Hello and welcome to Curious Equestrian.
I'm your host Anna Louise, and in this podcast we deep dive
into all kinds of equestrian conversations with brilliant
guests from professionals to well known names and horse
owners just like us. I am so excited about today's
guest, Claire McLeod, an independent nutritionist,
because, well, Claire's Facebook page with over 28,000 followers
is one of my favorite places to go on the Internet for horsey
hints and tips, expert knowledge, and a good old debate
as well. Not just about what we feed our
horses, but every aspect of horse care.
Because as Claire puts it, nutrition isn't everything, but
there's nothing without it. In this episode, we delve into
winter feeding and I ask all the questions that horse owners like
you are too embarrassed to ask 'cause let's face it, sometimes
we think we should know a certain amount of knowledge or
we think, well, we've owned a horse for X amount of years, we
shouldn't really be asking that. Or, I've been around horses
since I was small, I definitely should know this by now.
But sometimes we have to go back to basics and not be too afraid
to ask those questions so that we can unpick a problem or solve
a challenge or a mystery that we're experiencing with our
horses. Let's jump in, shall we?
Claire, can you give us your top?
Tips for winter feeding Yeah, we just always have to put up with
that season with horses and especially in the UK, although
of course you might have listeners, listeners or watchers
from elsewhere, but we need to get through the winter as smooth
as we can. But the most important tips I
would say are this kind of, I could list a whole load, but
let's just keep it to two really important tips for winter,
successful winter feeding. The first one is to make dietary
changes gradually. And I know that sounds not very,
but it's so important. And what some owners maybe
aren't aware of is that actually it's more important for the
foragers than the bucket feed. So most of us, if we've kind of
gone through pony club or equivalent or we've had horses
for a while or we're on a yard, we can understand generally that
you need to make bucket feed changes gradually.
But I think a lot of owners say aren't aware that the forage is
even more important to change gradually and specific.
Specifically if we're going from a grass based diet to conserved
hair hailage, that's the highest risk for a colic.
So I know it's times in winter with turn out.
Sometimes we have turn out, sometimes we don't.
If we can keep in mind that we need to make her forage changes
gradual, then we can think about stocking up on forage, making
sure we don't run out before we have another batch, keeping some
back if we know our livery yard does change to a different batch
using soap grass nuts or soap grass chaff.
If our horses have to go from grass, significant grass and not
very much grass in their diet, all these things will actually
really help protect their horses digestive tract and keep it
functioning well. And actually there's a third
one, but the second one would be, and I know, yeah, this
sounds kind of obvious, but a lot of horse owners don't do it.
And we're, well, I don't even do it and I should.
And that is monitoring our horses really carefully and
keeping an objective record. And this is, I like using weight
tape. So they're not accurate for
kilos, but if you pop a weight tape around your horse, you can
catch changes in body fat quicker than you'll see them by
eye. So yes, we can condition score.
And yes, we need to know if the horse's body fat level is
healthy at the beginning in the 1st place, but just that
measurement can help us pick up the changes.
And we always need to be on top of our horse's body fat or
condition changes so that we can adjust their diet, either less
calories or more, depending on what's happening with our body
fat levels. Now, obviously, some horses will
lose weight in winter quite easily and some will actually
gain because they might be doing less exercise and moving around
less. So these are the two really
important things. The third one actually, that's
probably worth a mention because again, some people will think
this is overkill, but we do always need to make sure that
horses are drinking plenty of water because many will drink
less when it's chilled. So actually adding hot water to
your horse's water bucket in the winter is not being fussy or or
too pampering them too much. It can make a big difference to
the hydration level. Really fascinating whip through
there, Claire, with some really important points to note.
And I'm fascinated by you mentioning that it's actually
those grass fed horses that are more likely to get colic if the
diet changes. In this hay crisis.
We're being encouraged to still obviously feed our ad Lib hay,
but I know that lots of vets and and feed places are advising
that we swap hay out for hailage.
Is it OK to be to be mixing hailage in with the hay for our
horses that are out? Is it OK to be sort of having
different amounts popped over the fence each evening?
How would you balance hay versus hailage with our grass fed
horses? Yeah, that's a really good
question, because forage can vary very widely.
It's easy to think that all hay is similar and all hay hailage
is similar. But nowadays especially, even
hailage varies very widely. When it first started being made
for horses, it was pretty consistent, but now it varies
very widely to just almost just hailage from hay to actually
quite wet. So we do have to be aware that
by changing either batches or actually between hay and halage,
we're providing our horse or we're causing our horse to have
a a sudden change in their feed. And it's, it's mainly for their
gut microbiome, all these healthy bugs that live in their
gut that digest their health digestive food.
That's what we're trying to keep healthy.
They also have digestive enzymes, which we have to be
sure that we change their feed gradually for.
But going back to your hay halage, yeah, it's important.
And if you're like struggling with supply of hay, the best
thing to do is actually keep both hay and hailage in the
diet. And again, this, some owners
already do this, but some maybe don't stop and think you can
feed that selection of foragers. It can be a bit of a challenge
if you've got limited storage space.
But if you keep hay and hailage in the diet all the time as a
combination, then if one run is going to run out or run low, or
you're not sure about the quality of hay that you can get,
you can just increase that hailage up.
And the horse's gut's already partially adapted to it.
So as long as you keep that consistency day-to-day in the
different types of feed and forage your horse has, that's
what helps keep their gut healthy.
It's much more important than any digestive tract supplement
or herbal thing or whatever else that someone's trying to sell
you to help their gut health. I'm being a little bit flippant
because they are useful, these products in some cases.
But much more important than that is keeping the forage in
the horses diet consistent. So yeah, you do have to be aware
of different batches of hay, hailage and also that
combination of hay and hailage. But it can be a useful way to
just avoid stress for yourself to keep some hailage in stock so
that if the hay runs low or or you maybe have a bad batch.
Because what we have to be careful with with horses is that
we don't end up feeding whatever hay we can get hold of.
And actually it's either mouldy or dusty or it's not suitable to
be fed to horses because they're very much more susceptible to
mould, mycotoxins and that sort of thing compared to a
ruminants, for example. Yes, that's so important and and
great to hear that as well with little tips of what we can do in
this hay shortage when we're all scrabbling for ideas to make
that hay last longer. When you mention gradual
changes, Claire, how gradual is gradual when we're interrupting
our horses diet and and tweaking things?
