Flies and obesity

[Leo Walker]

Following on from my little horses weird behaviour I was doing some further reading and came across this:

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Wild and naturally grazing horses eat to maintain a full gut.

Feeding consists of bouts of uninterrupted feeding separated by non-feeding intervals.

Feeding doesn’t occur randomly but is divided into ‘meals’. During meal times horses take short (less than 10 minute breaks) to ‘look around’, stand guard or to walk over to see what their neighbour is eating. There are longer periods between meal times for sleeping and resting, the feeding habits are very like deer.

Meal lengths are affected by the time of day and they prefer to eat in the day rather than the night.

Meal times in April are around 3 hours and 20 mins long, dropping to just 1 hour and 10 mins in October, the change in the length of the meal time is due to the increase in the fibre content of the grass as the season goes on, suggesting that horses eat to fill their gut and to maintain a high gut fill level.

In April though the nutritive value (glucose/starch/protein) of the green shoots are high whilst the biomass is low meaning they need to consume a greater quantity before the gut is full. Perhaps this partially explains why horses appear to gorge in spring and why grazing masks worn for long periods may cause a level of stress. Might be better to feed a hay net of low quality fodder before turning out to fill his gut first?

During times when flies are a nuisance, meal times are much shorter, horses stop feeding to rub themselves on each other and to groom each other, intervals between meals are longer and horses no longer feed until full but have longer periods of walking in between. Average feeding bout in between grooming and rubbing is around 25-45 seconds, literally snatching a bite to eat!

This change in routine coincides with mid- season when glucose/nutritive is still high and fibre content is also high enough to allow less time eating before gut fill level is achieved. Flies become a nuisance in the UK from the beginning to mid-June onwards, and in the fly season feral horses graze for much longer periods between the hours of 4am and 8am.

In the light of this information is it therefore better to bring the horse in from the field to avoid the flies, giving a little low quality hay to nibble, reducing the calorie intake through the day as nature intended, or would you put on a fly mask and rug and leave him out to eat high nutrient value grass until his gut is full

They seem to have missed the obvious solution of leave the horse out without a mask and rug if its not distressed but what do people think?

 

[be positive]

Mine only wear rugs and masks if they are really bothered by flies, the fields all have good trees and hedges so they can get into good shade which they use for hours in the heat of the day, last summer they stayed out and did not get as fat as I thought they might, obviously moving about a lot helped.
I think the issue of flies is more of a problem if they are out alone surrounded by electric fence with no shade, if that was the only option I had I would prefer them in during the day.

 

[ester]

Our wooden stables are like hot houses during the summer months.

They have missed the option of restricting the high nutrient value grass .

No fear of not putting a rug on F, bugs are number 1 for scab inducers.

 

[TPO]

That's really interesting, thanks for sharing.

Ours come in during the day to be out of flies and off grass. They get steamed hay when they are in but they definitely eat a lot less than normal when in. They do lie down and have a proper sleep (they lie down and sleep in field too).

My orange horse is really sensitive/allergic to flies bites and seems to attract more of them than the others. He is rugged and masked when the flies start and wore a cotton sheet when he was in last year as previous yard had more midges inside than there were outside! The TB has ear plagues so wears a fly mask too and all 3 are covered in various sprays which appear to have no affect at all!

 

[supsup]

I'm not convinced. For one, there have been several studies showing that it doesn't matter if you feed soaked hay before or restrict intake for a while, the moment you let the horses out on fresh spring grass, they'll try to stuff their gob. Feeding soaked hay before simply means that they'll already extra calories on board. I don't see an alternative to providing limited/managed forage 24/7, because restricting only part-time means they'll simply make up for lost time once they have unlimited access to fresh spring grass.
My gelding gets bloody ears and/or pink, puffy eyes if not wearing a fly mask during fly season. His field mate is hardier and tolerates them better (in the sense of not needing medical treatment if left without mask), but she ends up glued to his butt 24/7 (trying to stick her head under his tail), and still grazing non-stop with head-shaking while chewing. I'm not sure she eats less because of it, but it sure causes friction between the two at times when my gelding gets fed up of having her permanently attached to his bum. (We call them the tandem ponies...).

I can see though that if the horses had a large and varied turnout area, they might be motivated to move to particular locations (shady, breezy) when the flies are worst, potentially removing themselves from the best grazing for a while.

