Dr Jazmin Markey – PhD, PAS
Some horses seem capable of maintaining or gaining body condition on relatively little feed. While maintaining weight easily may sound like an advantage, it can create its own nutritional challenges. The obvious goal is to avoid supplying more calories than the horse requires. The less obvious challenge is ensuring that calorie restriction does not become nutrient restriction.
A horse may require relatively few calories while still needing quality protein and essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals, adequate fibre and other essential nutrients. Feeding less of everything may reduce calorie intake, but it also reduces the nutrients supplied by the overall diet.
The challenge, therefore, is to provide less of what the horse does not need without inadvertently restricting what it does.
When managing an easy keeper, attention often turns directly to the feed bucket. For many horses, however, forage makes up the majority of the diet and may account for a substantial proportion of daily calorie intake. A small concentrate meal does not necessarily mean the horse is consuming a low-calorie diet. Pasture and hay can vary considerably in nutritional composition, making both the amount consumed and the type of forage important considerations.
Before reducing concentrate feed, consider the entire diet, including forage intake, pasture access, concentrate feed, supplements, treats and other significant sources of calories. Forage should remain the foundation of the diet, but a forage-first approach does not mean forage intake is irrelevant when body condition needs to be managed. Understanding what and how much the horse is actually consuming provides a better starting point for determining where calorie intake can appropriately be reduced.
When excess body condition becomes a concern, controlling calorie intake may require changes to forage management. This does not mean aggressively reducing forage or creating prolonged periods without access to it. Horses are adapted to consume forage throughout much of the day, and adequate forage intake remains important for gastrointestinal health and normal feeding behaviour.
Where appropriate, a lower-calorie, less nutrient-dense forage may allow the horse to consume adequate fibre while controlling calorie intake more effectively than simply providing a smaller quantity of more calorie-dense forage. Slow-feed haynets and other suitable feeding strategies may also help extend the time a controlled forage allowance lasts.
For horses requiring substantial weight loss, or those with metabolic or other health concerns, forage restriction should be approached carefully and with appropriate professional guidance. The objective is controlled calorie intake, not nutritional deprivation.
Comprehensive feeds are formulated to provide nutrients when fed at their recommended daily feeding rates. If an easy keeper receives progressively smaller portions in an effort to control calorie intake, the horse receives not only less feed but also less of the quality protein, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals that the feed was designed to provide.
Continually reducing the portion may eventually mean that the horse is no longer consuming enough of the product to receive the intended amounts of these nutrients. This is where a ration balancer can become particularly useful. Ration balancers are designed to provide concentrated sources of quality protein, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals at comparatively low daily feeding rates, without requiring the larger servings of comprehensive feed that may supply unnecessary additional calories.
For the easy keeper, the primary question to ask is: What is this amount of feed actually providing?
A number on the scales or a weight-tape measurement does not tell us everything about how well an easy keeper is being managed. Body condition scoring provides additional information about fat deposition, while areas such as the croup and crest may deserve particular attention. Regular photographs, weight-tape measurements and consistent body condition scoring can help identify trends that are difficult to notice when seeing the horse every day.
Muscle development should also be evaluated separately. An easy keeper can carry excess body fat without having optimal muscle development, and reducing calorie intake does not eliminate the need for adequate quality protein and essential amino acids.
The goal is not always as simple as weight loss. It should be to achieve and maintain appropriate body condition without losing sight of muscle development or nutritional adequacy.
Successfully feeding an easy keeper is not about identifying the smallest possible amount of feed the horse can live on. It is about making the diet more efficient.
Calorie intake should reflect what the horse actually requires, while forage, quality protein and essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals remain appropriately supplied. Achieving this balance may mean changing what is fed rather than continually reducing how much is fed. An easy keeper may need fewer calories, but it still requires a nutritionally balanced diet.
When feeding an easy keeper:
Evaluate the entire diet, including pasture, hay, concentrate feed, supplements, treats and other significant sources of calories.
Monitor body condition and muscle development regularly rather than relying on body weight alone.
Keep forage at the foundation of the diet while considering both its quantity and nutritional composition.
Use appropriate feeding strategies to help extend forage consumption time when intake needs to be controlled.
Avoid continually reducing a comprehensive feed below its recommended feeding rate without considering which nutrients are being reduced alongside it.
Consider an appropriate ration balancer when calorie requirements are low but additional quality protein, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals are needed.
Seek veterinary and nutritional guidance when obesity, insulin dysregulation, laminitis risk or other health concerns complicate feeding and weight management.
Easy keepers may have relatively low calorie requirements while still needing an appropriately balanced supply of essential nutrients. Within the Keyflow® range, an appropriate balancer can provide quality protein, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals in a concentrated daily serving for horses whose nutritional requirements can largely be met through forage.
Further feed selection should then be based on the individual horse’s body condition, workload, forage and overall nutritional requirements.
The Keyflow Range
International Stockists
United States