Now I I always try to answer questions without saying the
words It depends and my members I work with always laugh at me
and they say they're going to get a hoodies like March with it
depends written on it. Annoyingly, it often does depend
and but before I go on to losing my my my earphones before I go
on to the IT depends part. What I would say is that
generally 7 to 10 days, but at least a few days if you are
changing more than like if you're changing all the forage
the horse gets and it's most of their diet, ideally over 7 days.
But The thing is, it depends on how much you're changing the
forage. So I suppose what I'm saying is
if you're going from like a late cut, stocky, late cut, stocky
fibrous hay to a quite good quality halage, because that's
your only option, you'll be wanting to change that over a
good seven to 10 days. Whereas if you're change
changing from one batch of hate to the next, it's not too
dissimilar. You could do that over a few
days. So it kind of does depend on
what changes you're making. But like I say, I'm repeating
myself, but it's, it's the the important factor, it's the
digestive tracked microbes, the the gut microbiome that we're
trying to nurture. They, their populations depend
on a consistent supply of feed. So if we change the type of
forage, the type of fibrous material going through, we can
cause disturbances in those populations.
We want to just allow them time to adjust.
And Oh my goodness, I've just learnt something in, you know,
my whole lifetime of being around horses that you're
supposed to gradually change 1 hay delivery to the next.
And with the hay delivery coming on Monday, we usually run out on
the day and swap to the next Bale of, you know, Bale of hay
in the next batch of hay. So I've just learned that I need
to now make sure I keep a couple of bales of hay to sort of mix
in. Do I Claire from from one batch
to another? Yeah, it's a it's a good thing
it does. Again, it does sound like maybe
going over the top. But ultimately, if we are really
trying to keep a horse's gut as happy and healthy as it can do,
yes, it is worthwhile. You know, some horses seem to
cope with quite rapid changes in forestry.
When I talk about this, sometimes I'll get owners
saying, oh, I've never done that.
My horses have always been fine. Well, that's kind of just lucky
and and, you know, we want to as horse owners avoid, you know,
avoid any risk of colic because it's just such a horrible
condition for us and our horses. And so, yeah, ideally we should.
Now obviously, if the different batch of pea is quite similar,
you might well be OK. And especially if you've got
like a diverse species medal and you're changing to another
diverse species medal made around the same time, because
the grass changes most in composition due to when it's cut
actually more even more so than the species of grass in there.
Then you might obviously not have to be so pedantic about
this. But it's where you get, you
know, 1 batch that's really quite stocky late cut.
And then the next batch comes in it's earlier cut.
That's quite a difference to the horse's gut.
Microbiome. Yeah, I'm glad you've mentioned
that, because also I'm sure I'm not alone in the fact that at
the minute we're trying to get every scrap of hay that we can.
Yeah. And our hay deliverers often
don't give you a choice. You might have sort of the hay
one time, then it's quite lush, sort of Meadow hay, sometimes a
bit greener, sometimes it's more yellowy and more dried.
You know, I know that we don't get much control or say over the
hay that we cut. We're just thankful for when
that Hayden comes in and there's hay to be bought.
So really interesting, Claire. And that's made me think about
keeping a few bales behind and sort of mixing them up,
mismatching them up over a period of did you say 7 days,
Claire, or few days? Yeah, well, a few days if it's
pretty similar. If it's very different forage,
then longer. And if it's hay to halage or all
the other way around, even longer.
Yeah. And you've mentioned the big C
Our next topic is colic. We are in these colder months,
Claire, where we're all terrified of colic striking and
lots of different types as we know of colic and and things to
watch out for. But what can we do in terms of
feeding to try and avoid colic if it's possible?
Yeah, We can certainly reduce the risk of colic because we do
have some good research studies, they're called epidemiological
studies where they look at populations of horses and the
risk for different diseases. And there is certainly research
to show that if we ink this is kind of the other way around.
But if we make rapid changes in forage, especially going from
grass to all hay or halage and if we feed over a a certain
number of kilos of concentrate feed and then that increased
those two in like 2 actions or interventions will increase the
risk of colic. But I wouldn't note that the
concentrate feed research was might well be we haven't got
the, the the details on it, but it might well be traditional
grain based concentrate feed. So the same might not apply to
our lovely. I say lovely because it's so
much more horse friendly, our modern day high digestible
fibre, low starch horse feeds that we have that concentrates.
So over a few, over 3 kilos of traditional concentrate feed
does increase the risk of colic and and also rapid changes of
forage type of forage will increase the risk of colic.
So staying on top of these two factors will help reduce the
risk. And then making sure horses are
well hydrated, that's also going to help reduce the risk.
There's a few more factors, but these would be the most
important. But like I I want to just stress
that I don't mean any concentrate feed is bad because
I don't want horse owners of poor doers to suddenly cut out
all the concentrate feed. The research on the concentrate
feed was the old fashioned high starch type of feeds.
And what is it, Claire, about these colder months that mean
that colic is more likely? Yeah.
Vets aren't always in agreement with this, but I guess it's most
likely to be that that well, first of all, the horse's
hydration. Generally many horses do drink
less when the water's very cold and that's why like I say, it's
not overdoing it to add hot water to horse's water or do
something else to encourage them to drink.
And then also there's, there's probably other factors.
It's very difficult with research studies to work out
whether something just associated or it's actually
causative that causation versus association.
So it might be that our horses are moving around less, like if
they're stable more, which many are because of especially in the
UK because of the state of our ground in the winter.
And so they're moving a bit less and they are on a higher dried
forage, you know, conserved forage diet, like hay diet.
Those are factors that could well increase the risk of colic
because actually coming into stables from being turned out
all the time is a risk factor as well.
But we sometimes just can't get around that.
It'd be lovely if we could all keep our horses outside in big,
huge spaces all the time. But, you know, sometimes that's
just not possible. So certainly, maybe the colder
weather is linked to increased risk of colic for some of these
factors. Yeah.
I've had guests say on curious equestrian, oh, I've had horses
live out my entire life as a horse keeper and we've never had
a bout of colic and they swear by that.
Do you think, Claire, there is some truth in that that may be
keeping them out on grass is actually, you know, all all year
round is is is one way to try and avoid colic?
