FEEDING FOR CONDITION AND MAKE YOUR FEED RATION GIVE MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK. Following on from my article about bringing horses in from spell I just want to touch on feeding for horses needing condition. In the past 12 months and over 1000 diet reviews later, it’s the problem area I continue to advise on more than anything else. So here are some points to note when it comes to putting condition on your horse. 1) Worming and Teeth – You’ve heard it before but I’ll say it again, and it’s a basic horse management rule worth labouring the point – be meticulous about your horse’s worming programme (two or three times a year is not enough) Equally important are his dental check-ups - you know it makes sense! 2) Ulcers – Your horse won’t put any weight on if he has even one of these. So if he’s not gaining weight no matter how much you are packing into him, get him checked to make sure or pursue a course of treatment as recommended by your equine healthcare practitioner. 3) Just as in Winter when pasture is scarce, horses can drop off in the Summer months for many varied reasons - eg extreme heat temperatures causing horses to interrupt their eating patterns as they seek shade for longer periods, dropping condition through constant sweating, bare or sparse paddocks causing insufficient consumption of fibre etc. A bare paddock is no excuse of course – just keep those hay rolls coming! 4) It is important to remember that weight gain is a gradual process and feeding your horse every ‘weight gain’ feed under the sun may speed up the process but isn’t going to be good for your horse’s health in the long run. Horses are routine animals and their digestive system is not suited to rapid changes, so any changes or increases to your horse’s diet should occur over a 7-10 day period or even longer if he’s particularly sensitive to changes. And herein lies the problem, you increase his feed to the recommended rates and he turns into a fire-breathing, hyperactive dragon. One of the problems of feeding large quantities of processed feed is excess starch going through the intestines too quickly to be digested properly. Undigested starch reaching the hindgut can cause the starch digesting bacteria to produce lactic acid; this kills the beneficial bacteria and the toxins that are then produced can cause colic and laminitis. 5) Be aware that In order to increase your horse’s condition you need to increase the number of calories he consumes, not necessarily the amount he is eating. So think calorie dense products such as oils/fats and calorie ‘promoters’ such as probiotics. Fats and oils are slow release energy sources and unlike high starch feeds won’t rapidly increase your horse’s blood sugar levels which can lead to fizzy behaviour. 6) Talking of probiotics – Blue Chip Original and Blue Chip Pro contain a specific level of probiotic which allows your horse to get the most out of his feed, helping to increase the digestibility of fibre by up to 100%. This in turn can enable him to get twice as many calories out of the same amount of feed, essentially increasing his calorie intake without increasing the amount you are feeding him. A Probiotic can also help to support gut health allowing your horse to efficiently absorb nutrients essential for optimal health. Adding Blue Chip Original or Pro to your horse’s feed ration makes it invaluable at times when there is hay or other feed shortages and you need to make ration restrictions to tide you over in a feed shortage situation. Not an ideal scenario of course but at least your horse will have help to enable him to process and utilise his feed and assist in him getting twice as much out of what he is being fed. No wonder Blue Chip Original was voted at the end of 2014, by UK Your Horse magazine readers, as the product they could least do without, earning it the accolade of Product of the Year. If you’d like a diet review or need more information then don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can go online to our website and go to the diet review form or speak to me personally on 0408 920707 or email me on [email protected]
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 06:11:53 +0000
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