By Sarah Welk Baynum
Fall is one of the biggest seasons of change when it comes to equine nutrition. Moving into winter, there are a number of things horse owners should consider and begin planning for during the fall months—especially for those in colder climates.
Along with the pasture grass changing, there might also be a change in your horse’s workload to consider for both easy and hard keepers. For example, if it has been too hot to ride very often during the late summer and early fall, you might find you’re working your horse more once temperatures start to cool off.
All of these factors should be kept in mind when considering the calories and changes your horse needs during this transitional season.
Fall to Winter Changes with Pasture Grass
If you have horses that live in a dry lot year-round, you might only be dealing with using up last year's hay and moving into next year’s hay. For many horses though, they’ve spent months grazing out on lush pasture grass in the summer, which was a significant part of their diet.
In the fall, the number of calories provided through pasture grass is limited. Even though there's still grass out in the pastures, the quality of that grass changes this time of year. This is because it gets very hot in the late summer and early fall in certain climates. Grasses like orchard grass, timothy, brome, and bluegrass are going to be a lot less productive, and the pasture isn’t growing as quickly and it's not going to be as calorie dense.
If your region also hasn’t had much rain during this season, you may also start to see some horses losing body condition. This is because even though they might be going out for half or even most of the day grazing, they're not getting nearly as many calories from the grass anymore.
Once the temperature starts to cool off in later fall months, the pasture grass becomes a bit more productive, provided they've not been too overgrazed. During this part of fall, there is suddenly fresh grass growth because of cooler sunny days and colder nights. This raises a concern for things like laminitis risk, just like in the spring.
There is also a potential increase for horses choking on grain this time of year. Likely, this is because they're out grazing, but there's not a lot of grass. This means they can be a bit hungrier and more aggressive with their feed if you’re not supplementing with hay early enough in the fall.
This is another reason you want to be mindful that just because they're outside grazing, they still might not be getting enough calories and fiber from the pasture that you have left this time of year.
As such, there are a few types of horses that should be watched a bit more closely during this type of pasture grass change: the easy keepers, the metabolically prone horses, and the hard keepers.
Nutrition Strategies for Easy Keepers Going into Winter
For easy keepers that have spent significant time on pasture grass, they might have a little extra weight going into fall. It’s going be harder to help easy keepers lose weight during the winter, because oftentimes, exercise decreases (you’re typically riding less), and they're not getting as much natural exercise from being out to pasture. This means it’s imperative to start working on safe weight loss during the fall because there's still a minimum quantity of fiber (forage) that they will need in the winter.
Once you transition them to hay only, unless you’re dramatically cutting their calories short term to lose weight, horses will still need at least 1.5% of their body weight in forage to support good digestive health.
Start by managing the horse’s calorie intake, and maybe keep the grazing muzzle on, even if the pasture looks overgrazed. When the sugar levels in the grass are at their highest this time of year, it’s important to keep this in mind for metabolic-issue prone horses.
Using a ration balancer, like Essential K® or Wholesome Blends® Balancer, can help with this weight loss process. These ration balancers are a great way to provide essential nutrients in a much smaller quantity and without the additional calories.
Nutrition Strategies for Hard Keepers Going into Winter
With hard keepers, it’s equally important to start assessing their weight in the fall and start a nutrition strategy right away to help them put weight on now (if needed) versus in the colder months.
Since the pastures are less productive and grazed down, hard keepers could start to lose some weight this time of year, so be mindful of your pasture quality.
An important thing to think about is supplementing more with hay sooner rather than later, since you can’t rely on pasture grass to provide additional calories and that portion of their diet anymore.
With hard keepers, you don’t want them to be calorie deficient going into the colder months, because it’s even harder to put weight on them when they are burning extra calories to stay warm. Horses can burn 10% - 30% more energy to stay warm depending on how cold and windy it is. In these cases, it’s best to increase the amount of forage they’re eating versus grain. This is because horses are hindgut fermenters, meaning the fiber is fermented in the hindgut, and fermentation creates heat to help naturally keep them warmer.
In addition to adding more forage in the fall, if you have a horse who might already be dropping weight, a more calorie dense feed might be an option to fill this deficit quickly. Feeds that are high fat and high fiber, such as Senior Sport™ or Synergize™, are great options since it gets harder to put weight on hard keeping horses once we're deep into winter.
Other Equine Nutritional Considerations for the Fall to Winter Transition
Even though it’s no longer hot, and horses aren’t sweating significantly, dehydration in horses is still something to keep in mind during the fall and winter.
Since grass contains more water than hay, horses will drink more water when transitioning off pasture grass even though the temperatures are lower. Thus, you might need to fill their water buckets up more frequently than you would anticipate.
Horses prefer their water to be a little warmer, at about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. They won’t want to drink as much when their water is very cold. Doing a quick check to ensure your heated buckets are working properly and safely is important to ensure horses are drinking enough.
Adding access to a salt block or adding an electrolyte to one of their water buckets during the colder months can also be good practices.
Fall is also a great time to have your vet out for a wellness check and fecal egg count. Fecal egg counts will give you a good idea of the intestinal parasite burden on your horse, and help you do rotational deworming appropriately before winter. For the hard keepers, this is vital so that they aren’t dealing with worm loads and losing any additional weight because of it.
While your vet is out for that fall checkup, it’s also a great time to screen for PPID (Cushing’s disease) if you suspect your horse may have this condition because there is data that suggests you can catch early signs of it in the fall. Since there is a seasonal rise in ACTH, the hormone measured for PPID, this is the perfect time to test since horses might not test positive other times of the year.
In summary, make sure you wash those horse blankets, sharpen your clipper blades, and get a great nutrition plan for your horse as soon as possible this fall!
