As winter months creep up on us, shorter days and cooler temperatures signal plants to slow and eventually stop their growth. The lush green of your pasture begins to turn to brown. This means less forage is available for grazing horses during the winter, and what is present lacks the nutrition found in warmer months. So how do you transition a horse from moist green grass to dry hay?

Where to Start

Roughage is an essential ingredient for healthy digestion. Spring and summer bring great opportunities for horses to indulge in green pasture, as they graze periodically throughout the day during turnout. But as grass stops growing and browns, a horse likely needs other forage sources, and possibly a complete feed or grain-type supplement.

Besides pasture, typical roughage sources include hay or complete feed pellets. Alternative fiber sources are available, such as soybean hulls, beet pulp, rice hulls, corn cobs, chaff, and straw, but these don’t allow horses to “graze” on something all day long.

Instead of being fed two to three relatively large meals in a 24-hour period, it is better for a horse to have the opportunity to nibble periodically throughout the day and night. In general, horses fed large amounts in two meals a day tend to bolt the food in a short time—an hour or two at most. This results in long fasting periods until the next meal arrives, possibly leading to ulcers or behavioral vices. This is not at all how the equine digestive system is supposed to work.

To keep your horse healthy and thriving, it’s best to feed him a minimum of 1½ to 2 percent of his body weight in roughage (hay or pasture) each day. Active equine athletes may need at least that much hay plus a grain-type supplement and/or a high-fat supplement, like vegetable oil or rice bran.

Horse Dental Care

Dry hay is considerably more difficult to chew than fresh grass. This means that attention to details, like dental care, becomes important, not only so horses can extract the most nutrients from their diet, but also to minimize the risk of impaction colic or irritant diarrhea from food that isn’t chewed well.

Have your veterinarian perform a thorough dental exam at least once a year, especially heading into the winter months. Sharp points can be removed through floating procedures, so your horse is more comfortable chewing and can break down hay stems. This improves digestibility of the forage.

Senior horses often need especially diligent dental care to be able to extract the most from their hay. Some are missing so many teeth that it may be necessary to offer a gruel of soaked complete-feed pellets.

Additional calories can also be added by way of soaked beet pulp pellets, which are high in fiber and provide added safe calories for a more difficult keeper.

Slow that Gluttonous Horse Down During Winter

Ideally, a horse offered free-choice hay would control his intake, eating only as much as he needs to maintain the perfect body condition. But some individuals won’t stop eating, and—like with people—excesses calorie intake results in obesity.

Feed intake by voracious eaters and easy keepers can be slowed by using a slow feeder. These feeding systems are made of either a container that is hung on the wall or a box or frame feeding system on the ground. Close-knit grids or small holes in the feeder forces a horse to work at getting hay out. Many commercial small-hole hay nets are also available with 1½- to 2-inch holes, but some crafty ponies may need 1¼-inch or even 1-inch holes.

Read More: Nutrition for the Easy Keeper

Compared to throwing loose flakes of hay on the ground or in a stall, it takes a bit more effort and time for a horse to pull out hay from a slow feeder. This more closely approximates grazing, and it shortens the fasting periods between refills, keeping your horse’s stomach and intestines in a healthier state. To add to the benefits, there is less wastage caused by a horse trampling or soiling his hay, which then keeps feed expenses down.

For horses in a large dry lot turnout, an alternative is to use a mesh sleeve that fits around a large bale of hay. (Horses should be barefoot if using these to avoid getting a shoe tangled up.) “Double bagging” the hay bale in a net feeder further reduces the mesh size and makes it more challenging to extract hay.

Some horses figure out how to maximize how much they can pull from the holes, and will need the slow feeder bag hung from stall rafters on a breakaway rope to prevent the horse from bracing it against a firm surface and speeding up his eating.

Supplemental Nutrients During Winter

A ration balancer is a good supplement to provide for horses transitioning from pasture to hay. These are vitamin/mineral pellets fed from a large bag generally at 1 to 2 pounds per day and are great if your horse doesn’t need extra calories from grain. Consult with your veterinarian about the ration balancer most appropriate to your area.

Vitamin E is a key nutritional ingredient for all horses. Inadequate intake of vitamin E can cause muscle, neurologic, or immune system problems, and at the very least may affect performance. This vitamin may be deficient for horses that have no access to green grass, as it tends to dissipate as hay is dried after cutting and baling.

A Canadian study demonstrated that horses with pasture access in summer months had vitamin E plasma concentrations that were 63 percent higher than non-pastured horses that consumed only hay or pelleted feed. This is a particular concern for young, growing horses as well as adult and athletic horses.

In addition, horses that are supplemented with high-fat diets to improve calorie intake may be deficient in vitamin E if it is not supplemented as an antioxidant along with the fat. The best vitamin E supplement to use is d-alpha-tocopherol, a natural vitamin E that is readily absorbed.

