As your horse gets older and you show or compete less, their nutrient requirements will vary. The nutritional needs of a horse’s feeding program will depend on the amount of activity, age, metabolism, and quality and quantity of hay and pasture.
Blain’s Farm & Fleet and Nutrena will go through two different age group stages and provide feeding recommendations for your aging equine athlete.
The first stage is when your horse is 15 to 20 years old. You’ve reduced the show or competition schedule, or retirement is now in effect.
Energy requirements are less with reduced physical activity. And the amount of grain or concentrate required should be less to maintain a desired body condition score.
If you can maintain good body condition with just a few pounds per day of feed besides hay and/or pasture grazing, consider providing a diet balancer. A diet balancer provides required nutrients at a much lower feeding rate than a conventional horse feed.
The recommended minimum feeding rate for a conventional horse feed is usually 0.5% body weight per day or five pounds daily for a 1,000-lb horse.
Diet balancers have an increased concentration of amino acids, minerals, vitamins, and additives. And they have a recommended minimum feeding rate of only 0.1% body weight per day or one pound daily for a 1,000-lb horse.
You may already have a horse that is an easy keeper and only requires a few pounds of diet balancer. Or you only need to provide a few pounds of additional feed with a diet balancer on a daily basis.
Many horses are fed with only a diet balancer or a diet balancer/conventional feed combination. This is because of a thrifty metabolism, or plenty of hay or pasture is provided to meet energy requirements.
A high quality diet balancer you can get is the Nutrena Empower Topline Balance Horse Feed. You can feed your horse this product alone or with forage (hay and pasture).
It is formulated with concentrated levels of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals to provide all required nutrients to the horse. These nutrients provide maintenance and integrity of muscle, coat, and hoof condition. They also give optimal support of immune and digestive system health.
The second stage is when you’ve retired your horse or lightly ride them, and they are 20 to 25 years of age. You observe weight loss when you feed your horse horse hay and grain.
Upon further observation, you notice quidding of hay (partially chewed pieces of hay dropped to the ground) and slavering of grain (feed dropped to the ground or feed container).
This is because of poor dental condition when the molars are very shallow. They can no longer erupt enough to provide an efficient cutting or shearing function for the horse. This means they can’t effectively chew and swallow their feed.
Tooth loss can also occur at this age. And this also reduces the ability of the horse to chew and ingest their feed effectively, especially for poor quality hay.
For older horses in this second stage needing weight gain, we recommend switching to a senior horse feed and higher quality hay, or a chopped, cubed, or pelleted hay. Soaked alfalfa cubes make a great forage source for the older horses. They are readily consumed and are a great source of calories and digestible fiber.
And a highly fortified and high fat senior feed can provide additional calories for the older horse needing weight gain. For additional feeding safety, choose a senior feed with a controlled carbohydrate content and low guaranteed levels of starch and sugar.
There are many great choices that meet all the requirements for a high-quality senior horse feed. Nutrena SafeChoice Senior Horse Feed and Nutrena ProForce Senior Horse Feed are both highly fortified feeds. They both have quality fiber sources, high calorie content, and guaranteed maximum dietary starch and sugar values.
You can easily maintain weight for older horses with dental issues by providing one of these senior feeds along with a processed forage such as alfalfa or grass hay cubes.
Utilize these two stages as your horse transitions from an active show or competition career to retirement to maintain optimum physical health and longevity.
This article was originally posted by Nutrena from Marty Adams, PhD, PAS—Technical Service Equine Nutritionist for Cargill.
For more tips on caring for your horses, visit our Hobby Farming Blog.
