European way of feeding - I cant get my head around it

vallin said:
This is why I now have a horse with arthritis in both hocks, bu**ered hind suspensories and problems with her sacroiliac :( Take note, horse at 3/4/5 should not be jumping 1.10+ tracks!

Sorry bit of a mini rant.
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No, it's good to rant - especially when making such a good point.

My stepfather, who also rides in France, was shoked when I introduced him to my friend's 25 year old ID x TB who gave him a hell of a gallop in the stubble field - and he evented and show jumped hard throughout his teens, so he was a bit creaky, but not broken or lame! 25 year old ex-competition horses just don't happen in France.

The best show jumping horse I rode in the last couple of years I lived there was a 15.2hh SF mare bred by the French National Stud. She was not hugely scopey but made up for it in sheer heart and determination. I jumped and won 1.10 affiliated courses every week end (for my sins - I didn't know any better) from the month she turned 3. I heard on the grapevine that she was put down aged 7 because of chronic tendon problems :( :( :(

It happens here too, make no mistakes - and the show jumpers are mostly to blame for refusing to wait until horses mature. My lovely broodmare did nothing but jump the top of the wings (and loved it) from the minute she was imported from Ireland as a 3 year old (and she had been broken and hunted there prior to coming here) until she broke down (both hocks buggered with arthritis) aged just 6. I bought her as plans were being made to send her to the knackers yard.

Moral of the very very many such stories is: if you want your horses to be sound and have a long competition career, just wait a couple more years!!! You wouldn't make your 10 year old child pump iron in the gym to improve their muscle tone? Why effectively do the same thing to your 3/4/5 year old youngster whose growth plates won't be fully mature until they're 6 years old?
 
I live in france these horses are lucky to get any food iv seen horses in winter drop dead with lack of food and then let their dogs eat them i must say some not all treat their animals very bad if they took all the ragwort out of the field the horses would have nothing when my horse is out in his fly bonnet and sheet i seen the french nearly end up in a ditch staring at my horse sad to say they get as much money for them dead as alive
 
Having food restricted and then exercising on a very empty tummy can predispose your horse to stomach ulcers ( a problem in the racing world ).Moderation and common sence rules , horses are so different in their needs depending on the breed and type, different regimes are sometimes necessary and looking at 'different' ways of doing things isn't a bad thing ,but horses have been designed as grazers.
 
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That's cruelty! I can't believe people would go to such lengths just for their horses to 'look good' in the show ring.
Let horses be horses!
This makes me so angry and I could have such a rant about this but I think others have said it for me!
 
Wow what an eye opener! I don't really want to think about the long term damage those horses are being caused. I can't think standing tied for long periods of time can be good for joints/ligaments.

Over here in my part of Oz, we practically have no grass going into summer. We get the good spring stuff but it usually turns to seed before drying off early summer, meaning grazing is poor. We supplement a lot of hay though, either hand fed or in the form of round bales providing ad lib.

You do hear the stories of the occasional Hackies who limit turnout/hay to stop a 'grass belly'. Surely good exercise will prevent that!
 
Sad! - horses are meant to "graze" for around 18 hours/day, so heaven knows what internal damage is being done by restricting their natural intake.

I must have a word with my rising 25 yo and tell her that she's not going to have anymore hay...!!!! ;-)
 
I have lived in France for five years and horses in this area do get grazing but their ideas on feeding are strange.

Opposite my saddler's shop is the most horse sick field you have ever seen. Yearling TB's are overwintered there with no hay, rugs or shelter (and it does get cold here mid-winter). I asked the saddler if they were fed and he took me to an out-building, he feeds these youngsters for the owner and all they get is a hi-fi mix consisting of chaff and cubes.

I sent my 17hh CB stallion to a local dressage rider for schooling. (My horses always travel in France with their own feed). He was stabled at night with TO during the day. The first evening she gave him 2 slices of hay at 5.00pm - she thought this was enough to keep him going till 7.00am the following morning!!!

As for competition. Breeders who want to win prizes and sell horses in France start competing them at 3. It is a real problem for slwo maturing breeds like CB's particularly for dressage because by the time the CB is 5/6 they have to compete at a very high level against horses with years of experience.

Having said all that there are nice and well cared for horses in France but from a horse's point of view life is a bit of a lottery.

