|
by Ryan Gingerich
I have found that there are many horse people who are prone to feeding their horses an excessive amount of sweet feed and hay that’s high in protein, such as alfalfa. Obviously any kind of high carbohydrate diet will cause the horse to have excess energy, mostly the kind that they can’t use, since most horses are under-worked.
You wouldn’t feed candy bars to a child with any kind of hyperactive disorder, and yet horse people don’t seem to see the correlation. We know that the hyperactive child who is fed lots of sugar will exemplify even more behavioral issues. So why can’t horse people understand that feeding a horse an unbalanced diet that isn’t appropriate for the amount of work he does can (and will) lead to behavioral problems in the horse?
From the research I’ve read, horses were designed to live on a poor quality forage, not the rich and luscious grasses and baled hays that we feed today. Their bodies, including their intestinal system and feet, were designed to process forage that was high in roughage and low in just about everything else. Feeding a horse a diet high in carbohydrates will create a glucose variance in their blood, followed by a spike of insulin. These excesses need to be processed by the body, including through the liver and kidneys. When this happens you end up getting horses that exhibit something like a hypoglycemic state, and they become ravishingly hungry more than a typical situation.
This diet imbalance may lead to behaviors such as stall weaving, cribbing, wood chewing and all those vices that we find annoying and are actually debilitating to the horse’s physical well-being as well as his mental well-being.
With horses that are “amped-up,” when you try to ride them they will most likely exhibit abhorrent behavior that most sane people want to avoid — bucking, rearing, jigging — the list goes on. They’ll certainly have issues with their “stop cue,” which really makes it a miserable ride for most people.
An unbalanced ration also leads to metabolic changes in the horse’s body which can cause a wide variety of problems (some of them potentially fatal) like colic, founder, insulin resistance, tying-up syndrome (azoturia), Cushings, and all kinds of foot issues.
Another problem with feeding large quantities of high-concentrated grain is that there will be an abnormal amount of acid production in the horse’s stomach, which will cause gastric ulcers. When the acid travels to the colon, it’s also possible that the horse will develop colonic ulcers. I remember a study with several hundred horses fed large quantities of high-concentrated grain that showed that almost 90% of the horses had either gastric or both gastric and colonic ulcers. These horses tended to have discomfort accompanied by other physical and mental/behavioral issues.
When I was involved with my Thoroughbred program called “Fresh Start” I found that these ex-race horses, largely due to the fact that they’re cooped up in stalls for 23 hours of every day and fed concentrated rations, exhibited ulcer symptoms and ulcer-related problems.
Many behavioral problems we see in horses can be traced back to a nutritional imbalance; they’re being over-fed, and they’re being fed too rich a diet. And they’re not exercised enough nor are they turned out enough.
So what do I do with my horses? At the farm we feed a mineral supplement, crimped oats, and a high quality Timothy hay. From all the research I’ve read, a high quality Timothy is the best type of hay to feed horses. They readily digest it and their bodies can “use” it more readily. Finally, I also feed an oil combination (coconut and soy bean). This helps slow down the sugar intake and glucose processing in the horse’s blood, prolonging the steadiness of the glucose levels in the horse.
So my advice is to stay away from an all-alfalfa hay diet (it also doesn’t measure up to the proper calcium/phosphorus ratio for the horse’s diet), re-assess your horse’s need for any kind of grain or concentrated feed, and truthfully review your horse’s exercise program.
Again, many behavioral issues can be traced back to a feed imbalance or just a plain wrong feeding program. If you feed a high carbohydrate ration (concentrated feed), pack the horse with alfalfa, then stick him in a 10x10 stall for 23 hours a day, I can guarantee you that you’re going to have problems with that horse — physical and behavioral problems. And as a sidebar, you’ll have your own physical and behavioral problems: You’ll get dumped or hurt, and your behavior may turn to anger and fear.
So if your horse is exhibiting negative behavioral problems, start with a truthful analysis of what he’s being fed (you might want to chat with your veterinarian about the horse’s feed ration), then turn on the DVD player and put in a Ryan Gingerich DVD so you can figure out the rest of the solution!
For more information please visit: http://ryangingerich.com
|
