms for 5 to 6 months, as long as they were fed properly. Once the foal is weaned, you can gradually increase the amount of Strategy by 2 to 3 pounds per day.

Lactation places a very large nutritional demand on the mare and her calorie requirements are nearly double during lactation as they were during early gestation. Increasing the grain during lactation, as well as making sure the mare has access to plenty of high quality forage, is necessary to properly support the demands of lactation. If you have increased the amount of Strategy and do have plenty of good quality forage for this mare and she is still having trouble maintaining body condition during gestation, you could add a pound or two of Amplify, a high fat supplement that is balanced with good quality protein as well as vitamins and minerals, all would be beneficial for milk production.

It may simply be that she needs more nutritional support, but other than large breeds and Thoroughbreds, who sometimes need to eat up to 16 pounds or so of Strategy, 12 pounds usually supports most mares during lactation even with moderate quality forage. I’d be inclined to have a veterinarian examine her to make sure there is no health issue or reason that she is not doing very well.

Mule foals need similar diets to horse foals, they just may be more efficient with calories. With that said, you do have to be careful about them getting overweight on a similar amount of feed as horse foals. If your mule foal gets too fat on a recommended amount of a well balanced foal feed, you may try using a concentrated protein, vitamin and mineral supplement designed to be fed to foals at 2 to 3 pounds per day, meeting their protein, vitamin and mineral needs without the additional calories you’d get from feeding 5 to 6 pounds of a foal feed.

Beet pulp, soaked in water, can sure help get more water into a horse. Soaking alfalfa cubes or pellets is also a good option. Also, adding a small amount of loose salt to the feed may help stimulate a horse to drink. For a horse with recurrent colics, you may want to reduce the bulk in the diet and try her on a senior horse feed with quality hay built in. Some horse owners wet that down before feeding as well.

I’d recommend consulting with your veterinarian to determine the cause of these recurrent bouts of colic to see if you simply need to try to get more water into her system or if you do need to try her on a complete feed with very little or no long-stemmed hay.

Many of us use high fat feeds or supplements for hard keepers because these products provide a relatively high level of calories per given volume. With fat containing 2.25 times the calories as carbohydrates, one pound of fat has the same number of calories as 3.33 pounds of oats, so you can get more calories into the horse in a smaller volume of feed with high fat diets. However, as we push the envelope on fat levels in feeds and supplements, we find that each horse seems to have an individual tolerance level for the amount of fat they will eat. Some horses will just inhale high fat supplements forever and others will back off after a time. You may have to just try other supplements to find one that he likes or you may have to try something like a high quality sweet feed that is very palatable and has added fat included already, such that the calorie content is 25 to 30 percent more per pound than oats. That is one of the reasons sweet feeds are still so popular on the race track because they are so much more palatable to finicky eaters than other feeds.

Also, any time a horse goes off feed, you want to pay attention and see if there are other symptoms that he may have developed gastric ulcers or other health issues. Gastric ulcers are very common in horses being ridden, raced or shown. A horse with a grouchy attitude, especially around feeding time, one that acts hungry and then doesn’t want to eat well, begins to drop weight or look unthrifty, are all indicators of possible gastric ulcers. The definitive diagnosis is a scope and you may want to ask your veterinarian if they think your horse is a candidate for that. Some people choose to put the horse on omeprazole to see if symptoms resolve. If this horse does have ulcers, I’d encourage you to try a low starch and sugar, high fat pelleted feed that is very palatable. It is encouraged to reduce starchy grains like oats or sweet feeds if a horse has gastric ulcers. Also, divide the daily ration into a minimum of three meals per day, preferably four, with a maximum of six hours between meals and incorporate at least a small amount of alfalfa for its buffering effect on gastric acid. Also, don’t exercise the horse on a completely empty stomach, instead offer a small 2 to 3 pound alfalfa meal within two hours of exercise. These are all management guidelines to help reduce the incidence of gastric ulcers.

Again, check with your veterinarian to see if this horse is a suspect for having gastric ulcers.

You are right to be concerned about OCD in growing foals, but you are also correct that you can’t starve them and have good growth. Slowing growth by feeding too little feed or too little nutrition will not prevent developmental disorders. It may delay the onset of them, but certainly won’t prevent them. At his age and weight, if he were still nursing the mare, he should be eating three pounds of a good foal feed, so he really needs to be eating more at this time to make up for the lack of mare's milk. With a good quality, well balanced foal feed, you should be able to gradually cut back the milk replacer pellets, but I’d probably go ahead and keep feeding the 2 to 3 cups per day through his fourth month of age. You need to gradually increase his grain intake over the next week about ½ pound per day every couple days until you are feeding six pounds of grain. Watch his body condition. He should not get fat, he should have his little ribs just barely covered with condition. If he gets fatter than that, you can cut back a pound per day of grain and cut back on the hay a bit. When you feed all the hay they can eat at this age, you may end up with a hay belly. Often, horse owners feed all the hay the foal can eat and when they look fat on all that hay, they cut back the grain. Then, the foal misses out on important protein, vitamins and minerals to support optimum growth and loses muscle tone over their topline and hips. It is better to limit their hay intake to a maximum of 2 percent of their body weight, about 6.5 pounds at his current weight. Then feed the grain as recommended. Young foals cannot extract all the nutrition they need out of hay, so they need to eat a bigger portion of their daily ration as a well balanced foal grain product.

Provide him plenty of exercise, preferably turned out in a pasture or paddock all the time, with a buddy to run and play with is always best. Work with your veterinarian to be sure you have him on an adequate deworming and vaccination schedule, keep his feet trimmed properly and continue to feed him properly. He should grow out just great and you’ll never be able to tell he was an orphan.

It could certainly be an HYPP issue, but it is interesting that it only happens in the fall. From a nutrition standpoint, with HYPP horses, you want to try to control the potassium content of the diet. The recommended level is a max of one percent in the grain, where hays will be 1.5 to 2.5 percent or sometimes even higher. Potassium content of green grass would be even higher. Equine Senior has 1.6 percent potassium, which is lower than most diets of grain plus hay would be, so if it is the total diet it would be reasonable to feed when replacing hay and grain. There are grains that are lower in potassium if you are feeding hay or pasture. If her teeth are in good condition and she still eats plenty of hay or pasture, you may want to check into products that would have lower potassium and still meet her nutritional needs. I would ask your veterinarian to go over with you how to deal with an HYPP episode and be sure you are prepared to help her if this occurs again. I would keep an eye out on what she is eating this fall. You might begin putting out hay earlier this fall to keep her from looking for other things to eat that may be causing her problems.

Beet pulp can be used to help replace some hay, as can alfalfa pellets and there is a complete feeds made for growing horses that has hay built in as well. Those are all good options for replacing some or even all of your hay if necessary. One thing to watch out for is that beet pulp is higher in calories than hay so if you replace on an equal amount basis, your horses may gain unwanted weight. I have read accounts that say no more than four pounds of beet pulp (weighed dry) per day is recommended, although in research studies horses have been fed up to 45 percent by weight of the total diet as beet pulp for 8 weeks with no problems other than weight gain and that horses began to sort through and preferred to eat alfalfa pellets over the beet pulp. Beet pulp is not a nutritionally balanced ingredient and I would recommend using it to replace part of your hay, but to still provide a well balanced protein, vitamin and mineral supplement, especially to the growing horses, in the form of a feed if they need the calories or a forage-balancer supplement if they are carrying plenty of weight.

For the horse with chronic choke issues, I’d recommend smaller meals, spread out in a large trough at chest or ground level, and putting large stones or salt bricks in the trough. Feeding at a more natural, ground level and spreading the feed out so the horse has to “graze” around the trough helps insure more effective chewing.

