Horses and blood sugar..

[MochaDun]

I'm not specificially talking EMS here but can horses, in the same way as our metabolisms/physiology (if those are the correct terms), have absolute cravings for things? I have a very good do-er, the grass at the yard where I keep him is more or less gone (which is good for his waistline) but he's like a bear with a sore head at times at the moment as he's getting so hungry (which is what I kind of want - as in feeling hungry, not bad tempered, we have a few kgs to lose).

If he stays out 24/7 at the moment he will be brought in for a small net of haylage when I ride and obviously if in at night has a proper net. The bale of haylage we just finished was not great, the new bale opened this evening is something else...I could have eaten it myself it smelt so good and he had such a strange reaction to it, very stressed if he thought I was taking it away, rubbing his head vigorously against the net when I first hung it up...and then was hauling it out of the net like he was half starved...if not totally starved. Once he's had some haylage he just seems to chill out so I just wondered if that's like us once our blood sugar has gone low and then the first rich snack makes you feel good immediately but all it does is set your blood sugar back on its yo-yo-ing. I guess at the back of my mind is the thought that I may have a horse with EMS lurking in the background.

 

[[69117]]

Not sure about the haylage, but I think horses can have strange reactions to sugars etc.

I had a mare who had a sugar intolerance - if anyone gave her a polo, I knew about it! She became absolutely vile - kicking, rearing, biting, throwing herself on the floor, the lot! However, after an event or a particularly hard day's hunting she would get the shakes very very badly, and the only thing that would stop her shaking was a handful of sugar cubes. Her blood sugar seemed to plummet after very hard work, and this was the only time when she could eat sugar without going bonkers...

very strange creatures aren't they!?

 

[Slinkyunicorn]

I would have thought it was more to do with the quantity of fibre going through his gut than anything else. Mine both get grumpy as the quantity of grass is as important as the quality - when mine stayed in the other day/night they went through nearly a bale of hay and were definitely better for having full tummies.

As you need to shift weight can you not give him soaked hay? Would shift the weight but keep him feeling full

 

[Pearlsasinger]

Not sure about the haylage, but I think horses can have strange reactions to sugars etc.

I had a mare who had a sugar intolerance - if anyone gave her a polo, I knew about it! She became absolutely vile - kicking, rearing, biting, throwing herself on the floor, the lot! However, after an event or a particularly hard day's hunting she would get the shakes very very badly, and the only thing that would stop her shaking was a handful of sugar cubes. Her blood sugar seemed to plummet after very hard work, and this was the only time when she could eat sugar without going bonkers...

very strange creatures aren't they!?

We had one with a similar problem, although she couldn't eat cereals either, we had to fed her on alfalfa/grass nuts. Ours was horrendous when she was ready for her next meal - just like a drug addict waiting for the next fix - until we realised what was causing her problems. Then she evened out, unless someone else had fed her something 'forbidden'.

OP, to avoid hunger try supplementing your forage with good quality oat straw to fill the horse's stomach and time with very few calories.