Horses often lose weight in winter for the simple reason that when it is cold they burn more calories to maintain body temperature, therefore calorie requirements are higher during this period. Some simple solutions could be:
- feeding additional fibre as hay helps to keep horses warm as fibre fermentation produces heat and increases calorie intake.
- if your horse can't maintain weight on additional forage you may need to introduce some higher calorie feeds into the diet. Pryde'sBioMare Cubes would be an example of this.
- rugging your horse during this period. This reduces the amount of calories a horse needs to burn to stay warm and reduces calorie requirements.
- Don't be afraid to let horses lose some weight in winter! Some horses, especially those that get very fat during spring and summer can benefit from losing weight in winter.