Well, I would say yes, if you can keep.
Are you, I would have said in the past just yes, but I've seen
it. I've seen horses kept out 24/7
done very badly where owners have been trying to do well and
trying to give the horses more freedom, movement to, you know,
freedom to move around, being in a herd, being outdoors on grass.
But they haven't actually had the facility to do it.
So fields that are too small and just turned to plowed mud, you
know, lack of different feeding stations or lack of shelter.
So if it's done well, then yes is the answer to your question.
But we have to be really careful that we can actually give them a
suitable environment when we're trying to keep them out 24/7.
Yeah, because I have seen it done really badly.
I'm afraid to see. And really, badly, really
interesting you mentioned that these different points are taken
into account, the really boggy ground, the fact there's no
forage left. And actually it's quite a
difficult environment for the horse to be in because of course
we think of turn out as being the answer, don't we?
But actually, if it's just a very small square box of mud,
that is isn't any good either for our horses.
No, you're absolutely right. And I, I like the fact that
we're highlighting this because as I say, I have had owners come
to me that have tried to do it say at livery yard where they
haven't been able to really have the facility or the lifestyle
for the horse they want. And the horse is just quite
unwell by the spring. Because the other thing to
remember it's not nutrition, but horses do need to lie down to
get proper deep sleep. They do sleep standing up, but
they do have to lie down to get proper deep sleep.
And if they're not comfortable to lie down because of mud, uh,
being in too small a space withhold of other horses or for
whatever other reason, umm, then they will suffer from sleep
deprivation and that's very harmful to them just like it is
to us. Umm, so we've got to bear in
mind these kind of things. And like I said, we just have to
be careful that in trying to do our very best for horses that we
haven't actually caused more problems than we had previously.
I mean, thankfully nowadays, umm, we've got loads of options
for like ground cover that we can do without planning
permission because there's temporary mats and all sorts of
things. And I, I often post on my social
media, my Facebook account, asking owners to show me what
they're doing because it gives inspiration to other owners of
how we can just make the best of what we've got but not have our
horses just living in deep mud, which is not good for them.
Yeah. I loved what you posted last
night, Claire, which was a friend, a friends of yours,
horse out in the fields, but then with mats, with the hey
post in at the side of the field.
And then I saw again, obviously lots of interesting comments
start appearing. Oh, you know, are they just
stable mats? Will they eventually sink into
the mud? What was the material that the
horse was standing on? Well, I have to say that
scenario if for anybody that hasn't seen it was were just
rubber mats on top of the ground, but that is free
draining ground. It doesn't get deep mud and bog.
So absolutely if you've got very wet ground or clay with springs
like I have in part of my field, that wouldn't work.
So you have to be very conscious of what kind of ground you have,
the footfall it's going to get, et cetera, et cetera.
And that's not going to work in every scenario.
But yeah, she has got very free draining ground.
But that picture was from quite a few years ago before it became
quite commonplace to use these ground cover mats.
I think it's just important to remember that if our horses are
spending 75% of the time eating forage and their grass has run
out, we do want to be careful with what they're standing in.
Now, for some owners, you might think, oh, that's obvious.
And yes, you'd think it would be.
But you know, I do keep seeing scenarios where owners are
trying to get the horses out of stables and but they're ending
up in conditions that really aren't favourable and that
aren't particularly natural either.
And what can we do, Claire, that doesn't require planning
permission 'cause I always get confused with what requires
planning and what doesn't with hard standing.
Yeah, it's a good question. Well first of all I say I'm not
a planner, so please, I don't want to get someone that's.
Gonna move about? The nutritionist is now being
asked about hard standing. However, I have actually got, I
do know a little bit, imagine it was a few years ago now, I did
apply for planning for a few different bits and pieces at my
facility that I had in Wiltshire.
It's been a few years since I left that and for about 12 years
it was a great place to experiment with all sorts of
things. But as far as I remember from
them. But first of all, this is a
caveat. Please do check your local
planning regs. But if you apply, if you do
something to the ground that's permanent, you're supposed to
have planning permission for most of that.
Sometimes you can get permissive rights next to your house or
whatever, but you, you know. It's if it's.
Impermanent, it can be removed. Generally you don't need
planning for it. And then owners do come up with
very clever ways around that. But I would say just if you want
to be sure that whatever you're spending money on it isn't going
to be causing the council to come knocking on your door and
challenge you, then it's best to actually check with them.
I always think with things like that, you're better off
contacting them and asking for help.
That certainly worked for me when I did it, rather than
trying to do it on the secret. And then you don't see it if you
go and speak to them and ask for help.
If you've got help for helpful council planners, they will give
you some information about what you can do.
So yeah, be careful with that because you don't want to spend
loads of money doing something and then be told you have to
take it down or remove it. Because of course, where good
feeding comes, you, you have to look at the ground and the hard
standing and the place to feed your horse, don't you?
And if that isn't on a yard, if it is out in the fields and
you're trying to wade through the mud and the bogs and the
swamps, we've got to find a way to feed our horses without us
all sinking, haven't we? Including including the precious
hay and forage and and the buckets that get thrown up in
the air by the horses tossing them aside.
So a great point as well to mention the hard standing and
think about where. You're feeding the food so that
it doesn't all end up in the ground, soaking away and being
wasted. You know, I wouldn't mind adding
something to that because no, you're absolutely right.
It's such a good point. And this is the kind of the art
of feeding where we leave nutrient requirements aside and
we think about all these practical things.
And it's obviously in some of yards not even allowed to put
forage out in the field, which can be really tricky.
But you mentioned about making sure we savor.
Hey, I mean, hey, you know, he's precious.
We don't want to be wasting any. And I quite often see owners
like throwing hay in one pile thinking that that's a good way
around it because they'll just mess up one part of the field.
But that can cause a whole lot of mulch and even deeper mud for
the horses standing. So often you're if you, if you
can't do hard standing, it's not an option at your own place or
at livery. You're better off just actually
putting piles in different places and then scraping up any
wet leftover. Yeah, it's more work, but we
just don't want our horses standing in mud, which is kind
of half mulched hay for hours on end.
Yeah. Yeah, great, great point.
