Facebook
Earth Song Ranch Blog

Earth Song Ranch Blog

Dive into our insightful articles and blog posts on natural health supplements for your cherished companions – horses, dogs, and cats. Uncover the secrets of holistic well-being with fresh blends of probiotics, enzymes, herbs, and more. Your horses and pets deserve the best – explore our stories for a healthier, happier furry friend or family member! Come read more about today's horse and some of the health challenges they are now facing!
What to Feed a Horse Who Needs to Gain Weight.

What to Feed a Horse Who Needs to Gain Weight.

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

It can be more than just about what you feed!

Some horses are just born to be "hard keepers" and take more than most to keep them at a healthy weight!  Some have a very high metabolism including TB's or OTTB's they were born that way!

What I find most often however is those horses usually have a digestive tract that is not in the best of shape, they may not have or produce the digestive enzymes necessary to fully absorb the nutrients and calories from their hay; horses when they are in their early teens start to produce less digestive acids.  There are those horses that may not have healthy microbiome (probiotics) from many reasons in their digestive tract including over use of chemical wormers or over vaccination, stress from weather changes, showing or moving to a new barn or being sold, all upset the digestive balance.

So what can one do who has a "hard keeper" or an older horse who is not maintaining their weight?  First you need to look at what you are feeding, is it high enough in calories?  Is it enough hay / forage?  Are they able to eat all day?  Alfalfa and Timothy have the highest calorie contents but I do not recommend or promote an alfalfa only based diet.  Are you supplementing with Essential Fatty Acids like Flax and Chia or even adding stabalized rice bran meal?  What are you doing for digestive health?  Timothy can be hard for some to chew and digest so I usually suggest Orchard or Bermuda for especially the older horses.

For my regular customers we take an overall look at what is being fed, then we free feed these horses, minis, donkeys et al a high quality hay/forage.  We add bucket feed enriched with Flax, Chia and Rice Bran Meal which we add to soaked Timothy and Alfalfa pellets (hopefully organic hay pellets)  to which we then add Equine Zyme to boost their digestive health.  It takes time for them to add on the healthy weight so patience is a virtue!

I also suggest that they get their dental health checked making sure there are no points, waves or loose teeth that may be interfering with these guys being able to chew which starts the digestive process, and get those issues also addressed.   One of my minis grows points on her back molars that point backwards so she has to have her teeth floated twice per year to take those down and maintain her weight!  My 21 year old Arabian had to have two molars pulled, one on each side, so he has to have soft hay (Orchard) and a small amount of alfalfa that has fine stems to maintain his weight along with a wet bucket per day of the above.  He is free fed both hays and maintains nicely with getting his teeth floated once per year. 

You can also do some commercial weight gain formulas but many contain soy which I do not recommend or you can add an oil like sunflower oil to their buckets for the fats and the calories too!  No corn or soy oil please they are GMO!

I do offer paid Nutritional Consults if you would like a more individualized program for you herd members!

Search