 

[SEL]

The Appy has pink eyes so she's got her sunglasses on most of the year anyway.

With her she definitely doesn't guzzle so much if she has a belly full of hay before she goes out. I'm more likely to see her having a mid morning snooze than if she goes out hungry. If its soaked hay - which is usually is for her - then there's also the advantage of avoiding the blood sugar / insulin hit on grass which niggles her PSSM.

 

[Celtic Fringe]

As with human food intake I think this is quite individual. My old horse self-regulates fairly well in the summer with bouts of grazing, sleeping lying down and dozing in the shade with the others if it is hot. He wears a fly rug and mask through the summer as he has sweet-itch. He tends to put on weight in the winter - when he was younger this was because he would steadily eat the ad-lib hay. Now his teeth are too worn for hay he gets fairly large soaked feeds. The only time he chooses to be in a building is in the summer to avoid the flies - he hates being in a stable. The fields are a reasonable but not huge size - around 4-5 acres so there is space for them to choose sun/shade/breeze/shelter.
My YO has a horse that has no 'stop' button and will simply keep eating until everything is gone so needs to be on restricted grazing year round.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

well I definitely noticed a difference in the amount they ate last year when covered in Tritec to when they werent. however, one pony now has a full mane and tail due to the tritec and the other is a horsefly magnet and so they will continue to have it. everyone does the best they can with what they have-one of my summer fields has no shelter at all, one is a watermeadow full of bitey things so I manage them the best way I see fit-bring them in when they need shelter, fly spray them when their lives are miserable due to midges/biting black fly/horseflies. The Fell does put weight on with soaked hay as I found out last spring-so I manage with muzzles, straw, exercise, stabling/corraling on a bare patch. I think its better that they dont wear rugs in the summer if I can help it, natives are not built to disperse heat but I do have a couple if all else fails.

 

[MrsNorris]

Our herd will be on a track this year, with access to a yard and barn which is a short walk off the track. As they have shelter, I’m not going to use any fly protection this year and am hoping they’ll spend a lot of time walking to the shelter and back to escape the flies and rest, and less time eating. They’re both good doers and I struggle every year with their weight, hoping this might be the solution.

 

[Tarragon]

Our herd will be on a track this year, with access to a yard and barn which is a short walk off the track. As they have shelter, I’m not going to use any fly protection this year and am hoping they’ll spend a lot of time walking to the shelter and back to escape the flies and rest, and less time eating. They’re both good doers and I struggle every year with their weight, hoping this might be the solution.

This way of management is what I aim for. My ponies are at DIY livery on a farm so I don't have a lot of choice but I can make all the decisions about grazing (except the fencing bit!)
I think that access to as large an area as possible of well grazed field with access to low calorie forage in hay nets hung inside somewhere, mixed with plenty of exercise is the way to go. In the winter the grazing can be as much as 10 acres and in the summer it is probably about 2/3 acre but split across a wood field and a small croft and then a small concreted yard with open stables.
It is an interesting article; I had never thought of "mealtimes" in respect to horses!

 

[The Fuzzy Furry]

Mine are out 24/7 at this time of the year.
I only spray if they are working, nobody wears fly clothes, only 1 in a grazing muzzle in day.
They have access to field shelters at all times and all paddocks have tree shade somewhere.

I manage them best by shutting tubbers into diet paddocks overnight, poss with a little hay (still got a field shelter then) and the more needy one gets 2 x feeds a day and goes off into longer grass overnight adjacent to the others. All meet again in bigger field in daytime.

Needy one gets worked 1st thing usually, then when put out with others will graze for 20 mins or so, then stomp off to shelter for a good hour or more to snooze in peace. She comes out again for about 30 to 40 mins, then repeats the cycle throughout the day.

 

[milliepops]

Mine all seem to end up with runny eyes if they don't wear fly masks in the summer so it's hats a-go-go here and the rest is managed with strip grazing

(except Twiggy who point blank refuses to come near me if I offer her a mask... she's a cranky old lady!)

I do think the oldies, who are out 24/7, do self-restrict a bit because when it's really hot and the bugs are at their worst they are usually hiding out in the hedge or shelter.

 

[JFTDWS]

My mare wears a rug and mask because the wee buggers like her a bit too much and she's a bit allergic. The ponies wear masks - or at least, I put masks on. Dae takes his off, usually

I find they spend more time eating in winter anyway - in spring / summer they seem to eat less, regardless of fly control.