And Claire, when do we know whether we need to feed hard
food? So you know anything that isn't
our our basic chaffs or balances, When do we know
whether we need to or not? That that's a great question.
And actually the answer to that is, well, there's there's a
two-part answer. The first part is they are going
to be starting to lose weight. And by weight, I mean body fat.
So once they start getting thinner, which we're going to
pick up from our constant monitoring potentially with that
weight tape every couple of weeks and keeping a record, then
we know that the basically they need more calories or energy.
We, we use the time calories. It's not actually correct for
horse energy, but it it helps communicate that we're talking
about dietary energy. So that loss in body fat means
that the horse is actually having to use up their fat
stores. This sounds obvious, but it's
worth a mention. And then that's the time that we
think, well, OK, we need to increase our horses energy or
calories in their diet. We might be able to do that with
forage first before we look at the bucket feed.
But if we're already feeding ad Lib forage and we're already
got, we can't access the higher nutritional value forage because
we've got what we've got, say a livery yard.
That's when we need to put more in the bucket, in the bucket
feed. But then the second part of that
would be the other reason we might want to add bucket feed is
if the protein intake of the horse is questionable or too
low. That gets a bit more complicated
to assess because you can't assess from looking at the horse
until they're in a real deficient state.
We have to then just basically study the diet to work out where
they're going to need extra protein in the feed bowl.
But the calories or the energy is the first one.
And that's the first step I would say in a balanced diet is
assessing a horse's body fat level, how it's changing.
And that will tell us precisely what we need to do with the
calories in the diet. And for our good doers that are
out on limited grass, out in the mud, braving the colder months
and they're on adlib hay, we've got a range of things that we
can give them. People mentioned giving them,
you know, a bucket full of chaff or balances, licks.
What do we realistically need to give our good doers that don't
have any, you know, apparent health conditions and have have
got a nice covering of weight on them, perhaps need to lose a few
pounds or two. What should we be giving them if
there's not much grass in the field but yet they're still
slightly overweight? And that is such a great
question, isn't it? Because what we don't want to do
is have them getting really hungry while they're out,
because it obviously depends whether they're in half the time
and out or they're out all the time.
But once grass starts to get well, actually, I'll start with
how to balance that diet 1st. And then I'll talk about what
happens if grass intake gets too low.
And the first one is, yeah, vitamins and minerals.
They just need a really good multi spec vitamin and mineral
supplement. Now not all of them are good.
That's why I publish free lists for owners because not all of
them are good. So if it's broad spectrum
vitamin and mineral supplement in something palatable, which
might not be the lowest calorie possible chaff, we don't want to
give them extra calories in the bucket feeder.
They need to lose it. But we might need to add
something palatable to get them to eat the vitamins minerals
which is really important. Plus a salt block, that's how
you would balance that forage based diet and especially if you
are restricting them to get them to lose body fat.
But we also do have to be careful of them running out of
enough forage because one that's just not really good for their
their physical or mental health. But also that's when they can
start chewing on what they shouldn't be, whether it's
fences or poisonous plants. We can also get hard aggression
if they're getting hungry or, you know, too much movement
around gateways and you get older poaching.
So yes, ideally you do want to be supplementing forage in the
field if you're feeling like they're getting hungry.
I have got horse owners that do amazing things like count every
pile of droppings and wow to work out whether the horses need
forage in the field. I mean it's not keeping up with
the poo picking isn't it? Let alone counting every day.
But I think a simple, A more simple guise than that of
actually whether horses need forage out in the field as if
they eat it. They obviously if they're too
fat and they're not losing weight, we've got to be a bit
careful. And then we might have to look
at straw, salt, hay, which is a pain putting it out in the
field. But if we're having them
maintain a healthy weight or they're just gradually losing,
then umm, a good indication of whether they need forage or not
out in the field as if they're eating it.
If they're eating every less and less scrap of it, they probably
do need that extra fibre because we've got to think about their
total milk intake but also their fibre intake as well-being high
enough. Yeah.
Oh, there's so many things to think about, Claire.
And I've got to ask you, has your job been made more
difficult as a nutritionist, considering now we have more
extreme seasons and also our seasons are changing in terms of
unseasonable temperatures, unpredictable weather
conditions, more storms, more heavy rain?
Yeah, that's a good question. I've not really noticed that in
terms of I suppose the only thing I'm not really noticed
that that much difference. I think I have noticed like I've
been doing this job now of well, I was going to say 100 years,
not quite 2 to 2 1/2 decades. What I've noticed is that owners
are aware of feeding more forage nowadays, which is a good thing.
And and they're also, I would say I haven't got data to prove
it. I need to look into this.
I'll get a student to look into it.
But our hay and hailages are better nutritional quality I
would say than they were. So I think that like as well
with grass growing sometimes all winter because we don't have
these really long coat spells then.
And I have noticed that some owners are struggling to keep
horses slim enough and fulfill their forage requirements.
That can be a struggle. And that might be partly because
we've got more grass growing in terms of it's being, you know,
milder winters. We need the soil to drop below
5° for a length of time before the grass gets really inhibited.
And it's still above 5° in December, which I mean from the
the many winters that I can think of is is unheard of
compared to say like 10 years ago when it would be properly
cold and frosty in December. Yeah, yeah.
And I mean you, you. The grass often does keep
growing throughout winter, so we can't assume that winter
pastures have nothing to offer the horses anymore.
Yeah. Yeah, it's really hard and
really interesting you you bring that up because there's a lot of
conversation that we have on curious question about trying to
reduce horses weight, those that are out on grass and making sure
they've got turn out when the grass is constantly growing and
it's more sugary. How difficult that is And how
many people talking about grazing muzzles and all the
different sort of apparatus that, you know, sort of slow
feeding hay balls or or hay Nets and doubling hay Nets as well to
try and reduce feeding. All to try and get the reduce
the speed at which the horse eats and to reduce the calories.
It's a real struggle. What sort of is a commonly asked
question with you, Claire? When your clients ring you for
advice, what sort of questions do you see coming up repeatedly?
Yeah, basically just what you've said.
You're absolutely right. It's how do we fulfil the horses
need to chew and fulfil their need to actually have trickle
feeding and not be fasting for any more than four hours
ideally, but maximum 6 say overnight, but still limit their
calorie intake. And, and, and it's not
surprising like if you look at the typical calorie or
digestible energy in a forage like hay, never mind grass,
which tends to be higher. And then you look at horses
requirements when they're out of work and they need to lose
weight. The two just don't match up.