For all horses, I’d make the transition from long-stemmed hay to alfalfa pellets and beet pulp gradually and possibly divide the daily ration into three smaller meals instead of two larger ones. Horses will chew beet pulp, alfalfa pellets or hay replacer pellets more quickly than they will long-stemmed hay, so it helps alleviate boredom to feed smaller, more frequent meals.

Lactation is hard work for a mare. In fact, her calorie requirements are nearly double what they were before the foal was born. It is very difficult to put weight on a lactating mare because everything you add seems to go to the milk first and nothing is left for weight gain. Also, you have to account for the feed the foal will eat, at 4 months of age, he could be eating 4 pounds of the feed you are putting out for the mare. So, you do have to increase what you offer if the mare and foal eat together.

You could increase your grain, feeding a max of 5 pounds per meal and even add another meal or add a balanced high fat supplement to provide more readily available calories. However, if the foal is eating the mare & foal pellets well, he is old enough to wean and do very well. It is much easier to wean the foal, remove the nutritional stress of lactation from the mare and more safely help her gain weight.

A four-month-old foal eating a high quality, well balanced foal feed will do very well. He should be eating about 4 pounds per day of grain and about the same in hay before you wean. When you wean, gradually increase the grain another couple pounds to replace the nutrition he had been getting from mom’s milk.

I’d sure recommend working with your veterinarian for their recommendation on a diet for this mare based on how much they expect the surgery to impact digestive function. Luckily, the primary site of nutrient absorption is in the small intestine, so she should be able to digest and utilize her diet well. The primary problems associated with removal of most of the large colon would include decreased phosphorus absorption, increased fecal water content and weight loss if poor quality hay is fed. Vitamin K absorption is also a concern. Your veterinarian can tell you if there may be a potential issue for this mare based on the extent of the resection.

The general recommendations for feeding a horse following large-colon resection is to feed a diet relatively high in protein (over 12 percent) and phosphorus (min of 0.4 percent) and low in fiber (less than 28 percent). A good quality senior horse feed with the hay built in is one option to consider. This diet may be adjusted over time, depending on the extent of resection and how the horse is doing. It may be possible to return to a totally normal diet. Again, I’d recommend working with your veterinarian to determine the best diet options for this horse.

For horses with degenerative arthritis, I’d feed a nutritionally balanced, high quality senior feed, but not let them get overweight at all. It is best to keep them in a body condition of 4.5 to 5 of 9, meaning you may can see the faint outline of ribs or the ribs are just covered and not visible. This minimizes weight strain on painful joints. If your horse is an easy keeper and can’t eat a minimum of 5 to 6 pounds of a senior feed without getting overweight, then I’d suggest a concentrated protein, vitamin, mineral product designed to be fed at 1 to 2 pounds per day with your good quality hay.

Otherwise, I’d recommend you work with your veterinarian to determine their recommendation for management of the progression of this condition with medication or supplements and any suggestions for pain management as well.

You are correct to be concerned about maintaining a healthy body condition on your horses. Chronically overweight horses are prone to metabolic issues that can be unhealthy for them. I’d encourage you to look up the Body Condition Score Chart on the Internet and score your horses. You’d like to keep them a body score 5 to 6 of 9. Sometimes, without this system, people see big hay bellies and think horses are too fat, when they may not be. Horses don’t get fat in their belly, but do get fat over the crest of their neck, on the withers, topline, tailhead, behind the shoulders and over the ribs. You want the ribs covered but easy to feel.

Horses can eat as little as 1 percent of their body weight in hay and maintain a healthy digestive system. For most horses needing to lose weight, we recommend no more than 1.5 percent of their body weight in hay, divided into two or more meals per day.

I’d also recommend having available a free-choice horse mineral and a salt block, or feeding one pound per day each of a forage-balancer supplement to make sure they are getting vitamins and minerals they need that would be missing in the forage.

Also, continue with a consistent exercise program if at all possible. Even light walk/jog for 20 to 30 minutes 3 to 4 days a week would be helpful.

Protein is pretty misunderstood by many horse owners. Horses don’t actually have a protein requirement, but instead have a requirement for the amino acids supplied by protein. So, when looking at protein for horses, you have to look at percent protein in the product, how much of the product you feed and the protein sources in that product, along with the protein needs of the horse and what is supplied by your hay. For instance, a 32 percent protein supplement intended to be fed at 1 to 2 pounds per day, provides the same total protein (0.32 to 0.64 pounds of protein) as 2.6 to 5.3 pounds of a 12 percent protein product. You wouldn’t want to feed 4 to 6 pounds of a 32 percent protein product, but if the horse needed the calories from that higher feeding rate, you’d feed a 10 to 14 percent feed.

You’d like to see at least half the protein coming from soybean meal or for the product to contain added amino acids to help insure not only the right amount, but the right quality of protein. Excess protein isn’t really a problem for most horses. Usually, the only sign of excess protein is increased water intake and amount of urine produced. In stall-confined horses, it can sure lead to high ammonia levels in the stall though. For very hard working, heavily sweating horses, the excess protein can increase the risk of dehydration due to the increased urination. Other than that, there really are usually more problems for horses getting insufficient protein than too much. If you feed a 10 percent protein feed with average grass hay that often has about 7 percent protein, you will have about 7.5 percent protein in the total diet (if feeding 20 poundss of hay and 4 pounds of grain). It would take a 14 percent protein feed fed with the hay in this example to get the total diet to be 8 percent protein.

Protein and amino acid deficiency leads to loss of muscle tone, especially over the topline and even in horses that are fat enough. It can also lead to poor haircoat and hoof quality, and in extreme cases, anemia. While there are horses with protein allergies, allergies are most often the result of an environmental allergen rather than a food allergen.

For a mature horse that is an easy keeper and maintains their body weight on hay or pasture alone, I’d feed a 30 to 32 percent supplement designed to be fed at 1 to 2 pounds per day with grass hay or a 12 percent supplement with primarily alfalfa hay or green grass pasture.

Sorry to write a book chapter, but again, there are so many misconceptions about what is enough and what is too much protein.

All cool season grasses will tend to accumulate more sugars and fructans than warm season grasses. The accumulation will be greatest when there are warm, sunny days followed by nights where the temperature doesn’t get above 40 degrees. For a healthy 5 year-old, with no previous problems on pasture, I wouldn’t be too concerned, as long as he doesn’t become overweight. If you want to take extra care, graze him in the early morning as opposed to late afternoon or evening and restrict his grazing time if you have warm sunny days and very cool nights. Also, provide hay prior to turning out on pasture so he is full and not ravenous when he gets access to the pasture.

It sure sounds like you are following most of the recommendations for prevention. According to UC Davis, where there has been more research on enteroliths than probably anywhere, there may be a genetic component to this and Arabians or Arabian crosses account for 40 percent of the enterolith cases in one study. The incidence of enteroliths seems to be most prevalent in California, but have also been reported in other states. Some of the recommendations include:

* Don’t feed bran with the diet due to it’s high phosphorus content.

*Reduce alfalfa hay intake due to high protein, lower fiber and high magnesium content. (although there are many, many horses that eat alfalfa all their lives and don’t develop enteroliths, so alfalfa may be a factor not necessarily a cause)

* Attempt to alter intestinal pH by increasing the amount of grain and less hay (this isn’t always a good option, especially for easy keepers that might become overweight on high grain diets and due to other problems that may arise from feeding higher levels of grain).

* Another option is to add one cup of vinegar to the diet daily (apparently adding a couple tablespoons wasn’t adequate, it takes a full cup to have any real effect on intestinal pH).

* Reduce the feeding of lower fiber forages such as alfalfa and feed more bulk, such as grass hay to help stimulate intestinal motility

* Provide plenty of turn-out and exercise to keep the intestines motile and minimize stall confinement.

