Managing a Diet for an Overweight Horse

These “diet” feeds are specially formulated to be lower in calories while giving your overweight horse all the necessary vitamins and minerals they need to maintain a good body condition. It is recommended that you give your horse these feeds at a rate of two to five pounds per day depending on the horse.

With a typical feeding program a horse is getting adequate levels of protein and energy in their diet in addition to the major required minerals such as calcium and phosphorus. The horse can easily maintain their weight with this type of

Now consider what happens when you give a horse “diet” feed at a rate of three to four pounds per day. All the horses’ nutrient requirements are not being satisfied with this intake. To prevent over consumption in hungry horses salt should not longer be fed free choice but rather mixed in with the feed at a rate of at least one ounce per day.

To effectively and safely change weight it will require more than adjusted feed. A owner can be successful at getting a horse to drop a few pounds If they feed only a pound of a highly fortified feed each day while reducing grazing time and cutting back on the horses hay intake.

However, when the owner switches from a highly fortified feed to a “diet” feed the horse will be getting a lower caloric grain concentrate while at the same time being able to meet all the horses’ vitamin and mineral requirements. It is actually more important to meet a horse’s vitamin and mineral requirements than it is to try and reduce a horses overall weight.

The “diet” feeds are designed to meet the horses desire to eat grain while not giving them the excess calories and making sure the proper intake of vitamin and minerals is met. Moderation is the operative word when it comes to putting a horse on a diet. Always take your time when trying to get a horse to lose weight. A horse will be hard to live with if you force them to lose weight and this can even lead to metabolic problems. Simply stick with a program if you notice your horse is losing weight after about a month since this means the program is working.

Although what should you do if you horse is still too overweight. For example, say your horse still has a body condition of eight. It may be a good idea to remove the horses access to pasture and turn them out in a dry lot with nothing but access to free choice water. You will successfully remove enough calories with this diet, but you should always make sure you maintain a proper balance of the necessary vitamins and minerals.