The horse is a hind gut fermenter, which means he is designed to eat fibrous material, fermented in a holding chamber called the cecum, home to trillions of bacteria, archaea, protozoa, and fungi.
These tiny organisms work in synergy to break down poor quality and largely indigestible food material (woody- stalky material, seed heads) into energy.
He is of course, also designed to process small amounts of rapidly degradable starch (grains, the leaves of grass and hay, alfalfa) in the stomach and small intestine. The key word here is small.
The fermenting process is slower, compared to the rapid release of energy from easily degradable starch. Fermented energy takes time to produce, but this method allows him to survive the winters in the wild, when food (especially starch) may be hard to come by.
A by-product of fermentation is heat. This is designed to maintain his body temperature even on the coldest of days.
Therefore, he has two existing systems one designed to consume large amounts of highly degradable starch, especially in the spring as he emerges thinner from a winter of scarcity and in the summer when he needs the energy for mating, feeding foals, and storing up fat stores for the coming winter.
It is key to the horse’s well-being then that his spring feeding comes on the back of winter hunger.
I believe our welfare concerns have lead us into a pattern of feeding the horse which goes against his natural pattern and potentially sets him up for laminitis, obesity and later joint issues. We then have to fight to get weight off and avoid the lush spring grass that a thin, wild, winter-roughed horse might enjoy.
We compound the difficulties as we then have to restrict the grazing and a cycle of ‘fighting against the curves’ begins. Are there ways whereby we can help our horses, salve our consciences about our poor hooved family members in the cold and actually have happy, healthy horses?
I’m looking at the paddock paradise systems with adaptations for winter, such as reducing easy access to feed at certain times of the day (there are timed feeders that can do this for you or we can shut a gate in front of a feeder, making smaller hay nets and cut wood the only option to go and look for on our track). We could provide all feed with physical challenges to get it such as reaching up, stepping over or rolling a hay ball around. We can offer a portion of ‘fodder’ in the form of branches and brash.
A common way of providing the harsh or semi- harsh winter experience used to be used as a matter of course for competition horses. It was called being ‘turned away’ or ‘being roughed off’ depending upon which part of the English speaking world you belong to. Similar happened to farming horses who weren’t needed in the winter months and were offered time off to be roughed. They would not receive the oat ration they needed for their work as they were no longer working.
Does anyone still practice this management system, is it even possible and how now do we cater for the two differing seasonal nutritional needs of the horse while providing horses for sporting events that occur year round?
I don’t have answers to these questions but I do believe that , for the sake of the horse, they need to be considered in our equine management routines.
Even herein my Swedish home, in the north of europe horses often come out of our long winter a lot fatter due to the ready availability of hay and haylage, combined with smaller winter paddocks.
We need to consider, within our paddock systems , the need to eat woody material and less high calorie feeds and fodders. Knowing the analysis of your fodder would be a good place to begin.
A hay analysis helps you better understand what you’re feeding your horse. This is especially important if you’re concerned about the hay quality or if your horse is having nutrition problems.
Always request a horse analysis when sending in hay samples.
Some fodder companies provide an analysis on delivery but buying from local farmers may mean you need to send off your own.
In my next blog I explain what a hay analysis can tell you. But for now we can think about offering our horses woody stems from pine trees, cuttings from the apple trees and berry bushes as we do our spring pruning and branches of willow and silver birch as some spring chewing gum!
Happy Healthy Horses 