I have also heard of farms with higher incidence of enteroliths putting water softener systems on their barns if they were in areas with hard water. Hard water has been proposed as a potential risk factor.

There is cause for concern in horses eating manure because of the increased risk of ingesting internal parasites. There can be a dietary component to caprophagy (eating manure) but that isn’t always the case. Diets that are protein deficient or are low in fiber or bulk can lead to caprophagy in adult horses. It can also simply be a case of boredom, something to do or pick on when there is nothing else to do. Caprophagy is completely normal in foals, but they usually grow out of it. Sometimes you find horses that have just developed a habit and others may copy that behavior. The best plan would be to try to clean manure out of their stall or paddock as quickly as possible. Maybe provide them a toy or something they can play with.

I would replace the steamed rolled oats with a good quality, well fortified concentrated protein, vitamin and mineral product, a forage balancer type of product. These are designed to provide the nutrition that would be missing in an all hay or pasture diet, without a lot of extra calories. Steam rolled oats have calories, mostly from starch, and some protein and fat, but they don’t provide a good vitamin and mineral balance to meet her nutritional needs. There are products like this that have no oats or corn, so are lower in starch and sugar, and are just a good protein, vitamin and mineral balancer. Until you get her in good shape or are riding her enough that she needs more calories to support good body condition, I’d plan to keep her on that type of product. It isn’t a healthy plan for an older mare to be chronically overweight. Being overweight can increase the risk of her developing metabolic problems that are unhealthy for her so I’d recommend a careful, gradual but regular exercise program and providing a well balanced diet. If she is very overweight or doesn’t seem to be dropping the excess weight, you may need to restrict her hay intake to 1.5 pounds per 100 pounds of body weight until she does trim up. Also, keep a salt block out for her at all times.

We usually recommend an orphaned foal be fed a mixture of milk replacer (either mixed with water or as a pellet if they can eat enough) along with a feed formulated for foal growth and development. Early on, he will be eating more milk replacer than feed, but you gradually shift that as he grows.

It sounds like you have successfully gotten him through all this very well so far. Now, if he is loosing weight when you remove the pellets, it is because you aren’t replacing the calories and protein quality in the milk replacer with the feed. We just need to be sure you are feeding the right feed and in the right amounts to support him at this stage in life. You might want to gradually reduce the milk replacer pellets as he gradually increases his intake of the feed to the proper amount, instead of totally removing the milk replacer pellets all at once.

At his age and body weight, if you are buying Purina products, he should be eating either Strategy or Omolene 300 and he should be eating a minimum of six pounds per day of either one along with a maximum of 6 to 7 pounds of hay. Either of those products should provide the calories and the protein quality to keep his condition without the milk replacer pellets, if you are feeding them as recommended. At this age, foals that eat too much hay and not enough feed tend to get large “hay bellies” and lose muscle tone over their backs and hips. They need the high quality, readily available nutrients from a good foal feed and can’t get as much out of hay as a mature horse yet.

If you are feeding at least the minimum recommended amount of a good quality, well balanced feed, then you should be providing adequate amounts of nutrition for your horse. If he is keeping good weight and looks and feels healthy, with a good hair coat and hoof growth, then you are most likely providing him the level of nutrition he needs. If, during the colder months you find he isn’t drinking as well, soaking the alfalfa cubes in water before feeding will encourage him to take in more water. Most horses love the alfalfa “soup”. I’d also make sure there was a salt block available to him at all times.

The nutritional concern with EPSM is with starches and sugars in the diet rather than protein. If your mare has shown any signs of having EPSM, then I would recommend choosing a pelleted feed that is low in corn and oats so would be lower in starches and sugars than a sweet feed. Choose one formulated for mares and foals and feed the amount needed to maintain her condition and support lactation. It sounds like she is in good shape, with ribs covered but not overly fat. The big belly is most likely from eating free-choice hay. I’d expect her to be eating a lot of hay. I would plan to wean the foal at 4 to 5 months of age. Be sure to provide the foal with one pound per month of age per day of a well balanced foal feed (at 3 months, he should be eating three pounds per day). Often, foals do well eating right along with the mare as long as the mare is eating a well balanced mare and foal feed, or you can feed them separately if you have the facilities to do that.

If your hay or pasture are excellent quality and the mare and foal begin to get overweight when being fed the recommended amounts of a mare & foal feed, then look for a concentrated protein, vitamin, mineral product that is fortified to be fed at lower feeding rates. With grass hay, this would probably be 30 to 32 percent protein in the concentrate, but you’d only be feeding a couple pounds instead of 4 to 6 pounds. Two pounds of a 32 percent protein product supplies the same amount of protein (0.64 pounds of protein) as six pounds of a 10.5 percent protein feed. It has to be more concentrated in protein, vitamins and minerals because you are feeding a small amount to keep from feeding unnecessary calories. If you just cut back on the mare & foal feed that is recommended to be fed at higher feeding rates, you will end up deficient in protein, vitamins and minerals due to the low feeding rate.

Physitis can be caused by a number of factors, including genetics, environment and nutrition. When you are dealing with one foal, it is sometimes difficult to determine what the specific cause may be in that one foal. When you have several foals, and only one has physitis, then it is more likely a genetic issue. When you have several foals and the majority or a large number of them have physitis, then you may be dealing with environmental or nutritional issues. Physitis is simply an inflammation of the growth plates and when those physis close, they no longer present a problem. With some variability due to breed and genetics, the physis in the ankles close around 9 to 10 months of age, so by the time the foal is a yearling, you usually can’t tell which foals had physitis and which ones didn’t.

If this filly hasn’t been weaned yet, I would do that. We often see physitis flare up in 4 to 5 month old foals nursing mares that are very productive milkers. Once the foal is weaned and the nutrition can be better regulated, they usually grow through the problem beautifully. Also, most mare and foal feeds are formulated to be fed at a minimum of one pound per month of age per day of the foal while it is still nursing the mare, and then a minimum of about five pounds after weaning. When you reduce the intake of this type of diet down to two pounds per day, you will end up with fewer calories to slow growth, but you will also end up deficient in important amino acids, vitamins and minerals to support good solid growth. So, when dealing with a rapidly growing foal that is experiencing physitis or other developmental orthopedic disorders, the goal is usually to slow down growth until they grow through that issue. It is a better option to change to a concentrated protein, vitamin and mineral product that is formulated to be fed to youngsters at 2 to 2.5 pounds per day. This lets you control the calorie intake, but still supply nutrients for proper growth and development.

Once the foal has grown through this issue and you want to begin to slowly put more condition on her, you can go back to a mare and foal feed and feed enough to result in weight gain and the desired condition. Usually, when the foal weighs 700 pounds or is a year old, which ever comes first, you can go with a good quality 14 percent protein product. A high quality, well balanced mare and foal feed should provide adequate calories and the proper balance of nutrition to put the weight and bloom on the foal, provided she is healthy and on an effective deworming program. It is not usually a good idea to add high fat supplements to the diet of young growing horses because you tip the scale and provide empty calories to quickly put on fat, but not the nutrients to support muscle and bone development. Only in maybe the last 30 to 45 days prior to a show or sale would I add a limited amount of a high fat supplement if she still was lacking some bloom. The feed you select should have enough fat to help with bloom and haircoat, but have those fat calories properly balanced with protein, vitamins and minerals for growth.

