Your horse may have enjoyed grazing and roaming over large paddocks through winter.
However, be prepared to make dietary changes and restrictions come spring and autumn or whenever grass is green and growing.
Your horses hard feed regime will also need a reassessment to reflect current grass, body condition and workload.
These are some of the problems owners often encounter with changes in grass:
Problem: Sudden unmanageable behaviour
Problem: Grumpy gut (digestive upsets), runny manure
HOW TO FIX:
Reduce grass intake with strip grazing or restrict access to grass to control the amount of grass consumed.
It is important all horses and ponies receive hay daily, ideally ad lib or morning and night. Green growing grass is rich in sugar and calories and next to no fibre.
Adding hay will also slow grass consumption, buffer the gut and reduce digestive upsets (the rapid fermentation of grass sugars).
Low magnesium levels often result from rapidly growing green grass due to the high uptake of N, P, K (Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium) by the grass. This results in less available magnesium for your horse.
It is important during times of rapid grass growth that additional magnesium be considered.
Magnesium replaces the nutrient shortfall and also has a calming effect on your horses nervous system resulting in a calmer horse.
Digest Easi PLUS has a dual effect helping to settle a grumpy gut and restore gut and digestive balance. As well as a mycotoxin binder profile supporting all horses on pasture.
Use in conjunction with a high fibre diet.
Re-assess current hard feed rations. To keep the diet balanced you may need to change your current hard feed as it could be supplying too many nutrients, sugars and calories now that your horse has some access to greener pasture.
Consider bodyweight, workload and current pasture when selecting additional hard feed.
Never remove your horse or pony from grass or restrict without providing hay. As a lack of feed through the gut will slow metabolism, encourage stomach ulcers and also colic. Then once allowed back they will make up for lost time and gorge, defeating the purpose of restriction.
Problem: Over-eating or eating too quickly
The digestive system is unable to cope with a large amount of undigested sugars. This causes rapid fermentation and a die off of good gut bacteria. This will certainly lead to a digestive upset or laminitis, colic and/or overweight horses.
The amount of grass needs to be controlled for all horses and balanced with hay, straw or haylage to encourage chew time and slow the rush of feed.
Grazing needs to be managed so feed intake is not excessive.
HOW TO FIX:
When grass is actively growing and green (lush), access must be controlled. Smaller ponies, however, may need a much shorter window to prevent overeating or consuming too many calories.
Most horses strip grazed do well on a little fresh pasture (strip) each morning, with the remainder as hay to avoid overeating. Smaller ponies or those with weight issues will need strict monitoring and only small areas of grass, with hay.
Susceptible ponies – those that are exceptionally good doers, have weight issues or prone to laminitis may need to be on a dry lot (with no grass) and fed a hay only diet. A track system is also a good way to manage ponies whilst encouraging movement.
Any diet on restriction should have a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement added to make up nutritional shortfall. Omega oils and protein also may need to be added to ensure all nutritional requirements are met. As hay alone will not meet daily requirements for vitamins and other nutrients.
Sudden weather changes from rain to hot sunny days and vice versa causes pasture fluctuations. The surge in sugars and nutrients can be overwhelming to the horses’ delicate gut balance.
Problem: Cold snaps and overnight frosts leading to stressed pastures and ingestion of unbalanced nutrients, high sugar, fructans, mycotoxins and potential rye grass staggers
HOW TO FIX:
Changeable weather patterns can lead to stressed grass causing an abundance of fructans (undigestible sugars), spikes in potassium and nitrogen to mycotoxins and rye grass staggers.
It’s best to not overgraze paddocks such as grazing to ground level. This damages the root structure, slows grass growth causing stress and health issues. It will also ruin pasture taking much longer to re-establish and grow which can be a problem when rotating paddocks too.
If possible, always allow grass to be a few centimetres in height to avoid grass stress. This will however mean good doers, or the laminitis prone horses and ponies will still need strict monitoring and shorter graze times.
The best time to graze is early morning when sugars are at their lowest. However, after frosts and cold snaps, be aware sugars are not used up by the grass, so during these times, sugars become higher in the morning. It is then better to graze later in the day when temperatures warm up and the grass uses up the stored sugar. During these times keep plenty of hay accessible in place of grass, to ward off any digestive upsets.
If grazing very short pasture, be aware the nutrient composition is unbalanced in the grasses bid to grow! The uptake of N, P, K by the grass is therefore high, which your horse in-turn consumes.
To help rebalance your horse during fast growing grass, feed 1 tablespoon of salt daily (per 500 Kg horse) and also magnesium. The salt requirements will also increase for working and sweating horses.
Weather can change quickly which will affect the grass composition of nutrients and sugars. A frost or cold snap will result in higher levels of unused sugars and fructans (indigestible sugars) that are then consumed by your horse or pony.
Be weather wise! and make adjustments to your horses grazing regime. Always add more hay if your are not too sure about the grass status and the weather situation.
The benefits of hay can never be understimated! hay is a great way to settle the gut, add fibre, add chew time, slow feed consumption and correct a grumpy gut and digestive system. Hay should be part of your horse or ponies daily feed regime for all grazing animals.
If grass is long, browned off and stalky then this can take place of hay. However, if grass is green! add hay!
These are some of the problems owners often encounter:
Problem: Sudden unmanageable behaviour
Problem: Grumpy gut and runny manure
Never underestimate how quickly and how much grass your horse can consume!
Over eating can cause a fatal colic, laminitis and obesity so is very important to manage all equines come spring or autumn! That means controlling if necessary with strip grazing.
Sudden weather changes from rain to hot sunny days causes pasture fluctuations. The surge in sugars and nutrients can be overwhelming to the horses gut.
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