Do we over analyse horses now

[BMA2]

I know many a horse that are fat...have issues but are then fed and fed (often including copious amounts of wet hay) in order to keep them "still" in the field. Because its the running in the field that causes injuries. Not being fat. And not the intermittent work........apparently

 

[Patterdale]

Sadly the damage was often done by people who are scared of seeing ribs on yearlings and two year olds.
.

Unfortunately this is true. Once they are fat 4 year olds you’ve got to be seriously hard to get the weight off them, a metabolism that has learnt to be fat from babyhood hangs onto it better. This is true in humans too.

The number of people appalled at me not feeding my native foals, on here and in real life, really shocked me. I had some serious stick for it.

 

[Patterdale]

And some form of balancer / source of vitamins and minerals?

I’ve no idea what she feeds, but forage is enough.

Horses DO NOT NEED balancers. Good forage provides all the ‘vitamins and minerals’ they need. It’s what they’re evolved to eat.

I would say that the marketing ploy of ‘balancers’ (inverted commas because it’s a stupid name, they don’t balance anything) is one of the major contributors towards equine obesity in the UK.

 

[Goldenstar]

RC’s horses will be having there food intake analysed and probably bespoke supplementation .
That’s part of the elite programme .

 

[Goldenstar]

A balancer should be a vit and mineral mix plus protein .
Horse at grass can lack essential protein if they are working older horses have a higher need for protein .
The correct use of the appropriate balancer should not be an issue in weight gain .
My horses are large and their balancer is 600 grammes a day and a small proportion of of their calorie intake .

The myth that you can stuff a good doer with modern forage 24/7 while not working it hard without it getting fat is a bigger issue .
Feeding restricted forage needs discipline and you need a means of feeding the horse regularly.
Thats where people life outside horses gets in the way of good management .
That first yard I worked on all forage was measured using a scales , each horse had a different amount you had a chart in the hay loft and each net went on the scales .
Horses die because people like to feed them and the ulcer management advice is misinterpreted horses don’t need to eat 24/7 they don’t in the wild .

 

[Rowreach]

No I don't think so. I think that there is probably more poor/confused horse management than there was years ago, but I don't think the cause is 'over-analysis'.

On a forum like this the worriers will always be the most visible, because they are the ones that post, whereas the person who ignores a horse that has something wrong with it won't be posting on here about it.

Supplements and whether or not to get the vet for this or that is an interesting one for people to pick up on, because as long as I have been involved with horses there have been hookey cures/remedies for this that or the other knocking about. Nobody wants to pay for a vet when you can fix it yourself so people will try all sorts. But because of the Internet the new latest greatest supplement or remedy trend is spread through the equestrian community faster and can be monitised more easily. When I was a kid we used to put garlic and cod liver oil in horses' feed...cant imagine doing that now!

It's more than a little unfair to say that those of us who don't post every time there's something wrong with their horse is ignoring it

I've been on the forum nearly two decades, owned and looked after multitudes of horses in that time, and I've never posted on here for advice about any of them because (a) I have a fair amount of knowledge and experience (b) I have a good vet I can ask for advice (c) I have a network of knowledgeable people in the real world, p!us a couple on here who I might talk to privately and (d) posting on here will result in 100 different opinions and possibly none of them will be right.

I do a lot of calm thinking when I register an issue and I approach horses with a mixture of long term experience and the benefit of modern vet practices, equipment, and what's available today.

What I don't do is ignore them. I'm pretty offended that anyone would think that.

 

[Kaylum]

When we had horses in work we did 10 miles a day 4 to 5 times a week at a good pace. Now 10 miles is a fun ride.
They were turned out everyday.
Fed straights.
We're well looked after, saw the vet when necessary etc etc.
We still worried about them.
But did they have undiagnosed health issues probably, but we didn't have the information or technology we have now, like human health things progress.

 

[Ellibelli]

I'm 58 and have owned horses / ponies since the early 70's and I simply don't recall these apparent 'glory days'. "Working horses don't get turned out" was quoted to me several times by these so called old horsemen and competition horses, army horses, police horses, brewery dray horses and hunt horses were simply never turned out (hunters were turned out for the summer but never during the season). Show horses were rugged up to the eyeballs and stood in stables with side reins on, most competition horses were ridden in draw reins, white marks caused by ill fitting saddles were on just about every horse and anything over the age of 10 was considered old - I read recently that the maximum age allowed for Badminton Horse Trials when it started was 9 years old and the winner of the first ever competition was 5 years old!

