Winter feeding – getting the balance right

Ensuring condition is maintained over the cold winter months can sometimes be a daunting task, especially with an older horse, or one that is a poor doer. With winter on our doorsteps, our expert nutritionist Anna Pyrah gives us some insights into the beneficial feeding practices which can be employed over the autumn and winter months to help keep your horse healthy, hydrated and at his optimum weight.

Fibre is crucially important to every horse’s diet. It is the core dietary substance that horses have evolved to eat over thousands of years and owners should always be aware that the fibre level in their horses’ or ponies’ diets should never fall below 50%.

There are many reasons why feeding a horse fibre is beneficial. The horse’s digestive system has evolved to be sustained by a diet packed full of tough fibre and horses with limited access to grazing or that don’t receive hay on a trickle basis are far more likely to develop gastric ulcers, colic and dental problems. Insufficient dietary fibre will also restrict the ability of the digestive tract to retain water, predisposing the horse to dehydration, not to mention the fact that the ensuing boredom can lead to serious behavioural issues such as windsucking, box walking or crib biting.

When looking specifically at the winter diet, fibre plays an even more significant role than throughout the rest of the year as the digestion of forage yields a special bonus which is extremely beneficial.

The horse has a very specialised mechanism for tough fibre digestion through the large microbial population in the hind gut and this fermentation process produces a significant amount of heat. In the colder months, when precious fat reserves and energy is lost through keeping warm, fibre provides a kind of “central heating for horses”. This is particularly important to horses that are known to lose condition over the winter, as they will be able to conserve more of their pre stored reserves if they have a natural source of warming energy coming from their bellies – and you can pretty much count on the fact that if a horse has cold ears the rest of him is cold too, so any extra warmth is a bonus! As a general rule of thumb, aim to feed 1.5-2% bodyweight in hay, while taking into account that there may be 25% wastage - unless you have a horse that hoovers everything up!

Planning the amount of hay you will use over winter should ideally be done at the time of year when the hay is abundant. If a suitable dry storage area is available, stocking up on plenty of bales whilst you can will do wonders for helping your horse to maintain a healthy fibre intake through winter.

An average sized horse will drink about 10-12 gallons per day in cool weather and it’s as important to ensure your horse remains fully hydrated over the winter months as it is in summer.

A good way of testing whether your horse is dehydrated is to use the capillary refill test – press your finger over the jugular vein in the neck and release, the time it should take to refill should be around 1 second. Any longer than this and it is likely that your horse is lacking water.

Over the winter and particularly in frosty and snowy conditions, water buckets and troughs must be checked on a regular basis. Some owners may think that horses can get their moisture from snow; however, 6 x the amount of snow must be eaten to obtain the same volume of water as drinking. Relying on your horse ingesting snow is not a good idea for a number of reasons: 1) it is not an effective way to guarantee water intake, 2) it will cause a reduction in body temperature and can give a cold shock to the digestive system and 3) frosty grass has high levels of fructans and when ingested these sugars can dramatically increase the risk of laminitis.

Impaction colic is also closely linked to a reduced water intake, and there are two primary factors which can inhibit water consumption in the winter. Firstly, a frozen water bucket or trough means that no water at all is available and secondly, the sheer coldness of the water means that a horse is going to be less inclined to quench its thirst if the process is uncomfortably cold! Overcoming these problems is, however, reasonably straightforward. The best thing to do is to break and remove the ice from your horse’s water source at least twice a day. However, there are other less effective measures which can be taken to increase the chance of your horse having a reliable access to water. Placing a ball in the trough or bucket can help to inhibit a layer of ice forming, or covering part of the bucket with a sheet of wood can also help. There is also the option of heated water troughs and although this is obviously more costly, they are extremely effective. Studies have shown that horses are 40% more likely to drink a considerable, healthy amount if the water is warm. Please do not try to make a DIY version of a heated trough though! It is also advisable to do your homework when purchasing a heated trough, as some poorly made ones can become faulty very quickly and consequently give your horse a shock every time it goes to drink.

Being able to gauge your horse’s weight and condition and assess whether there are any weight fluctuations is a very valuable skill. During the winter, when a horse’s coat is thicker, it can become even more tricky to judge whether he is losing weight or not, as there is extra fluffy padding over the ribs, not to mention often layers of mud!

Not everyone has access to a weighbridge, which is obviously the best mechanism to measure weight loss or gain, but there are other useful tools (although not so accurate) which can be applied so you can get a rough idea of any loss of condition. Weigh tapes are a cheap but effective way of finding out if your horse could do with an increase in calories. By taking this measurement on a fortnightly basis, any fluctuations should be evident and knowing whether his weight is being maintained or reducing means that you can make any necessary adjustments to the diet before the weight drops off even more.

There are many different ways to go about feeding your horse over winter, but at the Pure Feed Company, we specialise in high fibre, low starch, low sugar and no molasses feeds, feeding your horses in a way they have evolved to eat. Each fibre based feed contains everything your horse will need in one bag (including Pure Feed’s high specification balancer) and the energy source is provided by slow release oils, which will help to keep your horse in full health and optimum condition during the difficult colder months.

We also provide a mobile weighbridge service to our customers, so you can easily and accurately record your horses’ weight on an ongoing basis to ensure that they get all the nutrients they need for optimum health and condition.

If you have a question, please do not hesitate to call us on +44 117 230 0027, or email us at info@thepurefeedcompany.com

Or if you would like a free diet plan for your horse, please simply fill in our online diet plan form.