But be like us trying to lose weight where the only food we've
got is being a little bit over the top here, like Krispy Kreme
doughnuts And, yeah, things we would limit, you know, things
that you would limit. Yeah.
So owners do struggles because in the old days, I'm afraid to
say, it was much more common to stick your horse in the stable
and feed them too little forage. Just give them a, a really
meager forage ration, and that's how you control the weight.
But thankfully we know that's not ideal anymore and we don't
want our horses fasting for hours and hours on end.
But it does mean that yes, you're right, we we need to
ideally slow down the rate of their intake.
And the problem is we do know that like once they do get
overweight and they have maybe insulin dysregulation, which is
part of the EMS syndrome or what it, what used to be called EMS,
we've got new terms for it now. And their appetite gets
disturbed. So they end up being more driven
to eat as well. And then it becomes like a
vicious circle. So we, I think it's, I do have
this question a lot from owners. And I think it's important as
horse owners of good doers that we try to be creative about how
we can get the calorie content of the forage down enough to
feed enough to be healthy for the horse and or reduce their
rate of intake. And like you say, there's all
sorts of apparatus we have to have nowadays and it is a bit
more complicated. But ultimately we're going to
have a healthier horse if we can have them in a grazing muzzle
where they can be out for longer and not just shutting the stable
to limit the grass intake. And they're with their hard
mates because then they haven't got to be on like a really over
grazed patch and they're munching away continuously, but
just at a much lower rate because the grazing muzzle that
that's going to be healthier than, like I say, being put on a
starvation patch away from hard mates and or being shut in for
too long. So it's great that we've got all
these options now. And it's interesting, isn't it
Claire, that every aspect of the horses care plays its part in in
your work as a nutritionist. So we've already been talking
about turn out and stabling and hard standing if they're
outdoors and how we feed the hay and and the hard food and then
bucket feed. Another factor is rugs.
And I know you posted this on your Facebook page and got a
huge great sort of out roar of comments of all different
opinions, which I'm sure must happen to you regularly when
you've unleashed people on Facebook.
But the big time of year, you know, the colder months, the big
debate comes out to rug or not to rug?
Where do you stand on this? Yeah, it's a good question, I
suppose, although I'm a cough and nutritionist and that's the
majority of my work. I am also a horse owner.
I've always owned horses, so I've got.
A lot more knowledge and experience than that.
And of course I've my masters degrees in sports science and
exercise. So I'm more I, I kind of think
I'm more than just a nutritionist.
But also you're right like they are.
And the practice of feeding is way more than nutrient
requirements when it comes to RUG.
It's the whole horse, isn't it? It plays the food.
You have to look at everything from where the horse is to if
it's wearing a rug or not and it all it all plays a part.
Yeah, I I think so. And I think, you know, if you
just concentrate on nutrient requirements and delivery,
you're going to miss out a big part of helping horse owners
with their horses health. And the rugging is important
actually, because you can save a lot of calories for pruders if
you rug them up well. But on the other hand,
unfortunately, it seems to be nowadays that owners sometimes
lose confidence with their own abilities and then they end up
swinging too far the other way. And then we get horses being
over rugged, which is equally unhealthy, probably more
unhealthy actually. And I make a joke and I maybe
shouldn't, but I'm kind of old fashioned and I'm long in the
tooth as well. And I think just if your horse
needs a rug, rug of them. If your horse doesn't need to
rug, don't rug them. And I know that's
oversimplifying it because there might be more involved than
that, but I think sometimes I owners maybe lose their
confidence and their own abilities and they get so caught
up with what they're reading online, what their friends are
doing. Because as we all know, there's
many people in the horse world that are very vocal and very
sure of their opinions. But we have to remember, I
think, to look at the horse in front of us and really just work
out what's going to work for our individual horse.
If you look at research studies, the big problem in researching
horses is the huge wide individual variation.
And it means statistically significant results for most
things are really difficult to get because horse populations
vary so widely. And that's absolutely important
with our own horses and ponies. What works for one is not going
to work for other for another. So I think, you know, rugging
can be very important, but it can be completely unnecessary.
It completely depends on your individual horse, what you want
to do with them, how they fare. Not even just breed type,
because you get some breeds that you'd expect to do well or some
sort of individuals from a breed you'd expect to do well without
a rug that actually do better with.
And that's why it's so important to look at the horse in front of
us and just assess as we go along.
Where I think it becomes a problem is where owners have a
rule or a principle that they believe in.
And I've done this in the past. I'm, I'm, you know, so I'm as
guilty as the next person, but I'm, hopefully I'm a little bit
wiser now where we've got these principles that we try and apply
to the horse rather than saying actually, what does our horse
really need? I've got my beliefs and
principles and I'll use them to guide myself, but what's my
horse telling me that they actually need?
I think that's the most important way of ensuring our
horses are really they have a the best life they possibly can.
I saw a really good bit of advice on your Facebook page,
Claire, and it was looking at the horse as to whether it's
cold or not. Because a lot of people
automatically, like you say, deciding that, oh, it's cold, I
feel cold, therefore my horse must be cold.
But actually checking the base of the ear and under the armpit
to see if your horse feels cold to the touch and if they feel
warm, then they're, they're coping and they're OK.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, you get these rug guides and I can see the
usefulness of them as a guide, but we've got to be really
careful that we're not just looking at a bit of paper and
seeing, you know, reading out, you know, this temperature, this
type of horse needs this many gram fill in their rug.
It depends on so many other factors.
It depends on their body fat level.
It depends on the amount of shelter they have.
It depends on the rain, if it's raining or not.
It depends on if they can move around.
There's so many other factors that and and also I'm I'm
actually all for rightly or wrongly, I'm all for horse
owners stepping up and taking responsibility and guess what,
you might get it wrong, but it's not a disaster.
If your horse was too cold one night, just adjust for the next
night. And I think because, you know,
especially with our the online, I'm kind of ranting it on my
sofa box. I bet especially with the kind
of the online kind of pressure of people, not not necessarily
bullying, but everybody trying to or not every some people
trying to assert their opinion and and make others maybe not
not look so good. And I think owners get a bit
nervous about and unconfident about what they're doing.