A mare her age that has already raised a healthy foal and is currently healthy herself, should do just fine being bred again. I would recommend that as you come into breeding season, make sure she is in good condition, not overly fat but in good shape, and that she is getting a good balance of vitamins and minerals in her diet. As long as your mare is eating a minimum of four pounds per day of the Strategy and Amplify combined, you are in great shape. When the pasture is great, and she doesn’t need to eat that much or really at all, then I’d suggest putting her on a daily concentrated protein, vitamin and mineral supplement designed to be fed with good green pasture, with a low feeding rate. This lets you provide adequate nutrient balance without excessive calories. This program can be continued as long as the pasture is good quality and is maintaining her condition adequately. Then, as she approaches late gestation, into the fall and winter, put her back on Strategy and Amplify. She can stay on that program when she foals, but plan to increase the feeding rates because the mare’s energy requirements during lactation are nearly double the requirements when she is open and not raising a foal. Usually, the grass is coming in to help with those higher calorie needs, but you still will need to increase the grain. Otherwise, just follow a good health care and vaccination program outlined for your area by your veterinarian and you should raise a healthy foal. I’m not aware of any problems to be concerned with on Belgian mares.

Since your mare is doing well on this diet, I’m reluctant to recommend a change of anything. Keep in mind, horses tie up for a variety of reasons, sometimes it can be an electrolyte imbalance, a matter of working beyond level of fitness, or it can be due to Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy (PSSM or EPSM). If this was a one-time, random incident and you might remember that maybe she was unusually stressed, got excessively hot or tired or for some reason exerted herself physically more than normal, then just trying to avoid that happening in the future is the best plan. If she was either sweating a lot and wasn’t getting an adequate intake of electrolytes, or, on the flip side, if she wasn’t sweating much and was getting a consistently excessive intake of electrolytes, either way may result in an electrolyte imbalance that would leave a horse more prone to tying up. If she has PSSM, a muscle biopsy would be the definitive diagnosis, but response to a change in diet is also an indicator. Horses with PSSM may not have previously tied up, but often owners recall them being sore or grouchy while being saddled or brushed, being stiff or losing muscle tone over their topline or hip areas. The current recommendations for horses with PSSM are to reduce starch and sugar in the diet, which you have done with Equine Senior and alfalfa pellets, and to increase the fat content. Two ounces of corn oil isn’t usually really enough to make a big difference in these horses. If I were going to change her diet, it would be to increase the fat level all the way up to one to two cups of oil per day. Of course, this would provide an additional 2000 – 4000 calories, so you’d either have to reduce the hay intake by 2.5 to 5 pounds, depending on how much hay you are currently feeding and how much fat you ended up adding. Or, you’d have to increase her level of work.

Since she is currently doing well, you may just want to stick with the program, but if her level of work increases or you find her exhibiting muscle soreness or she ties up again, plan to increase the fat content of the diet. Many horse owners have gone with Ultium, since it has a higher fat content already and a low starch and sugar content, so that may be an option too. If you make a change, do it gradually. Also, try to be very consistent with her exercise program and provide as much turn out as possible. Horses that are prone to tying up do not do well standing in a stall on full grain for days at a time.

It is quite unusual for a mare to gain so much weight during lactation since dietary energy requirements to support lactation are nearly double the requirement during maintenance. If your pasture is in excellent condition, then you could get a weight gain, but be sure it is body fat and not just “belly fill” or a grass belly you are seeing. Horses don’t gain body fat in their abdomen like some people, instead a large belly is usually the result of free choice pasture or hay intake or sometimes an indication of parasite infestation. If she is truly gaining body fat, it will show as increased fat over the ribs, the crest, withers, behind the shoulders and over the back, as well as around the tail head. I have seen older mares that have had several foals and were eating moderate to poor quality hay or pasture have very large bellies but still have ribs that were visible. These mares weren’t fat.

If you determine that she is indeed fat and overweight, then you can wean the foal and confine the mare to a dry lot, restricting grain intake and minimal hay of 1 to 1.5 pounds per 100 pounds of body weight to help draw her back down to a reasonable condition. Make sure the foal is eating a good quality feed formulated for growth and development. At 4 months of age, she should be eating four pounds of grain, and then when you wean her you could add another two pounds or so to replace the mare’s milk. As long as she knows how to eat dry feed, she is old enough to wean.

Years ago, we didn’t think mares that were overweight were a big problem and they certainly were better than thin mares if you were trying to get them back in foal. However, we are finding out that fat mares, especially as they approach their late teens, may become difficult to get in foal and be at risk for other metabolic problems if they are allowed to remain overweight. I’d encourage you to look up the Body Condition Score Chart and evaluate your mare’s condition on that scale. She should be a body score of 5 to 6, where ribs are covered but are easy to feel. If she is fatter than that, she needs to lose a little weight.

Freshly cut forage is not yet dead and the curing that takes place in forage after it is cut is a continued respiration, the burning of plant sugars to product energy for the living plant. Once the plant has dried below 20 percent moisture, this respiration slows dramatically and will soon cease. Hay that is baled too quickly and not allowed to properly dry, will continue to go through respiration and will begin to produce heat. This heat and moisture make a good environment for bacteria to grow. Hay that goes through this process continues to lose nutrient content and can become a fire hazard if the internal temperature of the bales doesn’t cool down. High moisture hay is also at risk to develop mold and is a health hazard for horses. Hay that was properly dried to the right moisture level before baling can be fed immediately after baling and requires no further curing.

The recently published and updated NRC for horses does contain recommendations for growing horses, up to 24 months that are being worked. NRC 2007 recommends a calorie, protein and electrolyte requirement increase with increasing work load in growing horses. This reference can be ordered online at www.nap.edu.

In general, if you select a good quality feed formulated to support growth and feed it in amounts to maintain good body condition, you will feed more as the work load increases and therefore will increase the intake of protein and other nutrients as well. This keeps all nutrients balanced for growth and works out quite well for the growing horse during training.

Feeding a horse with a nutritionally related medical condition can be challenging but feeding one with multiple issues can really be difficult. You have to work with your veterinarian and determine what is the most critical condition to control/manage with the diet. It is unusual for the levels of fat needed to help manage EPSM to trigger a bout with laminitis, unless you just end up with such a high calorie content that she gains too much weight and then obesity triggers the laminitis. I would control her starch and sugar levels in the diet as strict as she shows the need for. In some very sensitive horses, you end up needing to soak their hay for an hour before feeding to help wash a good amount of the sugars out. Hay can be higher in sugar than some pelleted feeds and in very sugar sensitive horses, higher sugar content hays can trigger laminitis. I would also maybe go with a concentrated protein, vitamin and mineral supplement that contains no corn or oats and is formulated to be fed at very low rates, like 1 to 2 pounds per day, to insure intake of an adequate amount of vitamins and minerals. Sometimes free-choice minerals don't get consumed consistently every day and a product like this insures that they are getting what they need every day.

If this horse is a very easy keeper, you may find that you need to restrict hay intake to one pound per 100 pounds of body weight, then use a non-molassed beet pulp or a low starch/sugar complete feed with built in hay to soak up a cup or two of oil and to replace some of the hay. A cup of oil has the same number of calories as 2.5 pounds of good grass hay, so to prevent a horse from becoming overweight due to added fat calories you may have to restrict total hay intake to a minimum and make room for some fat calories. Don't feed less than one pound per 100 pounds of body weight in hay though. Also, as much turn-out or regular exercise as possible is always the best program for EPSM horses and regular, light exercise will help with the EPSM and help control weight gain and may let you add the fat to the diet. A horse that is prone to founder should be kept in a body condition score of 4.5 to 5 out of 9, where ribs are slightly visible or just barely covered and are easy to feel. This keeps them from having to carry excessive weight on sore feet and seems to help reduce the risk of recurrent bouts of founder.

