Eating for a Summer (Horse) Body

Eating for a Summer (Horse) Body

Tuesdays with Tony

It’s hot out. I was working on my tan on the driveway at the Clinic the other day, and I could barely lay on the asphalt for 10 minutes. That made it extremely difficult to force the humans to drive around me. Overall not a great experience. It got me thinking about the conversations about eating for summer that go on around here. There are a lot of food conversations that happen at the Clinic, which obviously gets my attention. Most of the horse food conversations are along the lines of feed them less. That’s good basic advice, and we can tweak it to be even more appropriate for really hot weather.

What’s in a Feed?

Let’s start with what’s in feed. I’m going to focus on concentrates, or what you humans commonly call grain. Concentrates have protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals. Ideally, no matter the season, you are only feeding enough concentrate to cover the things they aren’t getting enough of from roughage. 

Ration balancers are called balancers because they balance the deficiencies of a roughage-based diet. They don’t add a lot of calories, which is great for easy keepers. But some horses need more of a concentrate, like Purina Strategy or Nutrena Safe Choice, to make up the calorie difference between what work is taking out and what they are putting in with hay. Those calories come from protein, carbohydrates, and fats. 

Each of those creates heat when the body uses them for calories. Fat creates the least heat when broken down. This means if it’s summertime and your horse runs hot, consider adjusting the diet to be higher fat (with the help of my Docs of course). Don’t go willy nilly adjusting diets without professional input. 

Vitamins and minerals are really, really important in the summertime. Know another word for some of those minerals? Electrolytes. Sweat is chock full of electrolytes, and horses sure do know how to sweat. A good concentrate provides a solid base of the electrolytes needed to perform that task. More on that in a moment. 

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Roughage

As a cat, I was not designed to be much of a hind gut fermenter. It’s one of the reasons we very rarely do that most common of horse things: fart. So banal. I can’t even imagine. Don’t even get me started on dog farts. Ugh!!! Anyway, I have gleaned a lot of roughage knowledge living in an equine (and soon to be all the animals) clinic. Roughage is incredibly important to horses. That fermenting hindgut needs it to stay happy. That being said, fermentation causes a pretty significant side effect (besides gas): heat production. 

If you’ve read my extended works, you know I talk a lot about roughage in the winter helping keep horses warm, quality roughage preventing colic, and on and on and on about roughage. I’m about to drop more roughage knowledge on you humans. In the heat of summer many horses will back off hay consumption. They’re smarter than I think! Now I’m not saying a horse can suddenly go to less than the magical 1.5% – 2% of bodyweight per day of hay. What I’m saying is they will very often drop themselves back to that minimum percent all on their own. You may notice more hay in the stall, or left in turnout. 

This is very true of hay, but does not count for grass, and that’s where they make up the difference if given a choice. Horses will increase their consumption of water-filled grass stems. Processing water helps to cool the body by keeping it well hydrated so it can sweat better. Also, fresh roughage, like grass, has less bulk than hay once it gets to the hindgut.

Many of you in my area have access to great pasture and so you may not have noticed a decrease in hay consumption. For those of you who do notice it, there are a few things you can do to help your horse continue to consume all the blessed forage without creating as much heat. First, try using short-stem forage like beet pulp or hay pellets and soaking them in water. That gets them roughage and water, double whammy! You can also try adjusting the type of hay you’re feeding. You may normally feed a lot of alfalfa, but your horse says Orchard is way better in the summer (or vice versa). Be sure the addition or change is gradual, though. No unscheduled visits with my Docs!!

Electrolytes!

Really, really, really important that your horse gets enough electrolytes in the summer! Horses sweat, and they sweat a lot. This goes along with the gas thing for me: I don’t get it. Sure, my paws may experience a bit of dampness, but I most definitely do not pour buckets of water from my skin. That sweat that’s pouring from the skin is chock full of potassium, sodium, magnesium, and in an oddity of horses, protein. If you’ve ever had a day where you just sweat buckets, then you know you simply don’t feel good when all those electrolytes are depleted. There’s a reason for that: those same electrolytes help your nerves work. 

Humans mainly lose sodium when they sweat, and so plain ol’ salt works to replace most of your losses. Horses, as aforementioned, require a few more items. Most of the commercial electrolyte brands for horses take care of these needs pretty well. If you and your horse are aiming for high level stuff, like grand prix anything or eventing at the FEI levels, then I would recommend you get an equine nutritionist involved to be sure you’ve got all you need. 

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The rest of you can go with a scoop (2 ounces) of just about any electrolyte. Again, for most horses, the protein loss is covered by what’s in the concentrate they eat. It’s important to be aware of the need for protein, though, if you’re in a sweat-intensive activity. I find the protein thing kinda cool. Horse sweat contains protein because it needs to get out of the hair coat to the outside world where it can evaporate and do its job. You humans don’t have protein in your sweat because you don’t have all that much hair. Mother Nature is such a great problem solver!

Water

I don’t have much on this subject because it should be obvious. Make sure your horse has access to all the water they want. One great way to unexpectedly see my Docs during the heat of summer is to not provide a good water source. This is a great way to cause a huge impaction colic. That’s all I have to say about that.

