Sugar – beware
It’s well documented that sugar is as lethal for your horse as it is for humans. Having battled with burnt up fields and a severe grass shortage, the sudden downpours were a welcome change as we saw our fields return to their glorious green shade. But, this rain, particularly coupled with warm weather and lots of sunshine, has led to an increase in grass sugar content. The sugar content is in fact worsened after a lengthy drought making it of particular concern at the moment.
Manage for success
While it can be really tempting to turn out as much as possible now, you mustn’t change your horses routine too quickly. Grass sugar content is still at its highest at the hottest point of the day, before gradually declining as we welcome in the evening. The lowest point of sugar content will be in the early hours of the morning before it starts to slowly increase again. Therefore to ensure your horses health, continue to turn out overnight, well into the Autumn months. This is true even though our daytime temperate may only peak at 20ºC.
When your horse is stabled during the day, continue to feed forage as normal. Abrupt daytime starvation due to the sudden grass growth is actually detrimental to your horses health as it causes fat stores in the body to be mobilised and enter the bloodstream – this is where the fat can damage the heart. Instead of limiting dry matter quantity, try encouraging the horse to spend longer chewing and choose a forage that has less calories per kg.
The Haygain Forager Slow Feeder is great for stabled horses as it is the natural way to slow the pace a horse eats. When horses are fed in haynets or given loose forage on the stable floor, they’re more likely to gorge and finish their ration in a much quicker time, than when compared to eating from the Forager. The Forager’s regulator grid also ensures smaller bites of forage and increased amounts of chewing, which helps maintain a flow of saliva, acting as a natural buffer to stomach acid.
Benefits of steaming
Steaming hay can also be beneficial in ensuring sugar restrictions. As the grass sugar content continues to climb as we head into Autumn it’s essential that we monitor the sugar content in the forage we provide. Studies by Haygain have found that steaming forage actually reduces the Water Soluble Carbohydrate content, whereby soaking hay actually increases this content.
So to maintain your horses optimum health, be sure to introduce any changes gradually, limit grass intake and continue to provide the best forage possible.