What has changed for the worse is the breeding of the modern horse, excessive work on a surface and no off season when shoes are removed and horses turned out for a holiday.

And how on earth does a balancer make a horse fat??!!

 

[Fieldlife]

I’ve no idea what she feeds, but forage is enough.

Horses DO NOT NEED balancers. Good forage provides all the ‘vitamins and minerals’ they need. It’s what they’re evolved to eat.

I would say that the marketing ploy of ‘balancers’ (inverted commas because it’s a stupid name, they don’t balance anything) is one of the major contributors towards equine obesity in the UK.

Nonsense. Adding vitamins and minerals to diet doesn’t make a horse fat.

Adding a low quality “balancer” that’s also got high calories might. But you can feed straight vitamins & minerals in a small carrier.

And much of today’s U.K. grass & hay is deficient in zinc, copper, magnesium, selenium, sodium.

I don’t believe there are ANY high level competition horses not getting some form of fortification feed. Some form of ensuring have needed vitamins & minerals. As it’s well known todays pastures and hay / Haylage is normally mineral deficient.

If you do have old ley / diverse species meadow grazing you might be better set up not to need to add minerals.

 

[I'm Dun]

I’ve no idea what she feeds, but forage is enough.

Horses DO NOT NEED balancers. Good forage provides all the ‘vitamins and minerals’ they need. It’s what they’re evolved to eat.

I would say that the marketing ploy of ‘balancers’ (inverted commas because it’s a stupid name, they don’t balance anything) is one of the major contributors towards equine obesity in the UK.

But it doesnt. As someone pointed out, pasture has been depleted of vitamins and minerals, its often mono crop rye grass. Its quite often bad for horses. Then you combine that with small flat fields, no trees or hedges to browse, and hay cut from the same environment. I've met plenty of cow farmers who supplement magnesium because they know the land is deficient for example. Incredibly high levels of iron cause issues with horses metabolism.

Its quite easy to look up the soil maps for your area and see how unbalanced pasture is now.

Balancers don't make horses fat. A powder mineral balancer in a handful of low cal food can help hugely with weight loss if you have a metabolically challenged horse.

While there's lots we could and should take on board from the good old days, lots was horrific. The ideal is to take the good bits from both, and that involves embracing new ideas and picking the ones that work for you.

 

[dorsetladette]

That’s the scary thing.

These feed reps are generally (note not always) equine college graduates and usually still fairly young / keen. They happily get sucked into the commercial world and are more than happy to spout out marketing spiel and sound like experts. Scratch the surface and their depth of knowledge is not there. But they generally believe what they say and have targets to meet.

I say that coming from a pharmaceutical background where there are commonalities!

That's the scary thing isn't it. I'm on a few different FB pages relating to enrichment and the likes. A 'student' studying animal welfare started dictating that it was 'against the law' to keep horses on less than 1.5 acres. They were absolutely adamant that ALL equines needed at least 1.5 acres to roam and graze and was quoting welfare acts and all sorts. it wasn't until someone screen shot the section they referred to that they piped down. It actually states that appropriate environment must be provided. Scarily they had quiet a few people agree with them. But my worry would be that years from now some one will google something and this particular conversation might come up and be taken as gospel.

A little (or incorrect) knowledge is dangerous when preached to the masses.

 

[dorsetladette]

We bought a good pony 2 years ago who arrived fat and cresty and had a bout of laminitis soon after. I used to stand him in a stream for hours, he’d hobble in then walk freely out, worked wonders.

He’s now a bit too slim and has lost the crest, hasn’t had any more bouts, and is living out on 5 acres of grass. I’ve no doubt that in many homes he’d have never touched grass again and be living a miserable life of grass-free tracks, muzzles and soaked hay.

I prefer the stream method of giving relief to some of the more modern methods tbh!

Your last sentence is spot on though.

We all keep learning forever, the problem now is that it’s hard for new owners to know who/where they should be learning from.

