World Class Nutrition,
World Class Results

Feeding To Put Condition On

26 October 2006

After a long and busy season, fit competition horses, especially those still living out, may need extra condition before the winter well and truly arrives! Rapidly decreasing temperatures at night and ever-diminishing amounts of grass have resulted in many calls to our feed help line asking for advice on suitable conditioning diets.

At this point, I should mention the importance of regularly weight taping and condition scoring horses. Learning how to condition score accurately should form the foundation of any equine management programme. Regularly weighing and condition scoring your horse not only helps you to calculate his daily feed requirements, but accurate assessment of his weight will also enable you to administer proper doses of wormers and other medications. Keeping track of your horse's weight and condition can also help you to identify potential health issues before they become a problem.

In order to put condition on a horse you need to increase his intake of digestible energy to provide more than that required to keep warm, active and maintain body condition. Horses lose large amounts of heat from their bodies, which is 'wasted' energy. When it is cold, wet and windy horses' feed requirements may increase by up to 40%, so if your horse has a tendency to drop off condition quickly or you currently wish to improve it then it is worth providing a lightweight rug at night. Older horses are particularly susceptible to drops in temperature. The table below illustrates the increased energy requirements of horses in inclement weather versus the normal horse.

Table 1. Effects of wind and rain on digestible energy requirements for horses at maintenance.*

* Adapted from Anderson, 2003.
** May not be able to consume enough hay to meet requirements.