Dietary feeding techniques for body weight control in horses with equine metabolic syndrome

Abstract

The problem of excessive body condition score is increasingly common among sport and pleasure horses. The presence of equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) in horses is a serious problem for weight control. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of various feeding methods for sport horses with EMS and to determine the optimal energy level in the diet for weight control, the results of using three diet options were analyzed in horses with excess (n = 4) and normal body condition score (n = 1) and confirmed EMS. All four overweight horses showed a decrease in body weight. The best results were obtained with soaking all hay for 30 min before feeding, using a grain-free mix, reducing the DM content of the diet to 1.69-1.76% of the ideal live weight (IW), and reducing the ME by 27 - 32% then the recommended feeding norms for work horses, or by 36 - 31.5% - for sports horses. The decrease in body condition was less when 50% of the daily hay ration was soaked for an hour, part of the grain-free concentrates was replaced with vegetable oil, and the diet contained DM - 1.9 - 2.0% of IW and ME by 11 - 17% relative to the norm for working horses or 16 - 22% - for sport horses. The horse with EMS and normal BCS maintained optimal condition and performance from light to medium level with the diet which contained of DM - 1.96 - 2.13% of IW, ME - 5.5% less then needs of working horses, or 11.5% - of sports horses, which was achieved by using grain-free concentrates with vegetable oil, and soaking half of the daily amount of hay. All horses maintained normal performance traits.