Vitamin A or carotene may not be present in adequate amounts if horses are fed older batches of hay or hay that has lost its green color. Most commercial feeds contain ample vitamin A, so feeding small amounts of pelleted feed is likely to provide a sufficient supply of vitamin A.

An insatiable desire for fiber may cause horses with limited pasture or forage access to consume the dirt or bedding around them. This has the potential to lead to sand colic or impaction colic. Use of psyllium fiber fed for six or seven consecutive days each month helps clear the intestines of ingested sand and dirt.

Intake of sand and dirt can be prevented in the first place with feeding systems that limit access to dirt, such as rubber mats, or by using the slow-feeder method.

Salt is an important dietary ingredient for any horse. Provide a salt block that your horse can access voluntarily. This is safer than adding salt to the feed, as any excess salt is simply urinated away, making more work for the kidneys.

In some areas of the country, the soil may be low in selenium, leading to a deficiency in the hay. Check with your veterinarian before supplementing with selenium, as over-supplementation can cause serious problems from toxicity.

And finally, don’t forget to provide plenty of clean, unfrozen water to your horse in the winter. Water is considered an important nutrient for digestion, preventing the dry, fibrous feeds from becoming impacted in the intestines and keeping all metabolic processes running as they should. If your water tends to freeze, plug-in buckets or tank heaters designed to safely warm the water are your best bet.

Boosting Your Horse’s Nutrition During Winter

With some common sense and creativity, you can find ways for horses in winter months to acquire their feed more in keeping with natural trickle-feeding tendencies to optimize gut health. The ability to eat small, intermittent meals throughout the day also works wonders on a horse’s mental health and behavior.

This article about winter nutrition for your horse appeared in the November/December 2020 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Munching Through the Snow: A Vet Talks Winter Nutrition for Your Horse appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Many areas of the U.S. have already experienced the first effects of winter, including Kentucky. A University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment specialist said that was a good reminder that many horse owners will soon be feeding more hay and need to check their winter hay supply.

“While most horse owners purchased hay months ago and neatly stored it away, it’s a good idea to double check what you have on hand,” said Bob Coleman, U.K. equine extension specialist. “Make sure you have what you will need or make a plan to make best use of what you have and extend your supply as long as possible.”

The nutrient profile of hay is important. It’s not too late for horse owners and managers to get a hay analysis from their winter hay supply and determine exactly what that hay will supply to their horses. Local county extension offices can help with taking proper samples and sending them to the lab for testing.

“If you’ve already started feeding hay earlier than you planned, take inventory of how many bales you have left and how many pounds of hay you have available,” Coleman said. “Make sure your storage method has kept the hay in good shape. You don’t want to find out later that your tarp ripped and caused bales to spoil from excessive moisture.”

Coleman recommends getting a good estimate on body weight for all horses because that number determines the animal’s daily nutrient needs and feed intake requirements. Horse owners can use a heart girth tape to get an estimate or use the Healthy Horse app, available through Android and Apple app stores, to estimate current and ideal body weight.

“The body weight is so important when you are determining how much to feed horses each day,” he said. “A 1,000-pound horse needs to eat 2% of its body weight each day, so about 20 pounds of feed. It doesn’t seem like a lot of hay, but if you underestimate your horse’s weight and buy 100 days’ worth of hay for a 1,000-pound animal that actually weighs 1,200 pounds, you’ll be short by more than eight bales per horse.”

A horse’s body condition scores can change, so it’s a good idea to monitor each animal throughout the season to make sure feed management is working.

“If your horses are gaining in body condition score, you might be able to feed less, while horses that are losing body condition score, may need more,” he said.

The way horse owners feed hay may contribute to cost savings or losses. Research shows that using a feeder that minimizes hay waste results in significant savings in feed costs. Just feeding on the ground can result in as much as 57% feed waste.

“Get a good feel for how long a bale lasts and how much the horses are cleaning up,” Coleman said. “If they are leaving hay behind, you might be feeding too much or not using a waste-reducing feeder. If you keep a good watch on body condition score and manage your reserves well, you can probably get through the winter with more than enough.”

The U.K. College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, through its land-grant mission, reaches across the commonwealth with teaching, research and extension to enhance the lives of Kentuckians.

Further Reading

◆ Video: How to Evaluate Hay Quality
◆ Hay Buyer’s Guide
◆ What to Feed Your Horse in a Hay Shortage
◆ Hay Before Grain?
◆ Should You Supplement Your Horse’s Hay-Based Diet

The post Horse Owners Should Check Their Winter Hay Supply  appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

“Cooked hay?” That’s what four-time Olympic dressage rider Ashley Holzer asked when a friend recommended steamed hay two years ago. Even though high-temperature hay steaming has been available for over 10 years, Ashley wasn’t the only equestrian unfamiliar with its many benefits. Ashley has since become a big believer, as have equestrians around the world—from Olympians to regular horse owners.

