Feeding the poor doer
Article from 'Straight from the Horse's Mouth' - March 2009
Supplied by NRM
This month we have a special feature on feeding the 'poor doer', including options around getting and keeping condition on horses that are normally on the light side.
Sometimes, trying to get weight on a poor doer can feel like banging your head against a wall. Whilst all around can be lush green paddocks and neighbouring horses appear round and fl eshy with nothing but a sniff of grain, the poor doers are not as well covered as they should be and in the worst instances bear an uncanny resemblance to a coat rack! What causes this? How can there be such a difference between these underweight horses and their paddock mates, when they are being fed the same amount and all conditions are the same?
Reasons for weight loss
Just like humans, some horses are metabolically inclined to be poor doers, whilst others have medical, physical and environmental reasons for having difficulty maintaining weight.
Anxious or nervous behaviour is an obvious cause for weight loss. Addressing the cause of this nervous behaviour will have positive effects on weight gain. Other reasons, not to be overlooked, include psychological and environmental problems.
Pasture quality is another area that can affect weight gain. While some paddocks may appear to be abundant in grass, often during this time of the year much of the goodness is gone from the grass so chances are the level of nutritional intake is lacking. Addressing this is as simple as performing a soil test and substituting feed levels with products such as hay or grain feed.
Insufficient caloric intake is another cause of weight loss in horses. There are various reasons for caloric deficiency including some which are easy to diagnose and correct (e.g. parasite burden, teeth problems) and some which may be impossible to diagnose without expensive veterinary exploration (e.g. physical problems with the digestive tract).
Increasing the caloric intake of the horse is a good way to solve many of these problems as long as careful attention is paid to the type of foodstuffs offered to the horse. Manipulation of the amount and variety of energy sources will often achieve the ideal body condition on the poor doer.
How to gain weight on your thin horse
Ensure you develop a good worming programme. If you want to get a good baseline to start with, have your veterinarian test the horse's faeces sample, then you can match the type of wormer for the parasite. Be wary of immunity build up which can cause some wormers to become less effective.
Have an experienced and qualified horse dentist check the horse's teeth. If your horse spills a lot of his feed it could be a simple dental treatment that is required.
Check your pasture quality and consider the amount of forage (grass, hay, etc) the horse is receiving. Also assess the level of work the horse is doing and then develop a feed plan around these elements. If any factors change, for example the work rate increases or pasture diminishes, then you will most likely need to increase the volume of feed.
Sometimes, increasing a horse's weight and condition can be as simple as adding more calories to the diet to meet his physical requirements. Other times, you may need to feed more calories than the horse actually needs to make up for physiological or environmental problems that cause him to either use more energy or reduce the amount of energy he can absorb from the feed. If you are feeding grain, ensure you also feed bulk chaff with it. This aids in digestion and prevents the horse from gulping the feed.
Talk to the team at RD1 for nutritional advice on how to manage the amount and variety of energy sources in order to achieve the ideal body condition of your 'poor doer'.
Some productsmay not be available in all stores but can be ordered on request. Disclaimer: Any views and comments expressed in this article are not necessarily the opinions of RD1 Limited nor associated agencies. This content is copyright of RD1 Limited.
