Feeding the Senior Horse

When feeding your senior horse, there are several important factors to keep in mind that can change their dietary requirements.

Dental Condition

Number one is the status of your horse’s teeth. You may have heard the term “expired” teeth when your veterinarian is examining your horse’s mouth. This term refers to the fact that horses’ teeth become worn down over time with all the grinding of their feed and can even wear all the way down to the gum line. These expired teeth can no longer effectively grind forage into the small pieces necessary for a horse to gain nutritional value.

The lack of effective grinding can also predispose horses to choke and impaction colic from swallowing long pieces of hay. As a result, we often recommend starting our senior horses on more processed diets, such as hay pellets, hay cubes, or complete senior feeds. These forage alternatives are already processed into smaller particles, making it much easier for the horses to digest. It is recommended to soak these types of feed in water to reduce the risk of choke. When soaking feed, it is recommended to use a ratio of 2:1 (water to feed), especially if the feed contains beet pulp, and allow it to sit for 30 minutes or even longer if the water is cold. The mash should ideally end up with an oatmeal-like consistency.   

GI Changes

In addition to the teeth, there are some age-related changes to the rest of the GI tract that can affect feeding protocols. There is an overall reduction in the absorption of nutrients in a senior horse due to changes in the microbiome and scarring of the intestines. Supplementing with a probiotic, such as Platinum Performance GI or Arenus Assure Guard Gold, can help regulate the microbiome and improve nutrient absorption.

Senior horses are also less efficient at digesting crude protein, meaning that their dietary protein requirement is higher – it is often recommended to feed 12-14% crude protein to older horses, as opposed to the 10-12% recommended for younger horses. Geriatric horses often tend to require more highly digestible fiber sources, such as beet pulp, to keep them healthy. It is important to keep the crude fiber content of their diet over 10% to meet their physiologic needs.

Regardless of age, horses require approximately 1.5 – 2% of their body weight in dry matter per day – whether that’s mainly hay or almost completely comprised of processed feeds, we need to make sure they are receiving the appropriate amount for their weight. Weighing your scoops of grain is very helpful in determining if your horse is getting enough food. For example, a 1000 pound horse being maintained entirely on Purina Equine Senior requires anywhere from 15 to 17 pounds of feed per day depending on their activity level per the label recommendations.

Metabolic Status

A third piece of the puzzle is the horse’s overall metabolic status. Older horses are much more likely to have PPID, or Cushing’s disease, which can make it difficult for them to maintain good body condition, even in the face of good nutrition. These horses need to go on the appropriate medication, Prascend, to allow them to thrive and keep weight on.

On the flip side, horses with EMS (Equine Metabolic Syndrome or Insulin Resistance) often struggle to get weight off. It is important for these horses to be kept on a diet low in non-structural carbohydrates to prevent large fluctuations in glucose levels and elevated insulin levels that can predispose them to laminitis.

Determining if your horse has a metabolic disorder involves running blood work that checks the levels of various enzymes and hormones within the system. ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) is the hormone we look at in Cushing’s disease. In some cases, a horse may have a normal baseline ACTH level but still have Cushing’s disease. If there are clinical signs consistent with Cushing’s disease (muscle atrophy, weight loss, delayed shedding, etc.) your veterinarian may recommend a second test called a TRH stim test to more definitively determine if your horse has Cushing’s disease. Equine Metabolic Syndrome is characterized by insulin resistance, leading to elevated insulin levels, and often elevated glucose levels as well, which are reflected in the bloodwork.

For more information on these metabolic syndromes as well as other conditions that can affect senior horses, please visit our other blog articles:

Each horse ages differently, so it is important to have regular check-ups with your veterinarian to make sure you are meeting all their nutritional needs. Contact us at any time to schedule a check-up and nutrition consult!

Obesity in Donkeys – Why is it a big deal?

Possibly the most significant threat to the health and longevity of donkeys in the US is obesity. We love our long-eared friends and sometimes we dote on them too much with delicious, high-quality treats that donkeys are not equipped to metabolize.

My donkey’s fat? But he barely eats anything!

Donkeys are adapted to live in semi-arid environments, like the deserts of Nevada and Arizona. Because of this, their metabolism is significantly different than that of horses – think of them as the world’s easiest keepers. Donkeys are incredibly efficient at digesting tough fibrous plants and have a much lower energy requirement than horses. To put it in perspective, ponies and horses need 2-2.5% of their body weight in dry matter daily, whereas donkeys only need 1.3-1.8%.

The high fiber, low energy diet that donkeys have evolved to eat can be mimicked by feeding mainly straw (wheat, oat, or barley) along with a forage balancer to avoid micronutrient deficiencies. As an aside, you want to stay away from rice straw – for some reason it is the one type of forage that donkeys seem to have absolutely no interest in eating. If the only option is hay, it is recommended to soak the hay for at least an hour before feeding to your donkeys to remove most of the simple sugars.

So my donkey’s fat – what’s the big deal?

Adipose tissue – or fat – is not just a cosmetic issue. It is a very active tissue that produces inflammatory molecules that circulate throughout the bloodstream and can propagate multiple disease states, including metabolic syndrome and laminitis. Another life-threatening sequela of obesity is the increased risk of developing fatty liver. Fatty liver occurs when an obese animal goes through a period of anorexia – this could be a simple as a bout of gas colic that results in your donkey not eating his whole breakfast. When the body doesn’t get its normal amount of energy through food, it rapidly mobilizes and breaks down adipose tissue to use for energy instead. The resulting fat molecules (triglycerides) get filtered through the liver and overwhelm it, resulting in a liver that is clogged with fat. This can lead to liver failure, as well as damage to and failure of other organ systems. Donkeys are especially predisposed to this process, which is a major reason why we always recommend a call to your veterinarian for any donkey that goes off food, even if they don’t seem to be in overt distress.

Okay I’m convinced, my donkey’s fat – now what?

As discussed above, sudden reductions in feed intake can lead to life-threatening disease, so having a conversation with your veterinarian about safely putting your donkey on a diet is paramount. It may even be necessary to test the levels of triglycerides in the blood as a monitoring tool while your donkey loses weight. As with all our equine friends, a slow systematic approach to dietary change is the best way to reduce risk.