But why?

Well, the short answer is that hay can be harmful to your horse because it contains microscopic bits of mold, dust, fungi, bacteria and other pathogens and allergens. This is true even of hay that looks and smells great and has top nutrient quality. Storing hay can increase the quantity of all these particles that are present from the get-go because of the way hay is grown, harvested and transported.

All of these inhalable particles can harm a horse’s respiratory and digestive system and increase susceptibility to developing more severe conditions.

Steamed hay was developed by Haygain in conjunction with the Royal Agricultural University in the U.K., in 2009. The goal was to eliminate these unhealthy elements without leaching important nutrients, as happens with the messy and laborious process of soaking hay.

Numerous and ongoing studies demonstrate Haygain Steamed Hay’s ability to improve horses’ respiratory and digestive health, hydration, appetite, skin health, and performance.

Respiratory Health

Steaming eliminates up to 99% of the dust, mold, bacteria and allergens found in hay. All of these are the main source of respiratory issues that affect a surprisingly high percentage of active sport horses: over 80% and often without obvious symptoms.

In March of 2019, The Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine published a study in which 88% of the 731 participating sport horses suffered from inflammatory airway disease (IAD), a condition on the Equine Asthma Spectrum. The horses that were fed Haygain Steamed Hay had a 65% reduced risk of IAD. The study attributed this to steaming’s ability to kill fungi in hay, which has a high correlation to IAD.

As with all aspects of horse health, prevention is the best medicine. Steamed hay is a great step for maintaining respiratory health and for helping horses with existing issues live and perform comfortably.

Castle Larchfield Purdy, a 2016 Olympic eventer with Lauren Billys, is a classic example. His mild case of Inflammatory Airway Disease is managed so effectively with steamed hay’s help that he’s met the rigorous qualifications for the Tokyo Olympics.

Digestive Health

Pathogens commonly found in hay can trigger significant digestive health issues like colic and ulcers. Clean hay reduces these risks and improves the digestive tract’s ability to digest and absorb nutrients.

Hay steaming also increases hydration. Dehydration can be life-threatening, in part because clinical signs are often not noticed until the condition is at a very advanced stage. One study found that steamed hay increases water consumption by three times.

Palatability

Four independent palatability studies and owners’ anecdotal reports indicate that most horses prefer the taste of steamed hay. That’s why veterinarians like it for horses coming out of surgery: the appealing taste and smell helps patients get back on their nutrition plan, aiding their overall recovery.

Good-tasting hay also helps prevent ulcers because it keeps horses chewing and eating more and for longer periods of time. That mimics what nature intended for the digestive process of these grazing animals.

Stopping The Allergy Spiral

Like people, horses are subject to allergic responses to a multitude of airborne particles found in the stabling environment. Because a horse that’s suffered from one allergy is more susceptible to another, it’s critical to remove allergens to every extent possible.

It’s even more important for horses with insect bite hypersensitivity because that goes hand-in-hand with increased airway hypersensitivity. This can make a horse more vulnerable to the allergens in hay.

Performance

After soundness issues, many veterinarians put respiratory function as the biggest performance limiter in otherwise healthy horses. Which, in a way, is good because so much can be done to protect and improve it. Feeding Haygain Steamed Hay decreases exposure to potentially harmful allergens, pathogens and other bacteria, improving overall health and performance.

And that’s why steamed hay is now a foundation of healthy horse management.

For more information, please visit www.Haygain.us. Or find them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube.

The post The Benefits of Hay Steaming appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Do you know how to evaluate hay quality to determine if the hay you are purchasing is really right for your horse? As we move into fall and winter, horse owners need to make sure they have enough hay of good quality to feed through the cold months. Amy Burk, PhD, MS, an associate professor in the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences at the University of Maryland has put together a new video lecture on how to evaluate hay quality and what kinds of hay are best for different horses. This is one of the most requested presentation topics on horse care at the University of Maryland.

The presentation covers:

• When to feed hay
• Types of hay
• How hay is made
• Ways to predict hay quality
• Differences in hay cuts and what to look for when choosing hay
• How to get a chemical analysis of hay
• How to help the horse when you have low-quality hay
• Nutrient requirements of horses
• How to match hay samples to a horse’s nutrient requirements

Knowing more can help you purchase the right type of hay for the winter and all year round.

Read more:

• Hay Buyer’s Guide
• Ask the Vet: How’s the Hay?
• Choose the Right Hay for Your Horse

The post Video: How to Evaluate Hay Quality appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.