After the long sunny days of summer, the approach of winter brings unwelcome changes. Cold temperatures, dark days, and the change to the winter diet can be challenging for horses and owners alike. Our nutritional guidelines help you to manage the change, and ensure your horses stays at their prime through to Spring.
Maintaining body temperature is the largest call on the equine diets, so winter weather can mean horses drop condition. However, that isn’t always a bad thing. Unfortunately, overweight horses and ponies are common, so if your horse needs to diet, the winter months can be really useful. Body Condition Score your horse in autumn, and regularly throughout winter, to see whether adjustments are needed.
For all horses, a fibre and forage based diet is ideal through the colder months, as fibre digestion produces more ‘heat’ to naturally maintain condition than concentrated feeds. For many this means relying on haylage, which can be excellent for horses, but do monitor analysis, particularly dry matter (DM). Feeding by weight or volume alone can be misleading. Haylage DM varies widely, and a low DM mean you are feeding less than you thought.
Variability in forage, even between batches, together with the winter diet, may result in digestive upset, seen as loose droppings, free fecal water, or condition and behavioural changes. Targeted nutrition including prebiotics, live probiotic yeast and natural support for the gut mucosa, such as found in NAF GastriAid, is recommended to maintain a settled digestive tract and optimize diet utilization.
Forage alone can provide sufficient energy for condition and work in many horses, particularly for those where shorter days mean less exercise. However, for performance horses additional energy and protein may be required. The best form of supplementary energy for horses comes from adding oil. Oil is readily metabolized and doesn’t carry the health warnings associated with starch in equine diets. NAF Omega Oil provides oil with a positive omega 3 to 6 ratio, not found in all plant based oils, and important for health and immunity. If feeding for energy, gradually increase the level of oil over several weeks, and for a high oil diet it is advised to balance with additional vitamin E, from NAF Vitamin E & Selenium Plus.
Vitamin E is not the only important vitamin over winter. Indeed, it is advised to ensure a broad-spectrum of all micronutrients is supplemented through winter, such as NAF Optimum, to avoid the deficiencies commonly seen in preserved forage. Not just vitamins, Optimum also includes key amino acids to ensure protein quality is maintained, without risking excess protein quantity. Lysine, as the ‘first limiting’ amino acid is essential for protein metabolism, while Methionine plays a key role in the integumentary system, that is, maintenance of the coat, skin and healthy hooves.
In conclusion, the recommended diet for your horses and ponies this winter is based on preserved forages, balanced with micronutrients, and nutritionally supported for daily digestive health.