And I, and I think that's a shame because I'm, I'm all for
trying to encourage horse owners to just like I say, step up,
take responsibility and not worry if you do get it wrong,
because we're all going to get it wrong.
We're never all going to, we're never always going to get it
right. Everything we see on Instagram
is all when it goes right, generally, but it's not a
disaster as long as you're learn from your mistakes and realise
that your horse maybe does need a rug or doesn't.
Like I've had owners that have taken rugs off because they've
decided that's the way to go. And then the horse has got
really bad reins scold and then they feel really bad.
And it's like just learn from that and be aware that if you're
changing something that's been working for you and then you
question it and you change it, just be really careful to
monitor that horse and just look in front like look at them and
monitor them every every time you visit them.
And then you'll pick up these things earlier and you can make
adjustments. And how do you cope, Claire?
Managing your Facebook page, you know with 10s of thousands of
followers, you get outrageous comments on some of your posts
and everyone sees that every idea is up for debate and and
jumps in with their opinion, but sometimes in quite an abrasive
way. How do you cope as a
professional in your field but also managing your your Facebook
page and having that onslaught from people?
Well, do you know, I'm without wanting to get away from
nutrition onto political views or whatever I have, I am a great
proponent of free speech. I do think it's important that
we're allowed to voice our thoughts.
Maybe because I'm a stubborn self thinker, I don't want to be
shut down. But no, joking apart, I think
it's really helpful if we are able to keep, keep free speech
going. And in the early days of my
social media, I was very reluctant to shut anybody down
because I didn't think I should blah, blah, blah.
I kept quite stressed about some people being rude on my Facebook
page and more so rude to others on there.
And I didn't mind so much. And then someone said to me
once, well, your Facebook page is a bit like your home.
Like if somebody was marching in with really muddy boots on your
nice carpets, you just say to them, out you go, you're not
welcome until you take your boots off.
So I realised that if I treated my Facebook page like that, like
if, if you, if you're respectful, you're very welcome
to come in and talk. And I love to be and I love
different opinions. But the minute you start being
rude or disrespectful to me or others, off you go to go.
And I use that. Nice.
So I think it's really lovely that we can keep open debate.
But you do get the people that don't want open debate, that
don't want to learn that are rude.
And I get a lot less than nowadays.
I think they realise I just, I just block them now.
I don't even write a polite message saying would you like to
reconsider? Unless I feel like they have got
something to share and they've just been a bit, I thought this
about how they've shared it, but I think the main thing is I want
my my page to be kind of a safe page for everybody to voice
their opinions. So if anybody is rude to
somebody else, they're out straight away.
I. Love that.
I love that concept that it is like treating it like coming
into your house and it's how you behave because we can all share
opinions and experience, can't we?
But I always say that it's, it's not what is said, it's how it's
said, isn't it? And on Facebook, you can often
see, you know, capital letters, exclamation marks, insulting
language. And you just think we all have a
common passion here, which is our horses.
We're all in the. Same boats in terms of
experiencing, trying to look after our animals, trying to
make sure that they've got the best care.
We're all trying to work out which is the best way forward.
Why does it have to be so personal?
Arsenal and some people, they take great offence don't they,
if if someone's doing something differently to them.
Yeah, and I think, I mean, this is a lesson for life really,
isn't it? Not just their horses.
And I think, I think it's, it's my, my aim or my belief is that
we can have different opinions, but we can still have a cup of
tea and have a chat. You know, we don't all have to
agree. I think it's a shame if just
because somebody has a different opinion or a different way of
keeping their animals, as long as their animals have a good
life and their welfare is good, then let's just agree to
disagree on certain things. Yeah, definitely.
Did you ever envisage, Claire, that your Facebook page would
grow in numbers and that you would have, you know, 10's and
hundreds of comments on each of your posts with people debating?
No, I didn't. I was very sceptical and a bit
scared of social media in the early days.
And the problem is I do have the problem is with social media, as
I'm sure you're probably aware yourself, is that you know, you,
you kind of have to nowadays because it's a really good way
of, of being there and you know. Awareness for your brand or your
business. But I'm a busy practitioner so
it's difficult to find the time sometimes because I'm actually
busy helping horse owners and also building courses and all
the things I'm trying to do to, to be able to reach horse owners
all around the world. So that's why I started and it
became quite popular. I started doing little bits of
content. I was riding my horse on, on the
lanes. I guess she's very well trained,
blessed her and she didn't mind me speaking into my phone whilst
I was. I haven't done so much of that
because she's not been written for a little while, but that
will come back. But yeah, and I had no idea, but
it's been things for social media is a brilliant way of
connecting and sharing information and giving people
access to free resources as well.
Because, you know, not everybody can afford to invest in a one to
one nutrition consult, consultation with a qualified
nutritionist. So actually having that ability
to get free high quality information that's unbiased and
not attached to a company, more companies feeds because there is
some good information from some of the companies, but obviously
it's going to be biased that they can't help that.
I just felt that was really important.
But it is becoming a little bit of a wild woolly monster in
terms of trying to manage it all.
So yeah, I probably have to rethink of it for, for next
year. But I've I've learnt loads from
the comments. Never mind me helping people and
teaching people, it's you know what it's like.
It's fascinating when you do open up conversations and you
learn a lot yourself. Yeah, it's been great.
And I. Go on, Claire.
Sorry. I was just going to say I was
just a little add on. I get on my soapbox and I don't
know when to stop. I can get really, I can get
really useful information which helps me serve horse owners
better. Like if I run polls about what
subjects they want to have covered or like I'll I'll, I'll
run little questions about which grazing muzzle that you find
most helpful for your horse. That gives me really useful
information from horse is about what they need help with and
what they're finding useful, which is a lot cheaper for me to
do than run actual in person groups, you know, like focus
groups or something. So it can be really, really
useful. And I love that you mentioned
that, you know, you are a qualified professional and yet
you're also having to be a social media manager.
And I saw a really funny video on Instagram where someone had
done a sort of an acted out scene of they they were a small
business owner and they were creating their products.
And then the realisation that they suddenly have to be like a
social media manager, like a social media influencer also,
you know, talking to camera, selling the products.
And then the look of horror on their face of the extra job and
the extra workload that they have to do to then actually
promote their business and take it on.