This is a bit of a mystery with all horses being affected, especially if they had no previous issues with laminitis. For horses that are insulin resistant and have trouble managing blood sugar levels, oat hay can be too high in sugar content, testing on average 20 percent starch and sugar compared with most grass hays averaging around 12 percent. If these horses are overweight, possibly borderline insulin resistant and began eating a hay with high sugar content, it could tip them over the edge and precipitate laminitis. Otherwise, I'm not aware of a potential toxin that might be in the hay that would cause laminitis. You might sample the hay and send it off for analysis of sugar content or if possible, use a different hay for a period of time and see if the horses do better. If another source of hay isn't an option, you can soak the hay in water for an hour before feeding and then let the water run off. This will wash a good amount of the sugars out of the hay and would reduce the risk of a sugar-induced laminitis. Also, I'd keep close communication with your veterinarian regarding any health issues that arrise in these horses.

When you have good pasture and hay, and your horses are maintaining adequate body condition on hay or pasture alone, then there is no need for grain. Born to Win is a great option in these cases because it provides the nutrition missing in an all-forage diet without the additional calories that would come in feeding the recommended amount of a formulated grain mix. Born to Win contains no corn or oats, it is a concentrated protein, vitamin and mineral “forage balancer”. It will provide the protein quality and balance of vitamins and minerals to support your three-year old as he finishes growing, as long as your hay or pasture keep him in adequate body condition. If you find he is loosing condition on that program, then you may need to provide a formulated feed, such as Strategy and feed 4 to 5 pounds per day to meet his nutritional demands for growth and maintain body condition. Unless you are riding him a good bit or your forage quality declines, I’d expect he’ll do well on 2 pounds (6 cups) of Born to Win though. I would say watch these guys and don’t let them gain condition. We’d recommend horses are maintained in a 5 to 6 out of 9 on the body score chart. Once they get a 7 or greater, they are at a bigger risk for developing metabolic issues from being overweight.

It sounds like you are doing a good job for this guy. I would say that if he is quidding from time to time, he is being less effective at chewing hay and will gradually derive less benefit from the hay. I would begin to incorporate a complete pelleted feed with the hay built in to transition him over time. It may be years before he needs to eat no hay and be totally on a pelleted diet, but I would keep a close eye on the amount of quidding and his body condition, and begin to include a completely pelleted product into his ration. For horses that are the classic Cushing’s horses with PPID that are becoming hard-keepers and experiencing muscle wasting, I have had very good success managing them with Equine Senior. It is low in starch and sugar, even though it has a light application of a molasses blended with oil on the pellets. I have personally managed some older mares with PPID for years on Equine Senior with no incidence of laminitis. They began shedding more normally, maintained their muscle mass better and just did very well. Studies have reported that not all horses with PPID become insulin resistant or have trouble managing blood sugar. That said, there are horses that are having a great challenge managing blood sugar levels that may not do well on Equine Senior. For those horses with “Equine Metabolic Syndrome” symptoms of being overweight and insulin resistant, Horse Chow combined with one pound of Nature’s Essentials Mare & Maintenance to increase the vitamin/mineral balance, might be a better choice. Often, in these cases when horses are so sensitive to dietary starch and sugar levels, owners have to resort to soaking hay, since the hay can often have more sugar than either Equine Senior or Horse Chow. These horses are also usually totally restricted from access to green grass due to the potential sugar content of the grass.

Because your horse is doing well with access to green grass and has no history of laminitis or obesity, you have some options in how to feed this horse. If you continue your current program, I would encourage you to include a pound (3 cups) of Mare & Maintenance to better fortify the diet with vitamins and minerals. I don’t see a problem with excess calcium at the feeding rates you are currently using. If you choose to replace the beet pulp, rice bran and chopped hay, you could gradually transition over to four pounds of Equine Senior. This would provide similar calorie content to the current program, but a better balance of vitamins and minerals. The palatability is great and you can often “hide” medication in the Senior quite easily. I would encourage you to not let him get any heavier in body condition, continue to exercise him regularly and enjoy him. Over time, you may find as he begins to be less effective at chewing and digesting hay, you will gradually increase the amount of Equine Senior to replace part of the hay and provide the missing nutrients from eating less hay. There are senior horses his size that have lost all ability to chew hay and are eating only Equine Senior, some of them eating it as a wet mash. In these cases, they are eating 15 pounds or more per day to replace the hay and the grain in the diet and doing quite well for their age. Your guy is a long way from that scenario, but that is an option when their teeth deteriorate to that extent.

According to one study, oat forage sown in summer and harvested in the fall had 250% higher water soluble carbohydrates (WSC) than oat forage sown in the spring and harvested in early summer. Grasses do tend to produce more sugars, including fructans, in the cooler temperatures than in warmer temperatures. This is especially true when there are warmer days followed by cold night temperatures. The plants will accumulate sugars during the warm, sunny day and not grow much during the cold nights so they will accumulate those sugars.

I would recommend owners of horses, not otherwise at risk for pasture laminitis, to follow normal caution when putting a horse out on new pasture. Make sure horses aren’t really hungry when turned out on the pasture. Fill them up with hay, if possible, prior to turning out and gradually introduce horses to the pasture, limiting grazing to a couple hours in the early morning at first. Sugar content of the forage will be highest in the late afternoon, early evening of sunny days. Early morning will have the lowest sugar content unless the night temperatures dipped below 40° F or when grass is stressed from lack of moisture or nutrients. Essentially, any conditions that halt growth of grass will cause an accumulation of sugars.

In addition, I’d monitor body condition of horses on pasture. If horses gain condition and become a body score of 7 to 9 or greater, then I’d not allow further grazing and would put them on an exercise/weight loss program.

There is such a strain on hay supplies this year all over the country, from drought to excessive rains, a good consistent hay supply may be very hard to find. This does increase the risk of colic due to the smaller, more variable supplies of hay. Horses have been reported to be at a 9 times greater risk of colic if they've had a change in hay in the past 2 weeks, so anytime you get new hay there is an increased risk. Some horse owners are battling this by using complete feeds with hay built in to either replace hay if hay quality is bad or hay is unavailable, or in combination with hay to stretch how long their hay lasts to help provide a more consistent source of fiber. Horses can adjust to these products well, especially if the change from long-stemmed hay to a complete pelleted ration with the hay built in is done in a gradual manner. Horses will eat the complete feed more quickly than long-stemmed hay, so it may be a good idea to divide the total ration into three smaller meals per day instead of two larger meals. The benefits of these products is that they provide a good, consistent fiber source for the horse and relieve the stress of sourcing hay and not knowing what quality that hay may be when it arrives.

If you are able to find a reasonable source of hay, you are still correct to be concerned about the nutrition that may be missing in an all hay diet. There are good concentrate products available that serve as "forage balancers", that are designed to be fed in small quantities to horses that maintain their body condition well on hay or pasture alone. These products will provide the protein, vitamins and minerals that may be missing in an all hay diet without the additional calories that would come from feeding the recommended amounts of most formulated feeds. Most feeds are designed to be fed at a minimum of four pounds or more and often horses eating alot of hay and not working very hard would get too fat eating this amount of grain, so these more concentrated products, usually designed to be fed at 1 to 2 pounds per day, are a good choice. If you were to feed only 1 to 2 pounds of a formulated feed with a recommended minimum feeding rate of four pounds, you would end up deficient in important vitamins and minerals.

Now, if your hay quality declines to the point that your horses no longer are maintaining their body weight adequately on hay alone, or you have reduced the amount of hay you are feeding, then you will need to choose a feed that is formulated for the type of horse you are feeding. Decide if you prefer a pellet or a textured grain mix and select a product designed to meet the nutritional needs for the age and activity level of your horses. Contact your feed dealer or feed manufacturer for help in determining what product or products would best fit your horses.

