Winter in the Midwest provides quite a challenge when it comes to caring for our horses. Early-morning feedings now include the fun of knocking ice out of water buckets and shoveling new paths to the barn door just to get to the horses. There are a few good rules to keep in mind when feeding and watering horses in the cold winter months, especially in the case of older horses that may need a little extra TLC. The first and foremost rule is WATER! Ask any equine vet around, and they will tell you that colic rates go up as water consumption goes down in the wintertime! Check those water buckets every morning, and if you haven’t already, a tank heater is a great invention. Horses cannot eat enough snow to meet their water requirements, so you must make sure to provide plenty of water. Horses will drink cold water, so it doesn’t necessarily need to be warmed up, it just needs to be warmer than frozen. Pay attention to the weather situation. Horses can tolerate very cold weather, as long as it is dry. As soon as they get wet however from a snow or ice storm, their nice thick winter coats lose their insulation factor and the horse will be challenged to maintain their body temperature. In very cold weather, horses do require extra calories to maintain their body condition, so pay particular attention to body condition during cold snaps. If you are concerned about providing extra warmth through feed, give the horses more hay. The old wives’ tale about feeding corn for extra warmth is just that, a wives’ tale. The process of digestion for corn (in the foregut) is very quick, and provides very little warmth. Hay requires a much slower process of digestion, and by the nature of the digestion (by microbes in the hindgut) it gives off more internal heat that the horse can make use of. Pay attention to body condition on all horses through the winter, but senior horses in particular. The cold weather can be rough on the older equines – if it is tough for them to maintain condition when it’s nice out, the added stress of cold weather can be especially challenging. Add a fluffy winter coat on top of that, and it is very easy to miss early signs of declining body condition. Body condition scores can be taken regularly, even through a winter coat. Ideally, you should be taking a body condition score monthly so that changes are easily apparent. Of course, keep in mind that excess body condition isn’t a great situation either, especially if you plan to return to regular use come springtime. Excess weight can be detrimental to a horse’s health and make a safe return to higher activity levels take longer. If a horse is in need of more weight for the winter, try first to simply increase the current feed level, within the guidelines of the feeding directions found on the tag or bag. If a couple extra pounds of grain a day doesn’t help, try then moving either to a top-dress fat supplement such as a rice-bran based product, or to a feed with a higher fat level than what you are currently using. For example, a traditional mill mix of corn and oats and a mineral is probably only about 2.5 to 3% crude fat, however there are a variety of commercially prepared feeds that are availably up to 12% fat. For horses that develop a little extra padding over the winter, try one of the “lite” products on the market that allows them to get the vitamins and minerals they need for overall health, but without the calories of a traditional grain diet. Finally, make sure not to confuse a hay belly with being fat. Fat is laid down primarily over the top line of a horse – a cresty neck, the withers, a crease along the spine, and around the tail head – these are what the entire body condition scoring system is based on. A large hay belly is a result most often of sagging muscles on both the topline and under the belly – not so much from eating hay all day, but from the standing around all day while eating the hay. If you have further questions on the subject, please visit www.nutrenaworld.com and click on the “contact us” link, or contact the folks at Horse & Family magazine and they will pass your question along. |