We have 32 acres of fabulous grazing and only 13 at the moment - two of whom are for sale. I have a 31 year old who still does a gently hack.
 
I lived in Spain for a few years as a child and the horses didnt have any turnout. A couple of the ponies got to go into a dust padock (fenced off with event fencing, quite dangerous) for a couple of hours sometimes, but it was the size of a postage stamp and about 10 horses on it, so not exactly "turnout".
The horses as far as i remember used to get some sort of alfalfa hay at night, and some "pienso" which was some sort of nut for the morning. Thats all they were given and all the horses got exactly the same.
Looking back, not ideal but the Spaniards are not always known for their animal standards.
 
Stinkbomb said:
I went to a horse show this weekend. There were some horses over from France and Belgium to do the show. They won everything and there is no doubt there horses looked fantastic. We stayed over for a few days and most of the horses were stabled at the Arena and we had a good chat to them about how they condition and train their horses. This is the bit i cant get my head around. Their show horses have NO grazing. They are kept in a show barn for 23 hours a day. About 8 hours of that they are tied up, no hay but access to water. The other hour they are lunged, round penned or put on a walker in two stints. They NEVER see hay or grass but get two huge bucket fulls of alfalfa, mix and beet twice a day. Thats it.

We looked in their stables at night and the horses were muzzled over night. they told us this was to stop them eating the shavings.

Now i dont give hay. Mine are out 24/7, yes on limited grazing but they have enough grass to pick on. They are fed two big feeds a day but like i said are free to graze the rest of the time.

This is how the Americans condition their show horses too. They all were famtastic animals and looked extreemly fit, but is it worth your horses health for a rosette?? I just could get my head around the way they do things. Any comments??

BTW im talking about miniature horses here :)
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I know I think its disgusting too. But sometimes when you are really serious about your sport and your horse is a top class athelete you can't afford to let it whizz round the fields doing 'horsey things' and I know that showjumpers for instance like to keep their horses looking very slim and fit so they reduce the amount of forage they have access to probably not realising the damage it could do to the horse, again not just its mind (as horses are foragers) but also to its gut (in the case of stomach ulcers). But what it does to a horses brain to keep it in the stable for 23 hours a day - well, it must be very damaging to a horses state of mind. Eventually the horse will have a 'breakdown', it will start displaying 'coping' mechanisms such as windsucking/crib biting/weaving or it will 'play up' when ridden. Horses are not machines, but sadly in the horseworld there are still those that treat them as if they are, ...... says she who is feeling incredibly guilty for taking my horse out four times this week in the trailer (twice for hack round grounds of club, once for hack round lanes with friends horse and once for combined training)!!
 
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Obviously restricted turn out and lack of bulk feed is very bad for horses and the apparant lack of longevity of continental horses bares witness to this.

However, here in the UK I think that we have the opposite problem. Throughout this thread people have refered to horses as grazers, they are not though. Horses browze, naturally they eat large quantities of low feed value fiber, which they have to walk long distances to get.

I believe that allowing horses and ponies to have unlimited access to lush fields of improved grass is as bad as starving them, its just that the illnesses are different.

There needs to be a system of encouraging plenty of movement and hay type forage or very poor grass, by this I mean low feed value varieties, not stressed rye grasses, fed throughout the year.
 
Have just read the OP and to be honest I am absoltely SICKENED. This is NOT a natural lifestyle for a horse... are they totally out of their minds?
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
the wierdest system i have ever come across was an endurance rider in wales that breeds akhel-tekes. she belived the horses were allergic to more than a couple of mouthfulls ( literaly) of grass. the horses were never turned out and he only time they went out with another horse was as a foal, they were put in a stable on weaning and the lucky ones got a sand pit about 15 mtr circle size infront of thier boxs to go in. there was one filly ( about 14 months old )that had fracured her hip on the stable door frame and had been in her stable and no where else for 6 months:eek::eek::eek: The ones inwork were lunged for exercize and only hacked once before a competition. they all had as much high protien hayalge as they could eat and 3 hard feeds a day. the most agressive horses i have ever met, no wonder really.

so its not just 'europeans' that keep thier horses in strange ways, there is cruelty masked as profesionalism every where.
 
I thought they had to eat little and often to keep their gut movements going, can't say I like the sound of that routine
 
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