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‘My horse can’t go into the field, or it will explode!’

You hear this over and over again and again from many horse owners. Greed is however, not a natural horse behaviour, not even in the Gypsy Cob.

Healthy horses naturally have their ‘noses down’ as soon as they move from the stable to the field. Generally, after the first initial grazing period horses stop grazing and take their surroundings in, the boys have a play with their friends and the girls groom or the entire group has a snooze. After a grazing break, typically 15-30mins, heads go down again, and grazing continues until the next feeding break is due.

Natural feeding behaviour vs. feed on offer and education

The majority of horses that barley take time to have a drink of water and are solely focused on ‘hoovering’ the grass, literally as a lawnmower are more often than not displaying a learned behaviour that has been taught by humans.

Often due to very restrictive roughage feeding with long breaks and short feeding times (‘mine only goes onto grass for half an hour in the morning and then to the sand paddock, then he gets some hay again in the evening’).

By nature, horses are permanent feeders and must have constant access to roughage. If this is not the case and there are regular roughage feeding breaks of more than 4 hours (even at night!), this not only encourages the development of stomach ulcers, the horses also develop feed jealousy and greedy behaviour, as they are constantly hungry and never know if and when they will have access to feed again.

Potential problems

Another possible cause is the often well-intentioned, but unfortunately often incorrect feeding methods by humans. Inappropriate feeding can lead to metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance or impaired detoxification in the form of kryptopyrrole (KPU), which also often results in greedy eating behaviour.

In such cases, the feeding has to be adjusted appropriately to the individual situation, while supporting the horse’s metabolism in a targeted manner to prevent fatal consequences such as laminitis.

Correct feeding

All horses, even horses that are clearly overweight, need continuous access to roughage, but for some you have to regulate the amount of feed per time unit so that they don’t eat too much in one go. For hay, hay nets of different mesh sizes are suitable (depending on the condition of the hay and the horse’s ability).

In the field, you can regulate the grass consumption quite well with a grazing muzzle. If in doubt, it is always better to take the horse out of the field and provide hay in a dry lot area than to risk colic or laminitis due to too much access to grass. At the same time, horses can also be given targeted metabolic support.

A competent vet or therapist should always be consulted in order to work out an individual therapy plan.

Supporting measures

In terms of feeding, OKAPI PankrEMS forte is suitable for feeding horses with insulin resistance.

OKAPI PankrEMS
© OKAPI GmbH

OKAPI HeparKPU forte is suitable as feed for horses with a detoxification disorder in the form of KPU.

Both supplements can be mixed into a handful of soaked hay cobs, which increases acceptance. Timely management of feeding towards an equine-appropriate diet and targeted support of a naturally balanced metabolism can help to ensure that the horse can continue to graze and is not confined to a life on a dry lot, often in solitude.

We have listed all articles and contributions on the topic here: ‘Overweight horses’

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