Welcome to Wilma's Weight Loss Journey! For a couple years, I've been saying "if the perfect blue roan mare comes across my path I'd snatch her up". Well, I found her! She arrived at the Sullivan Horse Farm just two days ago, but my oh my is she fatter than I expected! She's a solid 8/9 fat on the Henneke Body Condition Scoring System and needs to lose about 140 lbs. I think it's actually MUCH harder to make a fat horse skinnier than it is to make a skinny horse fat, but, ironically, good information about how to do it is rare. I’m going to share the process with you in a series of articles. This first article is about gathering data and forming a plan. Next week, after I get the results of my forage test, we'll talk about how to balance the diet with calories first. Then, in Part III, I'll discuss the use of slow feed devices such as grazing muzzles.
Step #1: How bad is it?
The very first step is to gather measurable data and pictures to record your progress. You can't know which direction and how far to go without knowing where you are starting from. So, on the morning of Day 1 of Wilma's Weight Loss Journey, I pulled out my weight tape, phone app, digital scale, and calculator and set to work. The following list of measurements will give me confidence and clarity in an effective yet safe and healthy diet.
A) How much does Wilma weigh?
There are several ways to estimate a horse's current weight. You can use a weight tape around the girth area, calculate it with a lengthxgirth equation, punch some numbers into an app, or put a horse on a digital scale at your vet's office. Whenever possible, I like to compare results of at least two of the four options above to give me confidence in the numbers. I have the updated Purina weight tapes which are surprisingly accurate when the horse is over 1,100 lbs. The weight tape said she was about 1,430 lbs, and I believe it! I also experimented with two body types in The Healthy Horse App by University of Minnesota. I started with the Draft type equation (Results: Actual Weight 1,450 lbs, Ideal Weight 1,365 lbs), but was more confident when I plugged the same numbers into the Stock Horse type equation (Results: Actual Weight 1,408 lbs, Ideal Weight 1,273 lbs). As you can see, the estimated app weights were only off by 20 lbs either direction which is great, but I thought it was more likely that her ideal weight is around 1,273 lbs rather than 1,365 lbs. Plus, she is actually far more quarter horse than draft.
B) What is her body condition score?
Body condition scoring is one of the most powerful, but overlooked tools in your nutrition toolbox. There are many great resources online explaining this system, so I won't do it here, but Wilma gives us a great example of what an obese 8 looks like on the Henneke Body Condition Scoring System! A horse just doesn't get a lot fatter than this. I plugged my results of weight and body condition score into The Equestrian App where I will be tracking her weight over time on a bar graph provided by the app- look for "weight tracker". You can find more information about these apps in the links at the bottom of this page.
C) What is Wilma's risk for laminitis?
Ultimately, obesity increases a horse's risk for laminitis and that is why we should be terrified for chronically obese horses. In diet planning, it’s helpful to ask, "what is the level risk" in order to determine how many resources and how much time we need to budget? You can answer this question by considering a) the horse's breed and age, b) the horse's history of disease, c) blood insulin and glucose levels, d) weight/body condition score, e) level of activity, and even f) pasture conditions. Considering all of those factors, I think Wilma's risk is somewhere between low to moderate. I haven't had her glucose or insulin checked, but I might consider it this fall, so that I know how careful that I need to be with pasture restriction.
D) How much does my average hay flake weigh?
The last number that I need in order to sit down and do the real work is the "average flake weight". I need to calculate her expected intake range in order to understand how much to feed that will facilitate weight loss. I opened up three different hay bales and extracted what looked and felt like an average flake. I placed them into a hay net one by one and took their weights minus the weight of the hay net. Then, I averaged them and got about 5.9 lbs per flake. I don't yet know the caloric density of this grass hay, but I should soon. I sent off a good representative sample to the lab last week.
Step #2: What is her expected intake for weight loss?
Now that I've gathered some good data, I can start crunching the numbers and deciding how much to feed her in the following weeks. My weight loss goal for Wilma is to go from an 8 to a 6 on the Henneke Body Condition Scoring System in about 6-8 months. That's 2 body condition scores or about 140 lbs (0.78 lbs per day). In order to facilitate that weight loss with moderate quality grass hay, I figure I'll have to restrict total daily intake to about 1.7 to 1.5% of her ideal body weight depending on how aggressive I want to be with that weight loss. *Read more about intake in “How Much is Enough” by OCEN, LLC.
With an ideal body weight goal of 1,273 pounds, I could start by feeding her 21.6 lbs total of pasture, hay, feed/supplements. One pound of that is going to be a ration balancer. If 20.6 lbs is hay only, then I could feed her 3.5 flakes of grass hay (they are big, heavy flakes remember). However, since about 1/3rd of that will be grass pasture (0.75 lb dry matter per hour with a grazing muzzle), I need to restrict her hay diet to about 2.3 flakes per day. I'll be able to confirm these number with more accuracy when I know the relative feed value of the hay I purchased.
Now, I'm aware that there is a very insistent "free-choice" feeding fever going around on the internet today. I know this, because many of my clients came to me because they have used this method and failed to initiate weight loss. The very VERY simple bit of knowledge that is sadly missing in the online forums about free-choice feeding is caloric density. If the caloric density of your hay is low enough, then YES, free-choice feeding is ideal even for obese horses. The problem is that horse owners buy their hay using the wrong factors and end up with very high calorie hay. When you have very palatable, high quality hay, you will fail 100% of the time to initiate weight loss using free-choice feeding. What really get's me bellowing from my soap box is the implicit prioritization of ulcer prevention over laminitis prevention which boggles my mind! It's very simple- horses die from laminitis every day, but horses don't die from ulcers. Ulcers are curable, laminitis is not. Please spread the word on your online chats! If you want to free-choice your hay, then buy hay with a relative feed value less than 90 and maybe as low as 75!
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Step #3: Gather your nutrition tools
One day I'm going to start a movement to swap the "easy keeper" and "hard keeper" jargon! The fatties require far more time, energy and maintenance tools than the skinnies, and I'm not convinced that they are really cheaper to feed! Because I need lower quality/calorie hay, I have to shop a little harder and have some confusing conversations with hay growers to find the right fit. I’ll spend about $140 to test two batches of hay. Because of the forage restriction, I'm going to have to deploy some devices to prevent ulcers and keep Wilma mentally stimulated. I've got a bright pink GreenGuard grazing muzzle ordered. I already own a few different slow feed hay nets including a couple 1.25" inch diameter Hay Pillows, a large bale net, and several hanging nets for when she has shoes. I'll talk more about their use in part 3.
If your horse is stalled, you might consider other enrichment like multiple kinds of salt licks, toys, hay balls, and automated hay feeders. *See my article “3 Arguments for Automated Hay Feeders” for more details.
SUMMARY
Because Wilma has been a bit anxious since her arrival, I'm going to give her a week or two to settle before I start restricting her intake to 1.7% of ideal body weight. Because she has not foundered before, I consider her laminitis risk low to moderate, so it's not going to hurt her to be a obese for a couple more weeks while she settles in. She's already stressed by the new environment, schedule, feed, herd mates, sights and smells, which predisposes her to colic and ulcers. Therefore, I'll keep a moderate quality grass hay in front of her 24/7 and wait patiently for the forge test results and grazing muzzle to arrive.
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