The Horse

JUN 2017

The Horse:Your Guide To Equine Health Care provides monthly equine health care information to horse owners, breeders, veterinarians, barn/farm managers, trainer/riding instructors, and others involved in the hands-on care of the horse.

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35 June 2017 THE HORSE TheHorse.com NUTRITION DIANE RICE TheHorse.com/Nutrition D o you struggle with a horse that's "feeling his oats"? You're not alone. Equine nutritionist and Rutgers University equine extension specialist Carey Williams, PhD, says the question she most fre- quently hears involves a horse that's hyper-reactive or hyperex- citable. "Is there anything I can do with his feed to calm him down?" they typically ask. As it turns out, there's a lot you can do with your horse's feed to calm him, combat behavioral problems and ste- reotypies, and more. Much of it involves what you feed; some involves how you feed (manage- ment); and some involves what you do in conjunction with feeding (socialization, medical management, exercise). Many factors contribute to your horse's behavior: his instinct, genetics, environment, health, and comfort are chief among them. So what's the basis for your particular horse's problem? "You really need to know the horse's natural behav- ior first to find out if anything else (besides diet changes) will work," says Williams. Determining the root cause of any problem can take trial and error, so be patient. Find a baseline first, then formulate a plan. Read on to learn more about how you can influence your horse's behavior through feed management and ingredients. Imitate Nature In the wild horses graze 16-plus hours each day, choosing from a variety of for- ages and socializing and exercising with companions along the way. When Mother Nature provides sufficient moisture for a plentiful food supply, it's a life of autonomy and low stress, except for the occasional threat from predators or for herd dominance. Horses grazing in their natural envi- ronment might encounter some cereal grains as they roam, but for the most part their diet is one of grasses—grasses they choose. How does that picture of nature compare to your horse's diet and feeding routine? If your horse performs anything more than light work, his feed must deliver more energy than pure pasture might provide. And without realizing it, when we feed the low-forage, high-grain diet that's common for performance horses today, we deprive them of many of the beneficial social and physi- ological aspects of eating. We often isolate them from other horses and feed a single source of hay, which they consume in under an hour. They don't chew as often as they would if they were grazing. They're confined to a stall or paddock, meaning we limit their natural exercise, too. How can we compensate for the changes we've made in our horses' lifestyles through domestication? The first thing we can do is imitate nature's feeds and feed- ing model as much as possible. Carissa Wickens, PhD, equine behaviorist and equine exten- sion specialist at the University of Florida, in Gainesville, recent- ly visited a large Warmblood training facility in Denmark, where staff offered different types of forages in each meal. "There were some types of legume hay and some types of grass hay," she says. "This allows horses to visit each of the flakes, even if they had a favorite forage. So sometimes—especially if a horse has to be in a stall for a longer period of time or if you don't have a lot of acreage to rotate pastures—enriching a horse's environ- ment by strategically placing some differ- ent types of forage around the paddock can get them to spend more time foraging, which can encourage good behavior." Adding Fuel to the Fire? How and what you feed your horse might help calm him and combat behavioral problems. ISABELLE ARNON What and how you're feeding your horse could be causing undesirable behavior

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