Overweight cases in horses aren’t uncommon. Obesity puts your horse at risk of numerous health issues like laminitis, insulin dysfunction, joint problems, and breathing problems.
Specialists say that for every extra 10 kgs your horse adds, it must work 3.5% harder, which can cause a strain on tendons, ligaments, heart, and lungs. Horses need to lose weight rather than gain weight to be considered healthy, which means limiting the amount of grass given to them.
But what’s the ideal weight of an average horse? A horse’s ideal weight depends on factors like age, height, potential health issues, and level of work. Your vet may recommend a perfect weight for your horse based on those factors.
This post will look at the ideal tips to help manage your horse’s weight.
Many horses get more calories than they need from grass alone, so it makes sense to restrict your horse’s grazing periods. There are numerous ways to limit grazing, including strip grazing. Strip grazing entails using a mobile electric fence to enclose a section for your horses to graze for a short period and then moving the fence to a new grazing location.
If you have a large herd of horses, you can adopt mob grazing, which involves grazing your horses in a small area for a short time. Others take their horses out to graze for shorter periods, then take them back inside.
Furthermore, you can introduce muzzles but avoid keeping them for too long to prevent the horses from starving. Ensure the muzzle is worn when the horse is being taken for walks or exercises to avoid unnecessary eating.
While all these practices may work, research shows that horses, especially the easy keepers, can become wise to the routine. This means they can eat as much grass during the short period as they might eat the whole day.
While restricting calories is important, exercise is the key to weight loss. Learn to exercise your horse for a minimum of 20 minutes five to seven days a week to help maintain its weight. The more intense the exercise, the more beneficial it is to the horse.
Trotting (pulling a two-wheeled vehicle plus a driver) is a great way to exercise your horse. If your horse hasn’t worked out in a long time, it’s essential to start with light exercises and gradually increase their intensity.
For instance, you can start by walking the horse for about 10 to15 minutes and gradually increase the time and speed over several weeks until they’re used to the routine.
If you don’t have a weight tape, you should get one and learn how to use it. With a weight tape, you can regularly measure your horse’s weight. While weight tapes don’t give the horse’s actual weight like scales, they help approximate your horse’s weight.
Using a weight tape to keep track of your horse’s weight is essential in making informed feeding decisions. Furthermore, it helps you monitor trends and figure out how your horse is doing in terms of body conditioning.
Meanwhile, assessing the body conditioning score is essential in weight management decisions. The ideal body condition score for horses is about 4.5 to 5. If your horse has a higher body condition score, it means you should start a weight reduction program for your horse.
Many horse owners think restricting food to overweight horses will help maintain their weight. While this should be the case, it can sometimes have the opposite effect. Restricting important vitamins and minerals can significantly affect your horse’s coat, skin, and muscular condition leading to a fat horse with muscle wastage disease.
Hence, it’s advisable to restrict excess feeding but provide nutritional support to ensure your horse has a balanced diet.
Rugs are designed to keep the horses warm and dry during the cold weather. However, this restricts them from burning calories to keep themselves warm. During cold days, avoid using rugs on your obese horses to allow them to naturally lose a few pounds by burning their calories to keep warm.
Moreover, during rainy days, you can leave them rug-free as the coats are waterproof and have central heating systems. They generate heat from the inside out by burning excess calories and digesting fibers.
The Bottom Line
There you have it! Those are some of the tips to help maintain your horse’s weight. If you’re having trouble following the above tips, you can contact your vet or a nutritional expert to help design a weight loss program for your horse.
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