Dr Pat Harris, an RCVS recognised UK specialist in Veterinary Clinical Nutrition (equine) and a European Specialist in Veterinary Clinical and Comparative Nutrition was interviewed by Horse and Hound in 2015 about how to feed an overweight horse. She cautioned “prevention is better than cure and that managing weight loss involves more than just reducing energy intake — horses need the right quality protein, vitamin and mineral support. Any weight loss programmes also must consider that horses are trickle feeders and cannot be left for long periods without forage.”

With that in mind, its important to understand how the digestive system works in order to avoid digestive problems.

Weigh tapes and body condition scoring systems are useful to monitor horse’s weight and determine if they are overweight. A basic rule of thumb described by the laminitis site to follow is:

One of the problems with these body condition or fat scoring systems is they are subjective and arguably not all horse owners can assess their own horse or pony accurately, so an expert opinion could be advisable. Read more about this in our Horse Obesity article.

The key to loosing weight in horses is the same as humans; a daily calorie deficit through dietary management and appropriate exercise.

Feed according to workload, a 500kg horse in hard work will burn nearly twice as many calories a day as a horse who weighs the same but is ridden lightly twice a week.

Feed according to breed. Native breeds have evolved to be good doers, making the most of poor quality grazing so they generally require feeds of a lower calorie level as they maintain their weight easily. However, they still need lots of fibre to maintain digestive and behavioural health.

Pasture or a hay only diet can easily exceed energy requirements of most horses at rest or in light work, but it doesn’t supply everything that they need in terms of trace minerals. So, a feeding a balancer or vitamin and mineral supplement is advisable in addition to grazing and hay. If a bucket feed is wanted, then just a small amount of low calorie fibre feed may be all they need.

problems such as gastric ulcers or colic as well as behavioural problems. A method of slow feeding is advised to help with this. The Haygain Forager will slow down how fast the horse eats, making their forage last longer.

Understand more about reducing their calorie intake while keeping them chewing.When at pasture a grazing muzzle could be considered for part of the time to limit the amount of grass being eaten and again slow intake down while maintaining trickle feeding.