It has become a whole nother job in itself.
I do want to thank you, Claire, for your generosity on your page
because you do give out so much free advice and information that
is so helpful for those who can't, as you say, afford, you
know, any kind of extra help. I wanted to ask you, because we
all have in our Diaries our farrier deadlines when we need
to see the vet, when we have to get dentists out.
Do you wish that nutritionists were part of that almost yearly
appraisal and yearly appointments for our horses?
Yeah, that's a really good point because I think often owners
wait till they've got a problem before they'll get a
nutritionist in. I think I'm more, I'm kind of
fortunate with the group of people that I work with or the
people that come to me for help now and that some just do want
that reassurance as part of the horses team.
Like you say, just check out the diet and sometimes I'll say
actually everything is good and they're happy with that.
But a lot of owners will wait till they've got a problem and
then it's a shame because I could have certainly helped them
before that point. But on the other hand, you know,
only owning horses is expensive and I, I can understand why
that's not done. But then if you have, you know,
your professional type horse owners will have their
nutritionists usually from a feed company because if they've
got a big account, then they'll get that for free.
But yeah, it's a very good point.
And I think, yes, it's easy for me to say, but we need to be
sure that our horses diet as well as the hoof care, tac fit,
veterinary care and everything is up to date.
And the diet such as, well, of course, it's such an important
factor for everything. I mean, I, I've got a little
quote that I say nutrition isn't everything because it isn't.
There's a lot more that's important, but there's nothing
without it. Because if you get it wrong, it
kind of doesn't matter how well everything else is going.
If you get nutrition wrong, you're not going to have an
optimally healthy horse. So I mean, I, I'd love to see
owners even just a once a year check in with what they're doing
with the horse's diet. That would be great.
Yeah, I think it is becoming more popular now there's a few
independent nutritionists working, which is wonderful to
see, like compared to 20 years ago, I think horse.
Owners are doing just what you said, growing.
There's still probably many that don't, but there's a few more
that are doing that now, which is wonderful.
Yeah. And Claire, I've got to also ask
you another frequently asked question or certainly something
that gets us all think of this time of year.
And I particularly have to say during a hay crisis is those
talking about weighing out hay. Now, I wouldn't even know where
to begin. I I know what works for the
horses. I sort of do a bit of a juggle
and think, yeah, OK, that was good.
They didn't run out of hay yesterday and sort of make
adjustments as to how they they go along day by day.
But how do we actually probably weigh out hay?
Oh, that's such a brilliant question because, and I'm glad
you've asked and it's great that you did ask because I think some
owners are a bit scared to ask because they probably feel like
they should know. But I probably.
Shouldn't I probably should buy I've always sort of done that.
Oh, you know, I'll sort of work it out in my head.
That worked yesterday. Do a bit less.
That was a bit too much. Oh yeah, a bit less there than
juggle it do. You know what?
That is good. That's the art of feeding.
It doesn't feel very scientific or very measured, but if that's
working for your horses and they haven't got health problems and
they're maintaining a healthy weight and they're not fasting
for more than four hours or six hours overnight, then you're
doing the right thing. But I do encourage horse owners
to have a spring balance in their hay barn and a set of
scales in their feed room because if you haven't got
things going so well and your horse is overweight or
underweight, it is. That's when it becomes much more
useful to actually weigh everything.
We should definitely, I'm getting off your forage
question. I'll come back to in just a
second. We should definitely always wear
horses feed because we need to make sure that we're giving them
the full recommended amount of vitamin and mineral containing
products. And then we need to know the way
to feed if we need to adjust it in terms of concentrate feed for
the bucket. Going back to the forage.
I mean, a good guideline would generally would be ideally we
want to be offering our horses ad Lib forage, free choice
forage so they can eat forage whenever they feel like it,
whether it's out in the pasture or in a stable or pen or
whatever. However, there are some cases
where if we did that, they would become overweight and they'd
become very unhealthy. So it's really only if they're
overweight that we need to limit the amount.
Maybe unless you've got Sprint race horses where you might want
to limit the amount a little bit for weight, total body weight,
but that's a slight niche area. And so ad Lib if possible, then
limit if you need to. When it comes to actual percent
body weight that horses need to eat or fulfils their appetite,
that's not that scientific. Although we, we talk about two
to 2 1/2 percent body weight, dry matter intake is normal for
horse. We know from their appetite
they'll eat anything from 1.8% up to about 5% body weight, umm,
intake and dry matter per day. And obviously the 5% is usually
going to end up with an overweight horse or pony.
Umm, So it's a good idea to wave.
You don't have to unless you need to start really, umm,
paying more attention to your horse because they're losing too
much weight or they've gained too much weight.
And then it then it becomes a bit more complicated, umm, in
terms of how much to feed. But even when we're weighing
forage or we're restricting it, we can't feed.
Ad libs say they have to lose weight.
We still want to respect this fasting, maximum fasting period
of ideally 4 hours during the day, six hours overnight,
regardless of what we're doing with body weight intake.
So some of the vets will say, like, you know, just drop down
to 1.5% intake, soak your hay, leave it at that.
But the trouble with that is you might end up with like a 10/12
hour fast overnight. And that's really unhealthy for
our digestive tract. So it's important to take into
account, I think, that fasting period as well as the amount of
hair. I'm getting a little bit more
into slightly more complicated area here, but I think it's good
practice to know what sort of weight of forage your horse is
eating over 24 hours. In terms of what you can weigh,
IE hair hailage. We can't really predict how much
grass they eat. That's a whole other
complication. That does confuse the matter,
doesn't it? Yeah, thank you for saying that
because I've always heard about horses needing the adlib forage
and that they should never be left without.
But hearing, and I've got horses that knew, you know, they're not
overweight, but they need to shed a few pounds and hearing
that they can fast for four hours, I was always terrified
that, oh gosh, if they're without hay for say 2 hours,
they're gonna get ulcers 'cause that's what I'd heard online and
that's what you know, the vet says don't let them run out of
hay. So I was always sort of making
sure there was always something left in the hey net for when I
then next went up to to see them and to feed them.
But actually knowing there is a four hour daytime fasting window
could really help in terms of getting rid of those those final
few pounds. Yeah, it's an interesting 1.