Keep in mind, for proper digestive function, horses need a minimum of one pound of hay per 100 pounds of body weight. Most of us feed more than that, often two pounds or more of hay per 100 pounds of body weight, so there is room to stretch how long your hay lasts by restricting hay intake a bit. If you are feeding a half-bale per horse, depending on the size of the bale, you could be feeding 25 to 35 pounds of hay per day per horse (2.5 to 3.5 pounds per 100 pounds of body weight if the horse weighs 1000 pounds). When you do reduce hay intake, you will need to feed more grain. Just make sure you make all changes in diet gradually as possible, make sure the horses are drinking adequate amounts of water and monitor stool consistency to be sure the change is not causing any problems for the horse. Horses with reduced hay intake may experience more boredom due to less time spent eating, so increasing the time spent riding or providing more turn-out or toys to play with can all help alleviate the boredom.

If she currenty still can chew effectively enough to chew grain and hay, then you could go with a higher fat grain mix, something with a 4.5 percent or more fat content would provide more claories per pound than COB or most senior feeds. It does take a pretty high level of fat to overwhelm the capacity of the horse to digest and utilize it. For all but the very hard working or very hard keepers, a 4.5 - 8 percent fat level is adequte. Horses are able to digest and utilize easily one pound of fat per day (2 cups of oil) but they don't all need that much.

Keep in mind, the fat will take up only 4.5 percent to maybe as much as 12 percent of the grain, which leaves 88 - 95.5 percent other ingredients, so just looking at the fat content isn't always enough information to choose the right feed. Aging horses are often loosing muscle mass as well as body condition and that needs to be supported with both calories (which fat helps with) and good quality protein (which fat doesn't help with). COB and beet pulp are both moderate in calorie content but are low in protein content and amino acid balance, so I'd be looking for a product with a minimum of 12 percent protein, maybe even 14 percent. Even though you're feeding some alfalfa, it is a forage and all the protein won't be available for use as amino acids so you can't totally rely on all that protein to be meeting her amino acid needs.

Also, be sure she is eating a minimum of one pound per 100 pounds of body weight in hay per day if you go with a grain mix. If not, or if her dental issues worsen to the point of preventing her from eating that minimum amount of hay, then you need to try different complete feeds with the hay built in, maybe try different senior feeds that have the hay included, to find one she likes. A grain mix alone will not provide adquate fiber to keep her digestive system healthy and functioning properly if she is eating less hay. When they aren't eating adequate amounts of hay, the complete feed must be fed in amounts to replace the hay and grain portion of the diet. Often, keeping weight on aging horses is simply a matter of feeding enough of a complete feed, with hay built in, to replace the volume of intake from hay and grain. When you are feeding a senior feed as the total diet or the majority of the diet, a lower fat content still provides more fat and calories than a higher fat textured grain mix and hay. For instance, 10 pounds of a 4.5 percent fat senior feed provides 0.45 pounds of fat. It would take a 9 percent fat grain mix fed at 5 pounds per day to provide that same amount of fat. It isn't just about percent fat in the product, but also about how much of the product you need to feed to achieve the desired results. Sometimes these senior citizens can be picky and it does take some trial and error to find what they will eat that will still meet their nutritional needs.

As horses age they begin to be less effective at digestion and they all reach times that what you've been feeding them for awhile isn't quite working any more. Even if they are still able to chew hay, they appear to get less benefit from the long-stemmed hay. I think this is just a matter of needing to increase the amount of Equine Senior you are currently feeding. Four pounds per day would be a very minimum feeding rate for Equine Senior on a horse of her size. I would gradually increase her to three pounds of Equine Senior twice a day and expect that over time you may have to increase beyond that. Eventually, if her teeth become less effective in chewing long-stemmed hay, you may have to look at using the Equine Senior to replace both the grain and hay portion of the diet. A 950 lb horse eating no long-stemmed hay would require right at 13 lbs of Equine Senior per day to maintain body condition and provide adequate fiber to replace hay. There are many older horses that are eating nothing but Equine Senior and doing quite well. From what you've described of your mare, you are a long time from getting to that point, but don't be reluctant to gradually increase the amount of Equine Senior you feed to help her maintain adequate body condition.

As you increase the amount of Equine Senior to help maintain her body condition, you really don't usually need additional supplements because the nutritional balance in the Equine Senior is designed to support the aging horse.

I would say that keeping her a little leaner than "show shape" is probably in her best interest. We'd like to keep our aging horses where they aren't loosing muscle mass and ribs are just lightly covered but very easy to feel. This is the most healthy condition for them.

I commend you for paying attention and not wanting to let your horses get severely overweight. This can present a significant health problem for horses over time. Omolene is formulated to be fed at a minimum of three pounds per day, so when fed at a cup or two, your horse will be deficient in important vitamins and minerals that the oats won’t contain either. When you are feeding such a small amount, it is better to use a product formulated to be fed at low feeding rates, such as Nature’s Essentials Born to Win, instead of Omolene 100 and oats. You may have to reduce the amount of hay slightly while the grass is in good shape. When you run out of pasture in the fall or winter, feed them 1.5 pounds of grass hay per 100 pounds of body weight. Usually, the controlled hay intake and the Born to Win (3 cups per day) will help prevent further weight gain and may help them reduce a little if needed. Adjust the hay intake to achieve the desired goal, but don’t feed less than one pound per 100 pounds of body weight. In some horses, you still may have to find a way to give them some light exercise 3 – 4 days a week if at all possible.

There is very little controlled research in feeding horses with Cushing’s so the diet recommendations are often based on what someone has seen work in some horses. To complicate it further, not all “Cushings” horses are experiencing the same metabolic condition. There are also some horses that are being called Cushing's without diagnostics. Some of the horses called Cushing's are overweight, easy keepers who are often insulin resistant. These horses need to be put on a calorie restricted diet and into an exercise program with the approval of their veterinarian, to help them lose the weight. They would require a very different diet than those horses exhibiting the more classic Cushing’s symptoms of loosing body condition, wasting muscle mass, long hair coats, etc. Both situations seem to be best served by limiting starch and sugar content in the diet, but there is not a one-size-fits-all diet. The reason some people recommend to not feed alfalfa to Cushing’s horses is because of the reported glycemic response being higher in alfalfa than Bermuda hay in one study. In that same study, Timothy hay produced a higher glycemic response than alfalfa, so it isn’t safe to say just feed grass hay. Many grass hays will have higher sugar content than many alfalfa hays. For the obese, easy keepers, alfalfa isn’t a good choice due to the high calorie and nutrient content of alfalfa. It would be very difficult to help these horses lose weight when they are eating primarily alfalfa. However, I have successfully fed the more classic Cushing’s horse, the hard keepers, alfalfa and had them do quite well. As for hay alternatives, there are grass hay pellets and cubes, but I don’t know the sugar content of all of these. Non-molassed beet pulp is also an option, but usually beet pulp has a good coating of cane molasses on it and needs to be soaked and rinsed till water runs clear to wash all the molasses out. There are also complete feeds with hay built in that have a more consistent starch and sugar content than most hay you’ll buy. You might contact the manufacturers of some of these products to see which one might be helpful in replacing some of the hay in your horses diet. If your horse is very sensitive to starch and sugar content in the diet, you might want to have your hay or hay alternative tested for starch and sugar to see if it is appropriate for your horse.

Horses eating an all forage diet, such as from hay or Bermuda pellets, would be deficient in some nutrients such as vitamins and minerals. If the Bermuda pellets are made of average quality Bermuda grass, which often has about 8 percent protein, then they may be protein deficient as well. You can keep them fat enough if they eat enough, but they will loose muscle tone over their topline, have dull hair and slow hoof growth from lack of quality protein. If you have a true horse mineral out free-choice for them, that is good. However, if is it a trace mineralized salt block, those are 95 – 98 percent salt, don’t contain any macrominerals like calcium, and don’t even contain enough of the trace minerals if that is the only source of mineral for the horse. They are a good source of salt, but not a very good source of minerals. I would encourage you to find a forage-balancer type concentrate that is designed to be fed to meet the protein, vitamin and minerals requirements of a horse eating grass hay. These products are designed to be fed in small amounts, usually 1 – 2 pounds per day for a mature horse, so don’t provide extra calories they may not need, but do make sure that every day, the horses are getting the protein, vitamins and minerals they need in their daily diet.

