Feeding for energy without calories…

[lucy_108]

I’m in a bit of a bind with one of my horses. He is a 13.3hh, 4yo Welsh X and is in light/medium work. He gets ridden/exercises 3/4 times a week and does a variety of hacking. light schooling, long reining and in hand work. He is a good doer type, one that looks at grass and expands width ways.
He is currently being strip grazed in a muzzle, with a horse grazing ahead of him so he’s never on “fresh” grass.
I currently feed him on stud balancer and top spec top chop lite with Equine Products Selenavite at the full dosage once a day.
He is lovely to ride but lacking in the “go” department. I feel like he isn’t getting enough energy from his intake but I’m stuck between a rock and hard place when it comes to feeding him as I’m very conscious of his weight.

Any advice or recommendations to ensure he is receiving adequate energy from food without over doing the calories?!

The joys of good doers….

 

[poiuytrewq]

Sadly i think the two come hand in hand. Higher energy= calories.
I know its hard but if he's over weight now I'd try to get that weight off as that often makes them (and us) feel better and be more active.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

It does sound as if he needs to improve his fitness. I would actually say that he is in light work, rather than light/medium. I would increase his frequency of work, including hill work, with polework alongside the schooling. I'm not sure why you are feeding a stud balancer but would check out the ingredients in everything you ate feeding. There may be starchy carriers that he doesn't need.

 

[lucy_108]

Sadly i think the two come hand in hand. Higher energy= calories.
I know its hard but if he's over weight now I'd try to get that weight off as that often makes them (and us) feel better and be more active.

He isn't overweight at the moment but definately has the potential to be if we weren't to keep ontop of his diet, this is the dilemma.

 

[lucy_108]

It does sound as if he needs to improve his fitness. I would actually say that he is in light work, rather than light/medium. I would increase his frequency of work, including hill work, with polework alongside the schooling. I'm not sure why you are feeding a stud balancer but would check out the ingredients in everything you ate feeding. There may be starchy carriers that he doesn't need.

He is on stud balancer by recommendation of my vet as it can provide the nutrients without huge amounts of calories. He is only four years old so I am not keen to increase the frequency of his work load, he is still young and growing. He does plenty of hillwork (living in Scotland, you can't avoid them!) and has a very varied workload. I wouldn't feel comfortable adding more work to his week.

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

His only 4 his still growing so will get tired and his probably just feeling a bit like an insecure baby I would just carry on and you might find naturally he will have more energy as he matures, probably only next year at 5 he will be a teenager and you might have the opposite problem so I wouldn't worry at the moment