We had a tying rail in the stream. the laminitic ponies (parents took on a lot as section A's are often over fed) would be tied to it with a net of soaked hay. Worked wonders - free cold hosing!

We also lifted beds during the day and the cold concrete would help draw heat out of the feet. (no rubber matting)

 

[hock]

I'm probably not explaining what I mean clearly. It's very hard to over analyse what to feed when there was a choice of one bag of nuts, very easy to get drawn into a worm hole of over analysing when faced with a huge choice.

20 years ago it was pasture mix and chaff for me.

That's the scary thing isn't it. I'm on a few different FB pages relating to enrichment and the likes. A 'student' studying animal welfare started dictating that it was 'against the law' to keep horses on less than 1.5 acres. They were absolutely adamant that ALL equines needed at least 1.5 acres to roam and graze and was quoting welfare acts and all sorts. it wasn't until someone screen shot the section they referred to that they piped down. It actually states that appropriate environment must be provided. Scarily they had quiet a few people agree with them. But my worry would be that years from now some one will google something and this particular conversation might come up and be taken as gospel.

A little (or incorrect) knowledge is dangerous when preached to the masses.

oh my that person sounds very familiar to someone I know. They’ve never ridden but felt it reasonable to give me advice on how to train horses. Never ridden. 35 years old, just started a college course and weights 25 stone. But is going to be a trainer.

 

[DabDab]

It's more than a little unfair to say that those of us who don't post every time there's something wrong with their horse is ignoring it

I've been on the forum nearly two decades, owned and looked after multitudes of horses in that time, and I've never posted on here for advice about any of them because (a) I have a fair amount of knowledge and experience (b) I have a good vet I can ask for advice (c) I have a network of knowledgeable people in the real world, p!us a couple on here who I might talk to privately and (d) posting on here will result in 100 different opinions and possibly none of them will be right.

I do a lot of calm thinking when I register an issue and I approach horses with a mixture of long term experience and the benefit of modern vet practices, equipment, and what's available today.

What I don't do is ignore them. I'm pretty offended that anyone would think that.

Um, you've rather spectacularly misread and managed to take personally something that I wrote there...

For clarity:

Some people over worry (and often post online so it seems like there are more of them than there really are), some people are either clueless, don't really care or both (and these do not often post online but I come across more frequently irl), the vast majority of horse owners fit in neither of those categories.

Hope that is clear. I am not talking about you, nor any category that you fit in.


I don't post much about my horses either.
Most people don't.
But equally I don't think someone who would rather get advice and/or seek reassurance by posting on here more often is a clueless idiot ruining their horse with over-analysis either.

 

[Patterdale]

But it doesnt. As someone pointed out, pasture has been depleted of vitamins and minerals, its often mono crop rye grass. Its quite often bad for horses. Then you combine that with small flat fields, no trees or hedges to browse, and hay cut from the same environment. I've met plenty of cow farmers who supplement magnesium because they know the land is deficient for example. Incredibly high levels of iron cause issues with horses metabolism.

Its quite easy to look up the soil maps for your area and see how unbalanced pasture is now.

Balancers don't make horses fat. A powder mineral balancer in a handful of low cal food can help hugely with weight loss if you have a metabolically challenged horse.

While there's lots we could and should take on board from the good old days, lots was horrific. The ideal is to take the good bits from both, and that involves embracing new ideas and picking the ones that work for you.

Cows get mg supplemented because they are prone to mg deficiency as a species.

Horses fed good quality forage do not need balancers. The name is stupid and misleading to start with, it’s just a broad additive designed to sell feed to horses that don’t need it.

The idea that every horse needs a balancer directly leads to the idea that every horse needs feed. It is a direct contributor to equine obesity in the UK. Lets be honest, owners of fat horses can never just feed a balancer, they always add chaff and some kind of mash or ‘low cal’ muesli or whatever crap.

I do not feed balancers and my horses all look and feel very good on good quality forage and a field lick, which they can take or leave. Maybe that’s what we should be promoting? But they’re too inexpensive and simple so will never catch on.

 

[Indy]

Cows get mg supplemented because they are prone to mg deficiency as a species.