I would strongly recommend a veterinary exam for both horses to make sure your deworming program is being effective and to determine if there is a medical reason for the diarrhea. If you have no idea of when they were dewormed, they certainly may be well overdue and a veterinary exam would be a very good place to start. Get a recommended vaccination and deworming schedule appropriate for your area and environment from your veterinarian.

If by thin, you mean just a lean conformation that won’t bulk up, it may be a matter of that is just the way his genetics say he will be built. If by thin, you mean his ribs show and he doesn’t have good muscle tone over his topline, then you are just not feeding him enough nutrition to meet his requirements for growth and conditioning. It isn’t a good idea to use alot of fat supplements for young growing horses because fat supplements provide primarily calories that aren’t properly balanced with protein, vitamins and minerals. This can lead to fatter foals that aren’t growing properly. So, I’d rather feed a well balanced concentrate feed formulated for growing horses and just provide more of it. Four pounds for a yearling isn’t a tremendous amount of feed. Often, youngsters eating all the hay they can eat and smaller amounts of concentrate feed will have a big “hay” belly, but still be thin over their ribs and topline. This is because they aren’t getting all the nutrition they need from the hay, but they are filling up on it. You may get a better response from feeding about 1.5 – 2 pounds of hay per hundred pounds of body weight and increase the grain portion. You may find that over a period of a couple weeks, you need to be feeding 7 – 10 pounds of a good quality concentrate feed, balanced for growth at this stage of your horse’s life to get him to fill out like you would like. Also, dividing the daily ration into three meals a day may help as well, especially as you increase the amount of concentrate fed.

The National Academies Press, www.nap.edu, publishes the NRC Nutrient Requirements of Horses, sixth revised edition. This reference can be ordered online. It is a great reference on horse nutrition in general and includes tables on the nutrient content of various feedstuffs commonly fed to horses. Also, you can contact feed manufacturers to find out the digestible energy of their products. It is important to know if the information is given on a dry matter basis or as fed basis for proper comparison and calculation.

Years ago, it was suspected that horses couldn’t digest dietary fat because they had no gall bladder, even though mare’s milk on a dry matter basis is about 15 percent fat. Then it was determined that though there was no gall bladder, there was a continuous secretion of bile and that horses could indeed digest fats very effectively. Fats and oils are very well digested in the small intestines, vegetable oils reported as high as 99 percent digestible. In research conditions, horses have been fed up to 20 percent fat in the total diet, which would be roughly 4.5 pounds of fat for a 1000 pound horse. However, when you begin to add fat to the diet, you will find that individual horses seem to have an individual tolerance level for fat. Some horses become reluctant to eat or back off even when the concentrate or grain mix has as high as 10 percent fat or more. Keep in mind, a 10 percent fat grain mix results in a total diet of 4.4 percent fat when you consider 70 percent of the diet is hay and 30 percent is the grain mix. Generally, when you begin to feed too much fat and overwhelm the capacity of the small intestine to digest that fat, you will begin to see loose or oily stools, which can develop into diarrhea if you continue to add more fat.

Most horses derive all the benefit they need from a 4 – 6 percent fat concentrate. However, very hard working performance horses maybe benefiting further from 8 – 12 percent fat concentrates. Total balance of nutrition is vital, especially the more fat you add because with increased fat comes an expected reduction in total intake required to maintain body condition and an increase in the requirements for some nutrients. So, adding a great deal of fat to an existing ration may require some help in determining if the horse is still receiving the proper balance of protein, vitamins and minerals. Remember if the fat is 10 percent of the grain portion of the diet, there is 90 percent of other ingredients and nutrients in that concentrate and that 90 percent can be very important to the success of the feeding program.

Friesians are still growing and filling out at 3-years-old, so be sure you are feeding her a diet that is balanced and provides nutrients to support that growth and muscle development. Depending on the quality of hay you are feeding, she probably would benefit from a very good quality 14 percent protein product if you are feeding primarily grass hay. It is difficult to be specific in a recommendation when I don’t know what she has been eating and how much, but in general, she should be eating 1.5 – 2 pounds of hay per 100 pounds of body weight and probably 0.5 – 0.75 pounds of good quality grain or pellets per 100 pounds of body weight. If she is eating that much and you are feeding a good quality feed with good quality hay, you may want to check into a well balanced fat supplement that includes quality protein to help add weight and muscle mass. Straight oil or fat products will only add fat and a growing horse needs to have nutrition to support bone and muscle development. You sure don’t want her to be overweight, but she should be a body condition score of 5 out of 9, ribs can’t be seen but are easy to feel.

Great question and something many of us with aging horses deal with. There are many ideas and opinions about how to feed horses with PPID, but there hasn't been much in the way of controlled research with a population of these horses to determine what their nutritional needs are and how to best meet them. To complicate things further, it appears that there may not be a one-size-fits-all diet that best fits all PPID horses. Some are exhibiting many of the classic symptoms including loss of muscle mass, difficulty maintaining body condition, long hair, frequent drinking and urinating. Others present as easy keepers, possibly prone to founder and have difficulty managing blood sugar levels.

It is true that a lower starch and sugar diet seems to be the best plan but there is some variation in regards to how low that needs to be. Also, as far as fat content goes, if a horse is a hard keeper, it may be a good plan to rely on fat and very digestible fibers for additional calories instead of higher starch diets like grains or sweet feeds. It is difficult to feed higher fat diets to easy keepers because they usually need to loose condition and this can not be accomplished with high fat diets. Attention also needs to be paid to protein content and quality of the diet to help maintain muscle mass and tone in those horses experiencing loss of muscle.

The diet you currently feed is pretty low in starch and sugar since it is pretty much just hay and supplements. My concern would be whether or not you are providing an adequate amount and balance of a full complement of vitamins and minerals. Your protein requirements may be being met due to the alfalfa in the diet, but the vitamins and minerals may be lacking. If this horse is maintaining a good body condition on this diet, I'd recommend a concentrated, low starch, vitamin/mineral product that was designed to be fed at low feeding rates to balance the nutritional shortages of a diet of grass/alfalfa mix hay.

Loss of teeth or poor dentition is a common problem in aging horses and is one of the reasons a senior horse feed that contain processed forage was developed. These guys can't eat long-stemmed hay or pasture and if they do consume some it is usually not chewed well enough to be well utilized. Therefore, the horse doesn't generate any appreciable nutrition level from it.

I would encourage you to gradually change this guy to a very high quality senior horse feed with the hay built right in. When you feed a product designed to replace both the grain and the hay, you must feed it in enough volume to reflect the total diet as opposed to feeding it like a grain mix. Expect to feed at least 1.3 lbs of the complete equine senior feed per 100 lbs of body weight to provide adequate fiber to support normal digestive function and hindgut health (10.4 lbs for an 800 lb horse). If he needs to gain body condition, you will need to gradually increase the intake an additional 4 - 5 lbs per day until you reach the desired condition. In most cases, we see tremendous response in improved condition when older horses with dental problems are converted over to equine senior feed.

Any time you have a hard keeper, I always like to be sure there are no health issues. In many areas of the country this year has been very wet and internal parasites have been unusually hard to combat. The other thing I've found this year is that in some areas of the country, the hay quality is not what it typically is and in some cases the horses aren't getting as much out of their hay as they usually do. If this is the case, then you may have to find another source of hay, feed a little more hay or feed more grain or a different grain to compensate for lower quality forage. Be sure you are feeding at least one percent of his body weight in hay and preferrably closer to two percent for hard keepers.

