Poseidon Equine Nutrition Library

Getting any hay is difficult this season, let alone low sugar hay that is suitable for our horses.  So what can you do if you can’t get hold of low sugar hay - or any hay at all for that matter?  Equine Nutritionist Nikita Stowers shares some feeds and strategies to help you provide effective amounts of forage for your horse to maintain a healthy gut and good condition.

Horses who are often overweight are likely to be at higher risk of health complications, including Insulin Resistance or Deregulation, and Laminitis among others. Keeping your horse at a healthy weight level is an essential step to long term health and wellbeing.

It may not be what you have been told - but the best way to manage laminitis is to return the horse’s metabolism to its healthy state. To do this, we must provide free-choice long stem forage.

Many horses and ponies have participated in trialing MetaboLize® separately. Every person reported positive changes in their animals’ health and wellbeing, including benefits like increased energy and willingness to move, a reduction in fat lumps, easier weight management, and reduced episodes of laminitis. Find out why!

There are so many different types of hay and it can get confusing when you start to try figuring out which hay to use and why. Or which hay to avoid and why.

Overweight horses are more prone to serious health issues, including potentially life-threatening problems such as laminitis. Excess weight also places increased pressure on your horse’s bones and joints. And if your horse is too fat, they are much more likely to suffer from heat stress in hot weather. So what can you do if your horse is getting a little rotund?

As a horse owner, you may see problems like anxious behaviour, girthiness, laminitis, poor performance, loose manure and weight challenges and accept them as ‘normal’ for your horses. But are they? And if they aren’t, what is causing them? 

One of the most difficult things to find in a drought is forage. The problem is, forage is the most important, and therefore the least negotiable item in a horse’s diet. Their gut needs forage. Without it, the risk of gastric ulcers, colic, sand or dirt accumulation and other hindgut disturbances like dysbiosis (imbalance of the hindgut bacteria) is high!

Part of the challenge with recognising gut health as a problem for your horse is that symptoms of poor gut health in horses can be very subtle, even when issues are severe, and horses may show different signs for the same issue.