Horses fed good quality forage do not need balancers. The name is stupid and misleading to start with, it’s just a broad additive designed to sell feed to horses that don’t need it.

The idea that every horse needs a balancer directly leads to the idea that every horse needs feed. It is a direct contributor to equine obesity in the UK. Lets be honest, owners of fat horses can never just feed a balancer, they always add chaff and some kind of mash or ‘low cal’ muesli or whatever crap.

I do not feed balancers and my horses all look and feel very good on good quality forage and a field lick, which they can take or leave. Maybe that’s what we should be promoting? But they’re too inexpensive and simple so will never catch on.

What field lick do you use?

 

[Patterdale]

What field lick do you use?

After much research I use Dallas Keith Hoof and Hide in lieu of feed. The horses are a mixture of yearlings, kids riding ponies and horses. They all do well.
The licks are largely ignored in spring, but used a lot in droughts and winter, and the horses look as good if not better than when I used to feed them. I stopped hard feed years ago now and never looked back.

 

[southerncomfort]

Slight tangent based on post above that I can't find now!

I don't know about over analysing, but I do think we micro manage their environment.

I read an article in a horse mag a few years back by a jump/cross country trainer. I'm para phrasing but the gist of his argument was that it's a lot harder to teach a horse to be careful with its legs/feet if we are constantly removing any kind of obstacle from it's day to day life.

He said that he deliberately left obstacles on the yard for them to step over/walk around, and left branches/tree trunks etc out in the field etc.

In our quest to keep them safe, we've removed any kind of enrichment or anything that makes them think about how to use their body.

I wonder if, in over thinking how they should be kept and completely sanitising their environment we've actually made them more prone to injury, not less.

 

[Indy]

After much research I use Dallas Keith Hoof and Hide in lieu of feed. The horses are a mixture of yearlings, kids riding ponies and horses. They all do well.
The licks are largely ignored in spring, but used a lot in droughts and winter, and the horses look as good if not better than when I used to feed them. I stopped hard feed years ago now and never looked back.

Thanks, I'll have a look at them.

 

[stormox]

Sometimes I wonder if people do just over analyse horses now twerk their diet and routines just because we can seeing problems that maybe aren't there.
My grandfather was an old fashioned horse man kept and worked heavy horses (mostly Clydesdales) born in the 19 th century you fed hay ( and " straights" only if they worked enough to need them,)
no such thing as supplements.If a horse seemed a bit off then they had a day off and turned out and monitored.
He always said horses have off days just like us.
He said treat them like horses with kindness and care don't over think things but I wonder if now we put our own emotions on them and are almost looking for things to be wrong with them.
I know these days we do seem to have made keeping horses into an art form constantly analysing them .
I know the way we CAN keep horses is often dictated by the livery yards they are on but do horses do better when allowed plenty of turn out 24/7 if possible) and quality hay/haylege not needing all the potions we add to their feeds.

In those days an 8 yr old was considered "aged"....... and horses were put down if they couldn't work.

 

[SEL]

We're really low in copper and selenium around here. Unless I buy hay from miles away it's also going to be grown in soil that is low in selenium and copper.

My neighbour had ongoing issues with mud fever winter 22/23 and I kept blabbering on about balancers to her but instead she spent £100s with the vets. This year she was persuaded to add a balancer. Ta da! No mud fever - & we've had plenty of flipping mud.

One size doesn't fit all.

 

[Patterdale]

We're really low in copper and selenium around here. Unless I buy hay from miles away it's also going to be grown in soil that is low in selenium and copper.

My neighbour had ongoing issues with mud fever winter 22/23 and I kept blabbering on about balancers to her but instead she spent £100s with the vets. This year she was persuaded to add a balancer. Ta da! No mud fever - & we've had plenty of flipping mud.

One size doesn't fit all.

No balancer is going to prevent mud fever. That’s just daft.

 

[Ellibelli]

In those days an 8 yr old was considered "aged"....... and horses were put down if they couldn't work.

And lets not forget that bute was banned in competition horses relatively recently and many horses over the age of 8 were simply competed on painkillers

 

[Ellibelli]

No balancer is going to prevent mud fever. That’s just daft.