If this horse has always been a hard keeper, and you are sure he is healthy and on an effective parasite control program and this is just his metabolism, then he just needs more calories to meet his energy requirement. That may mean just increasing his current grain by a couple more pounds per day, or you may look for a product that is a little higher in calories per pound. Another option is to add a balanced high fat supplement to help meet his calorie need without having to add more grain. If your current grain is well fortified with protein, vitamins and minerals, you could add oil for more calories. However, when you increase the fat content of the diet, you do increase the requirements for some vitamins so that is one reason I'm ususally more of a fan of adding a nutritionally balanced fat supplement instead of just oil. If you do go with oil, it does take a cup or two to get any significant amount of calories. A couple ounces of oil can help with hair coat but won't supply a significant amount of calories.

Beet pulp can be a good fiber source and when soaked can help with additional water intake. Most people who add a bit of beet pulp to a winter ration start with a half pound of dry beet pulp and add just enough water to be completely soaked up by the beet pulp. Over a couple days, you can increase that to one pound of dry beet pulp and then on up to 1.5 - 2 lbs if desired. It is important to realize that beet pulp does add calories to the ration and if the horse is already in good condition, two added pounds of beet pulp could result in weight gain of roughly two pounds per week. To prevent unwanted weight gain, you would have to reduce the hay intake accordingly, by about three pounds of hay for two pounds of beet pulp, or reduce grain intake about 1 - 1.5 lbs. For some horses, a reduction in grain may get them down to such a low grain intake that they would be missing out on an adequate intake of protein, vitamins and minerals. In those cases, a concentrated protein, vitamin, mineral supplement designed to be fed at 1 - 2 lbs per day would be a good choice. If the horse is a hard keeper and needs the additional weight in the winter, then just adding beet pulp to the existing ration is fine. Other winter tips are to keep water troughs clean and free from ice and to add a couple ounces of salt to the ration to stimulate the horse to drink.

You have some of the more efficient breeds of horses so you may not need much if any grain. The purpose for feeding grain to horses is to meet calorie requirements that aren't being met by hay or pasture alone and to provide a balanced compliment of protein, vitamins and minerals that may be missing in some hay or pasture. Whether or not you need to feed grain depends on the age and activity level of the horses, the quality and quantity of forage available and the nutritional fortification of the grain. For horses that are maintaining good body condition on hay or pasture alone, additional calories from grain aren't necessary and aren't recommended. However, at minimum, horses on forage only (hay or pasture only) diets will need a supplemental mineral and, depending on the quality of the forage, may need a protein, vitamin and mineral supplement.

For horses on good green pasture, a free-choice horse mineral would be recommended. Trace mineralized salt blocks don't contain all minerals and don't contain enough of the trace minerals to meet the horse's needs if that is the only source of mineral. So, we recommend a true horse mineral and a plain white salt block be available at all times to horses out on good pasture. If you don't have a good way to feed free-choice mineral and you want to have the horses come up at least once a day to be able to catch them or check them over, then look for a forage balancer product. These products are designed to provide the protein, vitamins and minerals that would be missing in an all forage diet, without the additional calories you'd get from feeding recommended amounts of typical grain mixes. If you just feed a very small amount of most formulated feeds, way below recommended feeding rates, you end up being deficient in many vitamins and minerals. So, the forage balancer products would be a good option since they are usually fortified to be fed at 1 - 2 lbs (3 - 6 cups) per day to a mature 1000 lb horse.

For the mare with the 4-month-old colt, if you have excellent pasture, she may be able to support the demands of lactation on pasture alone, but often that isn't the case and a lactating mare on pasture alone will loose body condition and won't produce adequate milk to support optimum growth and development in the foal. Also, a foal that has access only to mare's milk and pasture for the first few months of life will grow at a reduced rate and may not receive all the nutrients needed for growth and development. It is very important for the growing foal to receive adequate mineral intake, and important minerals like copper are present in very low amounts in mare's milk. Free-choice mineral is not a reliable way to get proper mineral levels into a growing foal due to the variability of intake. So, for the mare and foal, you might want to feed them both a well fortified forage balancer with adequate protein as a minimum and if the mare needs more calories to maintain condition, then you may want to investigate a balanced formulated feed designed for mares and foals. Once you wean the foal, you can treat the mare like the rest of the horses on good quality hay or pasture, but keep using the foal feed for the growing youngster at least through his first year or two, or until he can maintain his condition well on pasture alone.

Purina Mills is an AAEP Educational Partner offering educational resources to veterinary and horses owners. For more information on Purina Mills and its many nutritional products, please visit online at http://www.purinamills.com/.

It can be a challenge to feed a previously foundered lactating mare all she needs to support optimum lactation, while still being careful to not trigger another bout of founder. If she is maintaining her body condition on the current ration, then she is probably producing the milk she will produce. If you find she begins to loose body condition, then you must increase her calorie intake. Adding a nutritionally balanced high fat supplement will increase the calorie intake, but keep the starch and sugar intake in check, so that might be one tool you could use. If you find you still need more calories, you could add a hay replacer pellet because this type product would be very low in grain so would be low in starch and sugar, but would still provide more calories per pound than either grass or alflafa hay.

In addition, I'd suggest providing a well balanced foal feed for the baby in a feeder the mare doesn't have access to. I'd offer 1/4 lb per week of age per day in the first month, then continue with 1 lb per month of age per day (i.e. 2 lbs for 2 months old, 3 lbs for 3 months old, etc.). I wouldn't provide it free-choice, just in the amounts recommended here. With the foal being supported by a good dry feed, you can plan to wean at 3 to 4 months of age and continue feeding the foal feed after weaning. The earlier weaning will remove the nutritional stress of lactation from the mare and will not be detrimental to the foal.

I would recommend keeping this mare on a weight control diet following weaning if she is still a body condition score of eight (8) at that time. I would sure rather see her a body condition score of 5 and if she has any residual soreness in her feet, I would recommend keeping her even a little thinner, a body score of 4.5. This would be where you could see a very faint outline of a couple ribs, not too thin, but just a little less weight on sore feet. Horses in lower body condition scores seem to be at a lower risk for founder than horses above a body score of 7.

Purina Mills is an AAEP Educational Partner
offering educational resources to veterinary and horses owners. For more information on Purina Mills and its many nutritional products, please visit online at http://www.purinamills.com/.

While not common, I have experienced older horses just going off feed for no apparent reason. Sometimes they just seem to want to eat something different for a time. It is good you have scheduled a dental exam as that will help determine if he has dental issues causing him to be less enthusiastic about eating. Any time a horse has a loss of appetite or is experiencing weight loss despite eating a good diet, I always recommend a thorough veterinary exam to help rule out any potential medical issues for the problems.

For help with the weight gain, there are a few different options. Adding a nutritionally balanced high fat supplement would be one option. If this horse is still eating hay and is eating at least 1 percent of his body weight in hay daily, then you may want to try a different product for a time. I have had to do that myself in the past, just change products for a month or two, then put them back on the original diet and they went back to eating it just like they always did. Sometimes blending a small amount of a high quality sweet feed helps with horses that are being finicky as well. However, if this horse has dental issues that prevent him from eating adequate amounts of long-stemmed hay or pasture, and you change products, you will need to be sure the product you try is one that has hay built in and is intended to replace both the grain and hay in a horse's diet.

Again, I would recommend a complete physical exam along with the dental exam to rule out any medical issues with this horse. If you find he is healthy but just needs to gain weight, you may have to try a few different diets to find the one he likes.

Purina Mills is an AAEP Educational Partner offering educational resources to veterinary and horses owners. For more information on Purina Mills and its many nutritional products, please visit online at http://www.purinamills.com/.