Question

I have two senior horses that are not very active. I have been told that they should receive no grain. They have good hay, and the pasture is good. They have access to salt. Does season make a difference? Grain or no grain?

Answer

Nutritional recommendations depend on individual horses. Assuming your two senior horses can maintain moderate to moderately fleshy body condition (scores of 5, 6, or 7 on the familiar body condition score chart) on only forage, there may be no need to feed a typical textured or pelleted feed. Many older horses will do exceptionally well on good-quality pasture and hay. An all-forage diet, however, does not provide all of the nutrients well-nourished horses require for optimal health. To provide vitamin and minerals, use a mineralized salt formulated specifically for horses, a vitamin and mineral supplement, or balancer pellets. These products would supply the nutrients missing in forage without the additional (or unnecessary) energy in a full serving of feed.

Periodic measurement of body condition can help you monitor weight as seasons change. If you make it a point to run your hands along each horse’s ribcage every week or so, you will be able to detect changes in weight, and then you can adjust the diet to provide more energy. Some older horses may drop weight in winter on hay-only diets, and should this be the case with one or both of your horses, you would need to look into adding a feed back into the diet. As long as feed changes are made slowly over a period of a week or two, there is no problem whatsoever with offering horses feed only during certain times of the year, such as in late fall, winter, or early spring.

If a feed is necessary to maintain weight, either seasonally or at all times, check out textured and pelleted products made specifically for senior horses. Much research has been done on age-related changes of the gastrointestinal tract and its efficiency. Equine nutritionists formulate these feeds to meet the nutritional requirements of ageing horses. One key feature of many senior feeds is an assortment of energy sources, including fat and fermentable fiber.

Older horses should have their teeth examined yearly for potential problems and should be maintained on an effective deworming program.