Summer is hot. If your horse seems to be feeling it more than most, talk with my Docs. They can help you adjust things to make it all a little more bearable. 

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. The newest video is out on my YouTube Channel. It’s all about how to hold your horse for the veterinarian in various situations, and why. It’s a great way to both improve your horse knowledge and your ground skills, another double whammy! You’re welcome. Just make sure you subscribe to the Channel so you get notified when new videos come out!

 

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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More Adventures of the Horse Doctor's Husband
Electrolytes and Horses

Electrolytes and Horses

Tuesdays with Tony

As I was lying in the middle of the driveway yesterday, I realized it was a bit warm. Humidity wasn’t too bad though, but that can only mean one thing: Summer is coming. With summer comes sweat, for horses and humans. Cats simply will not lower themselves to something as banal as sweating. Sweating is tough on a critter! I found out just how tough while researching electrolytes and horses.

 

That’s a lot of water!

 

At full exertion, horses can produce close to 4 gallons of sweat per hour! Yeah, I’m never going to exercise that much. That means they have to replace all that water when they’re done exercising. More importantly, it means a horse exercising gets dehydrated really, really quickly. That horse losing 4 gallons of water is at critical dehydration levels at the end of the hour. Let’s be honest, most of your horses (and humans) don’t exercise to max levels, but even sub-max is a decent amount of fluid loss. Why are we discussing this? Make sure your horse has access to PLENTY of water before, and after exercise. If you’re exercising for longer than 30-45 minutes you should even have water available during exercise. Another fun fact, horses (and humans) sweat even more in hot, humid weather. It’s never hot and humid in Florida, right? (should be read in an extreme level of cat-sarcasm tone).

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More than just water

 

That sweat is more than just sweat. It contains a bunch (and I do mean a bunch) of electrolytes. For horses, they lose electrolytes in this order: Chloride> Sodium> Potassium> Calcium> Magnesium. Why does that matter? It means any electrolyte supplement should replace them in that order. In other words, check the label on your supplement. It also matters because those electrolytes are really important for things to happen the way they should in the body. One thing they do is make sure the gut moves the way it’s supposed to. You horse people don’t like colics, right? Electrolyte levels get whacked, you’ve got a colic. Electrolytes make sure all kinds of muscle contractions happen correctly, besides just the gut ones. The heart beat and muscles depend on proper electrolytes, as well. Basically, they’re pretty darn important to life.

 

I see sugar

 

Know what else horses use a lot of when they exercise? Sugar. That has to get replaced back into the muscles. This is what horses are surprisingly not great at. If you run a marathon (I don’t know why you would, but if you did), you could replace the energy stores in your muscles in about 12-24 hours. A horse doing equivalent exercise takes 48-72 hours to do the same thing! Crazy! Most of this energy is replaced by the normal process of eating hay and grain, but some of it is replaced by the sugar you see in electrolyte supplements. That sugar also helps the GI tract absorb the electrolytes. I think we can all agree a lot of sugar is bad, but a little bit is critical for exercise recovery.

 

What does all this really mean?

 

It means, if your horse is a pasture potato, having a salt block available and feeding a good quality hay and concentrate will meet all their needs. If your horse has to work for a living (this means physical labor as opposed to being in a supervisory role like myself), you will need an electrolyte plan.

 

On a day-to-day basis, a salt block along with a good diet is probably adequate, unless your horse is in hardcore training. When work gets stepped up though, it’s time to add in additional electrolytes about an hour before the hard work starts. Even better, but this can be nearly impossible with horses, add electrolytes to about a gallon of water, and have your horse drink them. Yeah, I know, you can lead them to water, and all that, but a bit of training before big events will help your horse learn this valuable skill. Make sure your horse has plain water available as well.

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

After work, be sure to offer electrolyte water again, or add to the next concentrate meal. This will help your horse replenish those valuable electrolytes as fast as they can.

 

The Perfect Electrolyte

 

There are approximately 1 bajillion different ones on the market. Look for ingredients in the order horses lose electrolytes, with one exception: chloride. Chloride tags along for the ride with all the others, so sort of by default, you’ll get lots of that.

 

Bottom line: look for Sodium (often listed as salt), potassium, calcium, and magnesium in the ingredients. There will be sugar in there too, and that’s okay! A little bit of sugar helps the gut absorb those electrolytes. BUT (and it’s a big BUT) sugar should NOT be the first ingredient on the list. It should be around 3-4 down on the list, and will likely come before magnesium. Once you have the right ingredients in the right order, pick the one your horse likes. That’s the really hard part.

 

Electrolytes are way more complicated than I ever dreamed! Speaking of dreaming, I’m going back to holding the chair in the back office down. You be a good human and scroll down a little further to subscribe to my blog. You’ll get it a day earlier than everyone else, and that will make your Monday a little cheerier.

 

Until next week,

~Tony

 

P.S. I know that I’m the resident celebrity around here, but my docs are starting to get worldwide attention with the podcast they do. Horse people all over Canada, UK, Europe, and Australia are listening, as well as people in all 50 states here in the US. Have you checked it out yet? It’s called Straight from the Horse Doctor’s Mouth. You can click on that link and find out for yourself what all the fuss is about!

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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