I don't think it's daft at all. I know from my own skin hair and nails that taking supplements has improved them all enormously and I no longer get cracked skin around my finger nails

 

[Goldenstar]

Cows get mg supplemented because they are prone to mg deficiency as a species.

Horses fed good quality forage do not need balancers. The name is stupid and misleading to start with, it’s just a broad additive designed to sell feed to horses that don’t need it.

The idea that every horse needs a balancer directly leads to the idea that every horse needs feed. It is a direct contributor to equine obesity in the UK. Lets be honest, owners of fat horses can never just feed a balancer, they always add chaff and some kind of mash or ‘low cal’ muesli or whatever crap.

I do not feed balancers and my horses all look and feel very good on good quality forage and a field lick, which they can take or leave. Maybe that’s what we should be promoting? But they’re too inexpensive and simple so will never catch on.

Inappropriate overall feeding is not the fault of a balancer.
You can feed a balancer in a double handful of bran some can eat a pelleted balancer straight but you can easily mix it with chopped straw or a double handful of Timothy .
However I did stop using a very high quality powdered balancer because it was not palatable enough for eat without something nice ,you have to use your head with horses think things through .

It’s simply not true that grass provides everything the vast majority of grass in the Uk is lacking in selenium copper cobalt ( cobalt and selenium in this valley )
If horses are eating products grown close to home ( like mine their alfalfa and grass is very local ) they can easily be sub optimal in terms of trace elements, that’s the reason that best practise in olden days was to buy hay for posh horses from elsewhere they did know why that helped but they worked out it did .
It used to be common to keep copper coins in horses feed bowls I can actually remember seeing a horse eating bran mash with coins in when I was little and being told it was for the copper .
Horse working will benefit from some Vit E in the second half of winter as will horses who don’t get access to much that’s growing stuff all year .

Lots of supplements contain too much iron for horses that’s something to watch ,horses can’t shed excess iron so excess iron is a serious issue. I know I don’t have an issue with this with mine because I have blood work , that’s because some horses near by have a problem so lots of local horses where tested in an attempt to understand what was going on with them .
It’s knowing all this over analysing ?

That good old thing called observation tells me that horses here do better with supplementation.
The fact my horses are restricted diets the whole time may be part of that but I know what I see .

 

[BMA2]

I think we also need to take I to consideration that modern day grazing is really poor.

Horse fields are nothing like they were...

Weather
Availability - most fields probably fall into the overgrazed box nowadays
Lack of other animals grazing...often used to have sheep in there etc. Now most people would freak our at sheep being out with their horse

 

[Goldenstar]

I don’t post all the time things are wrong because I don’t need to for instance Sky is ill atm ( a bit close for comfort to losing H But that’s horses for you) , it’s extremely worrying but I am on it .

 

[DabDab]

Slight tangent based on post above that I can't find now!

I don't know about over analysing, but I do think we micro manage their environment.

I read an article in a horse mag a few years back by a jump/cross country trainer. I'm para phrasing but the gist of his argument was that it's a lot harder to teach a horse to be careful with its legs/feet if we are constantly removing any kind of obstacle from it's day to day life.

He said that he deliberately left obstacles on the yard for them to step over/walk around, and left branches/tree trunks etc out in the field etc.

In our quest to keep them safe, we've removed any kind of enrichment or anything that makes them think about how to use their body.

I wonder if, in over thinking how they should be kept and completely sanitising their environment we've actually made them more prone to injury, not less.

Yep this is certainly true - also true of dogs and humans. If you remove the need to problem solve from everyday life then the ability to cope with a 'normal' level of challenge becomes less and less.

My animals are allowed a lot more autonomy than most people advocate but I believe it helps them in the long run and is worth the potentially higher risk of not being hard-line in removing hazards from their environment

 

[RachelFerd]

Ñko8ll

And some form of balancer / source of vitamins and minerals?

according to the video (yard tour on Piggy TV) she says Lordships Graffalo gets grass nuts, dried grass chaff and electrolytes. I can see, in the back corner of the video screen a single bag of topspec lite - so perhaps some/all of them get that - but it isn't mentioned.

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

No balancer is going to prevent mud fever. That’s just daft.

One year I dropped the balancer and one of mine got mud fever so his back on it and guess what not had it since.