Last updated on March 22nd, 2023 at 04:28 pm
The Best Horse Feed for Weight Gain
Horses, like people, can have weight problems. It happens, and there is not much you can do to stop it. If your horse is underweight, it could be because of health issues, a poor diet, insufficient calory intake, or they are simply getting older. On the contrary, your horse may be perfectly healthy; you just want to help them bulk up. In either of these situations, you might be wondering how to help your horse gain weight.
How to Help Your Horse Gain Weight
You first need to understand why your horse is too thin, which itself can be a trifling task. The causes of weight loss range anywhere from parasites to bad teeth. A serious illness can lead to dramatic weight loss. If this is the case, there will likely be other symptoms, and the problem could be far more severe than you first thought. Chronic pain, worms, malfunctioning kidneys, gastric ulcers, arthritis – the list goes on.
Another common cause, like I already said, is bad teeth. Worn teeth can result in a horse not chewing their food properly, thus having a poor calory intake (very common in geriatric horses). If you suspect the problem is dental, you should check the horse’s mouth for rancid breath and its manure for pieces of unchewed food.
Human as it may seem, your horse might have developed a social problem. When living in a large herd, one or two of the horses are bound to be left on the bottom of the social pyramid. If a particular horse is losing weight, they may be getting chased from the feeder. Keep an eye out for this. If it turns out to be true, try bringing the low-ranked horse into a stall where they can eat without being bullied. You can also try putting up additional feeders so the horse bullies can’t have a monopoly on the food.
As always, the best thing to do is seek the advice of your veterinarian. They will always know what to do. If the problem is medical (ulcers for example), hopefully when your horse heals, they will regain whatever body mass they have lost.
What Can I Feed My Horse to Help Them Gain Weight?
The answer to this question is not as complicated as a person might think. Horses have a fairly simple diet. Basically, they eat a lot of hay and feed. If your horse is underweight, they are probably not getting enough calories from their current diet. That means something needs to change. Try increasing the quality of the hay you feeding your horse. Get rid of anything not high in nutrients and replace it with green hay absent stalks and seeds. To add more nutrition, sprinkle alfalfa into the hay. Alfalfa is rich in calories and protein and can help fatten a scrawny horse. You may want to pick up a bag of alfalfa pellets or cubes.
Beet pulp is another option. It can’t be used as a replacement for anything, but it is an effective addition to everything else your horse eats. Beet pulp is high in calories but low in protein and vitamins and other minerals. While it can help, it won’t be a solution. What your horse needs more is some fat. You can add more fat into your horse’s diet by using plain old vegetable oil. Pour a quarter of a cup over the horse’s regular food to incorporate omega fatty acids into their diet. Start slow, a quarter cup, then add another quarter cup every day to a maximum of two cups. If you do this too fast, your horse could get sick, and that’s the last thing you want on top of everything else.
These are just a few options, but they are not always going to increase the weight of your horse in the timeframe you want. For the best results, we recommend you supplement your horse’s feed with one that has a formula more concentrated on weight gain (lots of fat and nutrients). This way, even with minimal hay and foraging, your horse will still get the important stuff it needs to gain weight.
Equine Ultium – the Best Feed for Weight Gain
This is where Equine Ultium comes into play. This feed is something of a miracle, and we think it may be the best on the market. Equine Ultium contains fat, fermentable fibre, soluble starch, and sugar. It also contains nutrients – amino acids, vitamin B, vitamin E, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, and a whole bunch of other vitamins that are vital to gaining weight. Think of it as a protein supplement a person might take before going to the gym, only for horses. Rather than offering your horse extra feed, try to gradually switch them to Equine Ultrium. This should compensate for their lack of calories.
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How Quickly Can My Horse Gain Weight?
This one is a little tricky. First, you need to determine exactly how much weight your horse needs to gain. This involves a lot of math, and we aren’t going to get into the specifics and all the different variables. You will need to find out your horse’s current weight, what the optimal weight of your horse is, and how many calories it will take to get there. Once you have all that puzzled out, you can feed accordingly.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume your horse needs to gain fifty pounds. The best diet in the world won’t add fifty pounds to any animal overnight. It is going to be a long process. A safe bet is to assume your horse can gain half a pound a day by consuming an additional 4500 calories. A serving of 2.5 pounds of Equine Ultium will provide (4750) calories per day. Jumble these numbers around and you can expect roughly three months for your horse to gain the fifty pounds needed. That’s ninety days. Not bad, but don’t rush anything. Remember that your horse is an animal with feelings and moods. They might not like a change in their diet. But if you stick with the program and keep vigilant, and always trust your veterinarian, your horse can gain their lost weight back before you know it.