Question
Holyfield is my show hunter. He’s 15.2 hands and weighs 940 lb (430 kg), so he’s a little light for his height. On the body condition score chart, he’d be dead-on 4 on the familiar 1-9 scale. While he gets time outside, there’s no grass in his lot, but he’s fed four flakes of grass hay, 2 lb (0.9 kg) of alfalfa cubes daily, and 2 lb (0.9 kg) of alfalfa/timothy pellets daily. Aside from the forage, he’s given 1 lb (0.45 kg) of balancer pellet. As far as supplements, Holyfield is fed vitamin E (1,000 IU), a high-quality hyaluronic acid, an all-natural gastrointestinal supplement, and sea buckthorn. He is a hard-keeper, and changing him to an all-forage diet has made weight maintenance even more challenging. He tends to run on the hotter side, so I don't want to add anything that will give him more energy. I was considering vegetable oil, but would I need to add anything to balance the omega fatty acids? As you’ve probably already guessed, gastric ulcers are a real problem for Holyfield, and a real headache for me!
Answer
How much grass hay is Holyfield consuming on a weight basis, and how would you rate the quality of the hay? These are important factors in deciding a way forward for him. Adding a fat source will help with weight gain, but changes in the hay portion of the diet may also be needed to effect change. Possible tweaks include increasing the amount of hay fed or improving the quality of the hay fed. High-quality hay often contains more energy and protein than hay harvested at undesirable times (plants too mature, inclement weather) and hay stored in suboptimal conditions.
Horses prone to gastric ulcers benefit from higher forage intakes such as 1.7-2% of their body weight. For a 1,000-lb (450-kg) horse, this would equate to about 19-22 lb (8.5-10 kg) per day. Providing more hay pellets or cubes is one way of improving the quality of the forage if you are limited by grass hay options.
Vegetable oil is an energy-dense supplement, so a small amount may make a big difference, but this will need to be top-dressed just before feeding. Cost-effective options for providing calories are soy and canola oil, and these have acceptable, though not ideal, omega-6 to omega-3 ratios. How much oil you feed dictates whether additional sources of omega-3 fatty acids are needed to balance the overall diet. Low intake of oil (2-4 oz or 30-60 ml per day) does not normally necessitate omega-3 supplementation.
Another option is to provide a high-fat supplement in an extruded or pelleted form.
ReSolvin EQ provides gastric health support and boosts the omega-3 fatty acid content of the diet as it is a blend of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA) and the anti-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acid (GLA).
