Feed & management tips for underweight seniors
Some seniors need additional care to help them gain or maintain a healthy weight. This guide is full of tips and advice to help you get started but for specific advice, reach out to our team of friendly nutrition advisors, especially if your horse is prone to or has been diagnosed with a clinical condition such as PPID, laminitis, colic or gastric ulcers. It’s also important to remember that senior horses can lose weight for a number of reasons, so make sure an underlying clinical condition, worm burden, pain or dental issue can be ruled out or is appropriately treated.
Forage
Provided they don’t have any dental issues, forage should remain the foundation of every senior’s diet. Not only is forage key to supporting digestive health and mental wellbeing, it also provides a significant source of calories.
Ideally provide as much forage as your horse or pony will eat (while being mindful of excess waste) and try to provide hay/ haylage in the field when grazing is limited or of poor quality. Where possible, monitor how much hay/ haylage your horse is eating, not just how much you are feeding.
Troublesome teeth
Dental issues are one of the most common reasons for weight loss in senior horses. While some can be resolved, successful management of those that can’t often relies on replacing some or all long fibre (grass, hay and haylage) in the diet with a hay replacer. Those with very poor teeth may need 100% of their diet replaced with a mash which for a 500kg horse, may mean feeding 11.5kg of unsoaked mash per day - sometimes more!
Did you know? SPILLERS Speedy-Mash Fibre and SPILLERS Senior Super-Mash can be fed as the complete ‘bucket feed’ as well as a full or partial replacement forage.
Calories in the bucket
If your horse is healthy, has good teeth and eating plenty of forage, checking whether you’re feeding the recommended amount of their current feed is a good place to start.
Although underweight horses often benefit from feeds containing moderate to high levels of energy (calories), the most suitable option may not have ‘conditioning’ on the bag.
Consider feeds containing low/ restricted levels of starch and sugar to help support digestive health and reduce the risk of excitability.
Consider soft, short chopped fibres or ‘chaffs’ that are high in oil to help increase fibre intake while helping to maximise the number of calories in each mouthful. Did you know short chopped fibres are often unsuitable for horse’s with diastemas (gaps between their teeth)?
Weigh all feeds at least once - feeding ‘by the scoop’ can lead to under (or over) feeding.
Feed small meals - a maximum of 2kg (dry weight) for horses, less for ponies.
Balancers are not conditioning. Due to the low feeding rate, all balancers (except stud balancers) contribute minimal calories to the total diet which means if your super senior needs to gain weight, feeding a balancer won’t help.
Sugar beet and mashes
Sugar beet has been a winter staple for generations. It’s rich in highly digestible fibre, low in starch (and sugar if unmolassed) and on a kilo for kilo basis, provides a similar level of calories to a conditioning feed. However, it’s often not fed in large enough quantities to contribute a significant level of calories to the total diet. Did you know a scoop of ‘Horse and Pony Cubes’ may be 4-5 times higher in calories than a scoop of soaked sugar beet?
Sugar Beet also needs to be fed alongside the recommended amount of balancer or feed containing vitamins and minerals to provide a balanced diet. As an alternative, consider a high fibre mash that’s already balanced with added vitamins and minerals.
Always weigh sugar beet and mashes before soaking as the recommended feeding rates are based on the dry weight - the increase in volume after soaking also makes it easy to over-estimate how much you are feeding!
Poor appetite
While some seniors simply become fussy with age, dental issues, pain and a number of clinical conditions can affect appetite so it’s important to rule these out. Alternatively, being separated from their companions can make some golden oldies reluctant to tuck into their grub. You may also need to consider their environment; although some horses are happy eating in the hustle and bustle of a busy yard and surrounded by other horses, others prefer a quieter place to eat in peace.
Tips for tempting fussy eaters
Try adding warm water and/ or consider adding small amounts of apple juice, grated apples/ carrots, garlic, mint or fenugreek to feeds. Always consider the risk of prohibited substances if your super senior is still competing.
Consider using feeds with added herbs or aromas such as SPILLERS Senior Complete Care Mix or SPILLERS Senior Super-Mash.
Try dividing feeds into smaller meals to avoid over-facing your horse/ pony.
If using more than one feed, try feeding them in separate buckets.
Look out for bullying
Older horses may be pushed down the pecking order and lose out when it comes to feed and forage (as well as access to water and shelter) Choose field companions carefully and feed senior horses separately if needed.
Monitoring weight & body condition
Regular monitoring will help you spot gradual changes and identify whether any changes in diet are necessary.
Remember, rugs and thick winter coats can hide a multitude of sins so remove them regularly!
Provided they are not laminitic, allowing poor doers to enter the winter at a body condition score of 6/ 9 can help to buffer excess weight loss.
Rugs
Making sure poor doers are appropriately rugged in cold weather helps to ensure they don’t waste valuable energy (calories) keeping warm. That said, getting too hot can affect appetite and may contribute to weight loss too! Did you know that some senior horses have difficulty regulating their body temperature and may need their rugs changed more frequently?