Horse Health Care: Have You Done a Rib Check plus Feeding Enough Hay

A fuzzy horse does not necessarily equal a fat horse. I don't know what the whether is like where you live, but here in Colorado we are having the coldest winter in 100 years. That's cold.

What's worse, horses here are freezing to death, and I mean that literally. Horses that look "fat" from a distance are actually dying of pneumonia because they don't have enough fat to stay warm.

There have been enough cases of pneumonia and cold-related horse deaths to really cause alarm, since many of the horses who have died were not old, ill, or otherwise impaired. They were just cold and hungry.

Hence, the need for a rib check.

Horse Health Care and the Rib Check
If you want to take excellent care of your horse this freezing winter (it's snowing in Texas, for goodness sakes!) then do a rib check on your horse every few days. A horse who looks "fat" because he's got a giant shaggy coat may actually be quite thin underneath all of that shag carpeting.

To do a rib check, just wiggle your fingers into your horse's big hairy coat and run your fingers across his ribs. If you feel a lot of bumpity-bumps down the line, you know that your horse needs more calories to stay warm. If you feel nothing but a smooth glide, then you know that your horse at least isn't starving to death.

Also feel for hollows along your horse flanks, by his withers, and along either side of his spine. He should have some fat deposits along his topline as well. If he's got those, you're good to go. If he's got hollows instead of soft pads of flesh up there, you may need to throw more hay.

How Much Hay for Horses is Enough?
Hay for horses … I used to think figuring out how much was enough was a tough equation. You can always go by bodyweight and all the formulas in the textbooks. But textbooks don't take into account weather (like the coldest winter in 100 years) or other factors that might affect your horse's weight.

I have a simpler solution. Regardless of whether you feed grain or not, your horse needs a certain amount of long-stem forage (translation: hay) to stay healthy and warm. That is because hay is digested in the hindgut and keeps your horse warmer than grain during a cold night. To figure out how much hay your horse needs, estimate the amount he will need for one night, and toss that amount over the fence. The next morning, see if he has left any hay or if he has cleaned up every scrap.

If he has left some hay, then you know you have give him too much. Let him clean up the remainder during the day, and then throw a tad less hay that night. Keep going until you find just a few straggles of hay on the ground each morning. That's when you know you are throwing enough hay. Your horse will tell you by not cleaning up every single scrap.

Make sense? It does to me. All the hay producers in this county always give this formula to their clients, and it has worked for many years. Hope it helps you figure what and how much hay to feed your horses! Enjoy!

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Horse Feed: How to Save Money on Hay for Horses with Hay Testing

With much of the nation experiencing some of the coldest temperatures on record, horses are gobbling up hay and feed faster than ever.

Hay for horses, unlike lower quality hay for other livestock, can be quite expensive, as can horse feed. That's why it is so important to test and understand the quality of the hay you feed.

Hay for Horses: My Hay Testing Experience
I recently tested my hay (sent a sample to Equi-analytical Labs) and was shocked to discover that the hay I was feeding my horses, cut from my own field, was low-carb hay. While low-carb hay is great for horses with metabolic problems, like insulin-resistant horses, it is a poor choice for horses who need to gain weight or who are trying to stay warm in extreme temperatures.

I face both situations. My gelding, Walker, is a hard keeper so I always have to feed him extra. On top of that, the other horses in my herd have to eat more than in previous winters because we are having the coldest winter in 100 years here in Colorado.

With these conditions, I was having to feed literally half a bale of hay per horse per feeding (3 times daily) just to keep them fat and shiny. While my homemade "horse goo" was helping to regulate their metabolism and get the most out of every flake of hay, I still couldn't understand why I had to feed so much. Now I know.

Feeding Low-Carb Hay
With low-carb hay (10% carbs), my horses were getting the equivalent of "diet hay," which didn't contain enough starch and sugars to keep them warm and fat. Low-carb hay has fewer calories, so my horses had to eat so much more of it to get the calories they needed. Once I figured that out, I ordered five tons of higher carb hay from a local hay dealer, and now I am feeding much less hay. I am also supplementing my herd with much less horse feed, a senior pelleted feed.

I never knew that hay for horses could vary so much in calories or quality. I'm saving my low-carb hay to feed this summer, when my horses occasionally have to be taken off the pasture while it is being irrigated. During the summer, when the horses have access to lush green grass, they won't need as many calories, so the low-carb hay will make a perfect feed.

