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  Discussion on Reducing belly for show
Author Message
Member:
drlarry

Posted on Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010 - 12:57 pm:

I was reading the general nutrition article, since somebody put a bug in my ear regarding alfalfa. I've never been crazy about it, and then I learned a little about legumes and the thyroid, and - - boy oh boy is there ever a lot to learn!!
When I was feeding bermuda bale hay, everybody was a little underweight. I switched to bermuda/alfalfa pellets, everyone bloomed very nicely. But now I realize my four-year-old gelding has a hay belly that I'd like to see gone, and you mentioned in the article that changes could be made - but I didn't read any specifics. Can you talk a little about how to firm up this fella? He's getting more activity than he likes, but he's surely not working hard. Thanks!
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Feb 11, 2010 - 9:24 am:

Larry what connection between alfalfa and thyroid are we talking about?

Concerning the hay belly is the horses condition fleshy or heavier and therefore may be fat or is the condition moderate and the hay belly most likely do to a high roughage diet?
DrO
Member:
cmatexas

Posted on Thursday, Feb 11, 2010 - 1:49 pm:

While I have no information about thyroid issues, I can give some anecdotal information about alfalfa. We have several halter horses (quarters and paints) in our herd :-):-). During show season (and the fitting period before it) those horses get both alfalfa pellets and alfalfa hay along with feed and supplements. One gelding has a tendency to get "soggy" - meaning he will develop a hay belly from roughage. He NEVER gets anything but alfalfa and the grass he can nibble on during turnout. That keeps him more trim in the belly. The other gelding does not have that problem, so he gets a little high quality coastal hay to munch on to pass the time, and to reduce my costs a little. In our experience, baled alfalfa does not cause a bloated belly due to roughage that we see in our other horses eating coastal hay. I have never seen a problem with alfalfa pellets either.

However, alfalfa will pack on the pounds pretty quickly, and some horses are like humans - they carry their weight as a spare tire, and some spread it out all over. ;)-

Just a side note - in our experience, alfalfa is the only roughage fed to most show horses around here, and I have never heard of it causing any problems in the horses, just the owner's wallet.
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