Horses with cravings: Animals should always have access to food

Created: 07/24/2022, 3:00 p.m

By: Anna Katharina Kuesters

If the horse is insatiable, owners should change the way they are fed.

The animals live healthier if they always have low-sugar hay available.

Owners only want the best for their horse and if they find that their darling has started eating non-stop and gaining weight, many owners put the animals on a diet and ration the feed.

But what doesn't work well for humans is also problematic for horses: Instead of eating less and becoming leaner, the horse stuffs as much as possible into itself whenever it has the opportunity.

In the case of insatiable horses, the owners have to find other ways to feed the animal healthily again.

Horses with cravings: Animals must always have access to food

Low-sugar hay is healthier for horses.

(Iconic image) © Alberto Menendez/Imago

Horses with ravenous hunger have often already entered a vicious circle that the animal can only break with the help of humans.

This also includes people rethinking the feeding of the horse and checking the care of the animal based on its needs.

For example, it is useless to give horses less and less food and only at certain times of the day if they are overweight.

This has the opposite effect on the animals: the horses then think that food is a scarce commodity and they must take full advantage of every opportunity to eat.

This is the natural behavior of animals.

In the wild, horses spend about 18 hours a day feeding, but they only eat as much as they need for energy.

If owners decide to change the feeding and provide the animal with a certain amount throughout the day, the horses first have to learn again not to eat everything up unrestrainedly.

The conversion process takes a few weeks, but is worth it, because afterwards the animals are much more relaxed when dealing with food.

Horses with cravings: This also helps

In addition to changing the feeding, there are more things that owners can do in everyday life and with which they can convert the animals from excessive long-term eaters back to a horse with normal eating behavior.

The following tips will help:

• Check herd composition: Not all horses need the same amount of feed.

  Horses that are more challenged in everyday life should be in one group and horses that have to work less and therefore use less energy in another.

  In this way, the animals do not encourage each other to eat uncontrollably and there is no jealousy over food.

• Low-sugar hay: Unfortunately, hay today contains hardly any healthy herbs, but all the more sugar.

  A sugar content of less than six percent is best, so the hay no longer tastes as tasty and horses only eat as much as they really need.

  Both sick and healthy horses live better with this variant.

  Incidentally, horses only need food supplements in very rare cases.

• Challenging horses: Most horses in the stable don't get enough exercise and don't have to exert themselves enough in everyday life.

  How much and how persistently owners train their horses also has a positive effect on weight.

  In concrete terms, this means: Every day 20 minutes trot, 15 minutes canter.

The owner is responsible for the horse's health and must intervene if the horse develops unstoppable cravings.

With a few tricks, however, the eating behavior and the weight of the animal can be leveled off again in the long run.