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Discussion on Reduce Concentrate in Winter?
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Member:
Terrilyn
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov 10, 2004 - 9:44 am:
At a meeting last night of our local saddle club, we had a speaker from Blue Seal feeds who gave a presentation on equine nutrition. One of the questions he asked was this: "Do you raise or lower your grain ration in the winter?" Several people said "LOWER," quite emphatically. The feed rep said yes, it was correct to lower a horse's grain ration in winter. I disagreed and people looked at me like I was crazy. I said I'd been slightly increasing grain in winter for years, and that it was not intended to take the place of increased forage for heat production(WHICH I DO), but that I had never heard of decreasing it...the article on this site on "Feeding Concentrates and Cereal Grains to Horses" clearly states that you should consider "a 10% increase for every extra light coat or sweater you'd have to put on to stay comfortable outside." Am I missing something? What rationale would support reducing grain in cold weather, all things being equal in your regular routine with a mature horse on maintenance? Thanks, as always.
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Member:
Goolsby
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov 10, 2004 - 12:24 pm:
I agree with you Terri, but i've always thought of it as reducing their grain in the summer.
Colleen
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Member:
Terrilyn
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov 10, 2004 - 1:08 pm:
Yep, me too Colleen. I DrOp it back in summer as we have plenty of grass....and always keep an eye on overall condition for any adjustments that need to be made...
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov 10, 2004 - 5:30 pm:
Hmmm Terri, this is one of the questions that does not have a single answer and varies from climate to climate and horseowner to horseowner but the guy lecturing on feeding ought to have his license taken away implying one size fits all...
There is no doubt that, all other things being equal, a horse's energy needs increase with colder weather. Also, horses on pasture have poorer quality forage in the winter requiring an increase in protein and other nutrients to make up for decreased nutrient concentration. The other side of this equation involves work. Most horses do less work in the winter because they are not ridden as much so less energy is needed for work.
The balance of increased need for heat production, decreased pasture nutrients, and changing work determine whether horses need increases of feed and what type feed that should be.
With my horses a 25% increase in the concentrate is about right to maintain there condition. Past experience and record keeping allows us to accurately guess this change before the horses start to loose weight. The point here is you need to always follow our golden rule when feeding horses, for more see Care for Horses » Nutrition » Equine Nutrition an Overview of Feeding Horses.
DrO
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Member:
Ajudson1
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 11, 2004 - 9:21 am:
First time I ever heard of decreasing any of the horses feed over the winter. With adult horses they may only get grass all summer if it's plentiful. Young ones get sweet feed year round until age 3. I've made the mistake many yrs though of not starting grain til later in the winter (with the older horses). This year I started earlier, worked up to a max amount, and I am thinking that by the coldest part of the winter, all should be nicely "padded", and by then I should be on a maintenance schedule of a moderate amount of grain, and as much hay as the weather dictates.
As DrO points out, keeping records from year to year will tell you when to change feed amounts and what works for each horse.
I always think of a quote an old cowboy friend of mine told me concerning people telling you what to do with horses:
"always ask why?" why are they telling you to do this, or do that? (or use this bit, or that bit as was the instance he told me about) can they back up what they are saying?
I'd like to know what that guys reasoning was for decreasing concentrate in the winter.
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Member:
Alden
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 11, 2004 - 10:42 am:
Maybe this guy sees a lot of fat horses? How cold does it get in VA and are the horses exposed to the elements or blanketed.
I would say 90% of the horses at my old stables in the California desert that received grain were fat, some obscenely so. Most of these people feed grain because someone somewhere said horses must have it. The other problem was they stopped riding when the weather DrOpped below 50 degrees F and made the horse wear a blanket! My horses did just fine with lots of hay and no grain, no blankets, ever (they had shelters but seldom used them). I take that back, I was training one horse for endurance riding and I was riding him so much I had to feed grain to maintain his weight.
Now I'm living on the Colorado west slope and so far they are maintaining just fine on grass/alfalfa and a couple pounds of Strategy, and the weather has been in the teens at night. As this is our first winter I may have to increase concentrates, we'll see.
I'm thinking that the mistake this speaker is making is saying as a rule to decrease the grain, because every horse and every situation is different that isn't correct. Just a month ago I was feeding 12 horses and six mules in a mountain hunting camp. The poor horses couldn't eat any more grain than what we were giving them and some were still loosing weight, we had to pull a couple and send them down to the base camp for a rest. But what was really interesting was the mules worked just as hard, eat less, and were on the verge of being fat! So rules generally don't work well, except for the 'feeding for condition' rule of course.
Good day,
Alden
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Member:
Terrilyn
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004 - 1:34 pm:
Thanks for the comments above...to answer the question of what the reasoning was for reducing grain in winter....he stated that the increased need for feed should be met by increasing the forage and because horses were generally less active, less grain was called for. Instead of approaching it from an energy/calorie needs perspective and the needs of individual horses, he concentrated more on the fact that hay produced more heat. Several nutritional "facts" and concepts the spokesperson shared were not quite in line with nutritional guidelines on this site. My main concern with his winter feeding statement, which is voiced very well in the comments here, is that he presented it as a hard and fast rule. Despite my attempts to make the case that it's a complex subject with many answers, (I'm a wimp!) he really made me feel like a ninny!
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004 - 7:00 pm:
Hello Terri,
This is a great point: hay does produces extra heat due to the action of microbial fermentation. Horses on a limited forage diet would benefit from having their forage increased. However our feed recommendations are already to feed as much forage as a horse will eat. The lesson here is that diets must be looked at in there entirety and the final evaluation of quality and quanity is by assessing the results: the condition of the horse.
DrO
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Member:
Terrilyn
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Posted on Thursday, Nov 18, 2004 - 12:13 pm:
Dr. O--
Since I'm the secretary for our saddle club and am responsible for the monthly newsletter, guess who gets the last word on this discussion?  Thanks for the guidance. After consulting numerous sources, I put together an article that addressed this topic and several others that came up at the meeting. (The wisdom of always feeding hay before grain was also presented as fact, and an excellent article called Horse Feeding Myths and Misconceptions by Lori K. Warren (www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/ $department/deptdocs.nsf/all/hrs3243) does not hold that to be true.) Thanks for your help.
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