Have You Tested Your Feed Lately?
With all the buzz going around about horses with metabolic issues, more hay dealers are now testing their hay. Horse owners who have insulin-resistant horses have insisted on it, which is great.

Now it's time for the rest of us horse owners to get in on the hay-testing bandwagon. If you have a hard keeper, it's worth checking if your hay dealer has high-carb (18% carbs) hay, especially if you live in a cold climate. With high-carb hay, you'll be able to feed much less quantity but get much better results. Your horse will maintain his weight more easily on less hay, and that will definitely save on your horse feed bill.

If you plan on buying several tons of hay from a dealer who does not test his hay, it may be worth your while to see if you can get the hay tested yourself. It could save you literally hundreds of dollars, not to mention the fact that your horse will be a lot happier if you feed him hay that is a good match for his metabolism. The test itself is inexpensive (less than $30), and definitely worth your time!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader. Also, check out my ebook for wacky horses and humans, or holler at me if you want to know how I fund my horse addiction ... and you can, too!

Photo credit: Free Digital Photos

Hay for Horses is Entertainment Not Nutrition

You may think the stuff you throw over the fence, the hay for horses, offers your horses the nutrition they need to stay totally health, but you would probably be wrong. Being a zen cowgirl inquisitive science-type, and having hung around with a major hay producer in my area who actually tests hay for its nutritional value, I'm realizing that hay for horses is basically entertainment, not nutrition.

In other words, the hay I'm throwing, while better quality than the hay in some places, is pretty empty of the vitamins, minerals, and trace minerals that my performance horses need to both perform and stay healthy. If you look around at the performance horse barns in your area, you'll see what I mean.

An Example to Chew On
For instance, around here we have a top cutting horse barn. The horses get fed either straight grass hay or a grass/alfalfa mix. Nothing else. The horses get top-quality care, are glossy and well-groomed, and look good. They perform well. However, the average age at which a horse in that barn is retired because he's used-up or injured is six years old. Does it make sense to you that a six-year-old horse should be "retired" because it's too old, injured, or tired to keep going? Does it make sense that three-year-old horses need hock injections to keep going?

Why Hay Alone Isn't Enough for Performance Horses
The fact that most of these horses need hock injections or are retired at such an early age tells me that their bodies are not getting the nutrition they need from hay alone to stay healthy.

Nutritionist Carol Bennett says, "Aging is the process in which the body loses the ability to defend itself." When performances horses age prematurely and have to be retired at such a young age, I get the message that their bodies are unable to defend themselves against the stresses of training. Add to that this statement from the Surgeon General and you get a more complete picture: "67% of all human diseases are diet-related." Now I know we're talking about horses here, but I interpret this to mean that a poor diet leads to disease, whether in humans or horses.

So if hay for horses doesn't cover the basic nutritional needs, what is it good for? Why, for entertainment, of course. Horses need be walking and eating about 23 out of 24 hours in the day, so having hay constantly in front of them is fairly essential. In fact, if you really want to reproduce the conditions of wild horses, you would not only have to have hay in front of horses all the time (or have them out in pasture), but you would have to keep them walking and chewing. Pete Ramey has discovered a wonderful way to do this with his Pasture Paradise concept (just Google it for more info).

The Good News Hay for Horses
So the bad news is that the hay you throw over the fence for your horses probably isn't enough to meet their full nutritional needs, especially if they are in training or heavy work. The good news is that it doesn't take all that much nutrition to fill in the gaps that feeding hay alone creates. This is because horses are used to eating foods that are low in caloric and nutritional value, so adding just small quantities of high-quality nutrition to their diet will create a big effect.

For instance, I feed my horses 1-2 ounces daily of a special nutritional "goo" that I whip up at my kitchen table. It amazes me that 1-2 ounces of nutrition does the job on a 1,000 pound horse, but the results can't be denied. Adding this small amount of power-packed nutrition results in healthy hooves and coat, no allergies, no colic, and a generally happy outlook on life. In case you want to know, the goo consists of 1 packet of Simplexity Health Essentials (blue green algae, probiotoics, and enzymes) plus 1-2 ounces of a specific antioxidant juice. It works a treat.

So do I grow hay for my horses? Yes. Do I feed plenty of it? Yes. Do I count on its nutritional value? Never. I cover the bases with algae, probiotoics, enzymes, and mangosteen juice. I enjoy watching my horses eat hay, though, because I know it entertains them thoroughly and satisfies their instinctive need to chew continuously on long-stem, low-content food. And when they're happy, I'm happy.

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