And I mean, we do need more research to prove to prove this
one way or the other. But I think we do have to
remember that horses aren't actually designed to eat 100% of
the time. So although we ideally want to
offer them free choice, ad Lib is another word for ad libbedum.
Free choice forage for their mental and digestive tract
health. It's good to have free choice
forage so they can eat when they're driven to feel the need
to eat. Umm, but in nature and where we
look at behaviour studies, it's quite natural for horses to have
if they're on ad Lib forage and they've got free choice to have
those periods of up to 4 hours without eating.
Now, vets will often say 6 hours maximum fast because that's
based on studies of when stomach health starts to decline.
So stomach health doesn't really start to decline until after six
hours based on the research so far, which is very limited, I
have to say. And but if you study, the reason
I come up with this 4 hours is that if you study all the
behavioural time budget studies where they've actually recorded
exactly what horses are doing given natural environments,
natural lifestyles, that's why I've come up with this 4 hours
because generally they won't spend longer than that between
eating bouts. And of course they do naturally
want to eat about 3 courses at the time.
So that's where the four hours thing has come from.
I mean, ideally, if you can find a way of lowering your horse's
forage calories so that you can feed ad Lib, that's better than
imposing that 4 hour fast. This is where nutrition becomes
very individual nuanced for the individual.
It depends on your horse's individual scenario and whether
you can feed straw, whether you can long silk hay, what type of
hay you can get. Because we're always aiming to
give them ad Lib. But it's more, it's also really
important they don't have chronic obesity going on or, or
or overweight for long periods because that has with it so many
health risks. So it's always, it's always a
juggle. It's always a juggle and you've
really helped that scenario for me because mine are already on
12 hour plus soaked. Hey, so but they've had they
have it constantly and they don't have any hard food, but
they are, we aren't able to build a track because we're not
allowed, you know, permission's on the land.
So they're in a smaller mud paddock 'cause they can't have
grass 'cause it's makes them laminitic.
So we're in a constant juggle scenario and always juggling
feed, hay, forage. What do we do, You know,
monitoring weight. And I also love your top tip
earlier about weight taping because don't we get used to the
horse we see in front of us? You know, it's so hard to tell
isn't your mind plays tricks on you and you don't notice just
those subtle changes. Claire, thank you so much for
all the tips and tricks you've given us because you know, our
beloved vets who we we admire and respect so much can't know
everything. They are like our GPS and they
know about a wide range of issues.
But our nutritionists are there for us if we have any questions
or concerns. Just tell us what you can offer.
Claire, if someone's thinking, oh, you know, actually I really
should consult A nutritionist or I've got a few queries about my
horse, why would a nutritionist help them?
Yeah, that's a, it's a good question.
So I like to say like getting a nutritionist involved will give
you Peace of Mind that what you're doing for your horse is
correct. So even if you're don't have any
problems or issues with your horse, I think it's a good idea
to check in with a nutritionist because that just gives you
Peace of Mind. That thing that the, the, the
the diet is correctly balanced, which is the key important
foundation for nutrition. And also it can help Peace of
Mind in that you know you're going to get bombarded with
adverts for all different products and supplements and
goodness knows what. And that can be so confusing.
And it can be marketeers are experts in creating doubt.
So you might have a perfectly good feeding regime and your
horse might be perfectly healthy.
But if you're getting drawn into these adverts on Facebook or
whatever, or your friends saying, oh, you must feed this,
then that can create a lot of stress and open loops in your
mind, which creates a lot because of the doubt.
So even if you haven't got any problems, it's, I think it's
good to have a check in. Actually, that's why I launched.
I've got a quick horse feed check service, which is more
affordable and a much quicker, easier, simple thing to do than
my full on one to one bespoke nutrition package consultation
package. Because sometimes you just need
that quick check and you don't want, you don't want or need
that full package. But so it can just give you
Peace of Mind. Or alternatively, if you feel
like you just don't know where to start, then get in touch with
the nutritionist and they can set you up with a good diet for
your horse that might even last you a long time.
Yeah. Claire, thank you so much
because you have really done some myth busting for us as well
about winter feeding and tackled a huge range of of challenges
that we all experience as horse owners in these in these colder
seasons. And it can feel terrifying
sometimes as a horse owner when we know our beloved animals have
such complex digestive systems. So thank you so much for sharing
your expertise for those who want to find you.
How can they do that? Yeah.
Well, well, first of all, before I answer your question, thank
you for some great questions because you've asked some
questions which are a little bit more kind of complex, but you've
also asked, I think many questions that horse owners
would like to ask, but maybe feel like they shouldn't because
they should already know and there's never any silly
questions. So I'm delighted that you asked
of what you've asked, what you did in terms of getting hold of
me. Probably my website,
echonutritionist.com is the easiest place to start.
It's going to be restructured for next year actually.
And signing up to my e-mail list, I do send out regular
emails, which is more, even more information that you'll find on
my my Facebook page. So you can do that via my
website. And that's a good way of keeping
in touch with what I'm up to or you're joining my Facebook page.
It's a, it's a hopefully a nice, happy, fun place to be with lots
of information and discussion and debate.
But it's always friendly. And like I say, anybody that
challenges or is too rude gets thrown out.
So it's a very safe page. I would hope to to pass on, so
that would be the main thing. Start with my website.
If you want to know exactly what's available, that's the
good place to start. And Claire's Facebook page is
one of my favorite places on Facebook to go to for horsey
advice. And you've, you've helped me no
end this winter, Claire, without even knowing through your posts
and, and juggling some challenges that I've had with my
horses. So thank you so so much for
coming on curious the question, for sharing your knowledge and
and your experience with us and for also helping us all on
Facebook, which can be quite a scary place with all the trolls
lurking. Oh, you're so welcome.
Well, thank you very much for inviting me.
I never take it for granted, you know, that horse owners want to
hear what I have to say. I'm very passionate about my
subject, but I'm just delighted that you know, I, I get invites
to to platforms like yours and I, I need to get into some of
your past episodes because they look fascinating and I love just
the time. Curious the question.
What a great name because it always helps us to be curious
and open to learning. It's going to help us unhelper
horses as well. So yeah, I'm looking forward to
over Christmas when I have a bit of downtime.
See you doing a little bit of podcast listening on.
On your past episodes. Brilliant.