Feeding the EMS horse
- Jenny Paterson
- Sep 24
- 3 min read
The horse’s body, like ours, is a sophisticated biochemistry machine.
In fact, life runs on biochemical reactions: eg breaking down food for energy. Enzymes do the work.
DNA and RNA are biochemical molecules that store, copy, and transmit information.
Hormones (eg insulin, adrenaline) & neurotransmitters (eg dopamine, acetylcholine) are all part of the biochemistry.
The goal when feeding horses is therefore to not unduly disturb the biochemistry.
The horse's metabolism can cope with temporary disturbances but not chronic ones.
Keeping the biochemistry right for horses principally relies on consumption of HIGH FIBRE forage in conjunction with being on the move.
Their metabolism can easily handle temporary exposure (a few weeks here and there) to low fibre (<20%) forage (short or lush green grass), but when temporary extends to permanent (green grass all year round) then the body’s ability to maintain equilibrium starts to fail.
Management involves correcting the diet and increasing exercise.
Most importantly it is about changing the forage rather than reducing it, along with minimizing sugar and starch, without neglecting protein, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals.
The goal being to reverse the condition, prevent laminitis, and improve overall health.
Do what you have to do to implement the following:
Increase Dry Matter Intake to meet daily requirements**. NB this is not easy to achieve when there is an abundance of fresh Spring or Autumn grass available and when there are regional shortages of hay. Options to augment fibre include utilising straw, various chaffs, hulls and beet. Those who rent grazing will find it a challenge to eliminate the short, green grass
If you do not have access to a Dry Lot then reduce/restrict access to short or lush green grass by sectioning them off.
Explain to Agistment/Livery owners who object, that this is a welfare issue for your horse
Make sure the horse has a full belly of hay BEFORE any turnout.
When using grazing muzzles also make sure the horse’s fibre requirements are met before and after. 2. For these horses hay is better to be brown & stalky rather than green & leafy.
If it doesn’t come with an analysis then soak it for at least an hour prior to feeding:
More info here: https://www.calmhealthyhorses.com/soaking-hay
3. What about lucerne/alfalfa? – this is the subject for another post because it DEPENDS. For some horses including lucerne will be beneficial, for others it can prove unsuitable. It depends on what sort of forage the horse developed the EMS on – for instance whether the horse had been grazing warm or cool season grasses.
Horses are primarily GRASS eaters and Lucerne is a legume like clover it shouldn’t make up more than 10% of the horse’s forage
4. Everybody already knows to avoid feeds high in carbohydrates and starches like grains, sweet-feeds, molasses, wheat or rice-bran
5. Take care of protein requirements – an aspect often neglected when feeding EMS horses. There are numerous options. We recommend a combination of Crushed or Micronised Linseed (Flaxseed) & WBSS (Whole Black Sunflower Seeds -which can be fed whole or crushed in a kitchen blender.)
6. Flaxseed oil is safe to feed for under-weight EMS horses (but be aware it does not contain any protein)
7. Feed a BROAD SPECTRUM supplement for essential nutrients INCLUDING ALL THE VITAMINS - PremiumMVA (NZ & UK) or SupremeMVA (Australia)
8. Do what you have to do to increase daily exercise
9. There are numerous helpful products/herbs (eg jiaogulan) for EMS horses. Use them in conjunction with the fundamentals of increasing fibre, ensuring quality protein and replenishing critical nutrients, rather than as a replacement.
To summarise:
In our view the MAIN culprit when it comes to the development of EMS, is chronic consumption of grass which is in a vegetative STAGE OF GROWTH. The message regarding carbohydrate over-load is well entrenched and lowering intake of them is frequently not enough.
Devising a grazing strategy which incorporates the use of Dry Lots & Tracks in conjunction with allowing a longer ‘rotation’, prevents horses consuming grass that is in growth mode all year round.
This is KEY to reversing EMS, vastly reducing the risk of laminitis and improving overall health.
**For example a 500kg horse should consume 2.5% of his BW in Dry Matter (fibre) per day
500 x 2.5% = 12.5kgs of hay.
If the hay is 85% DM then 12.5kgs of hay = 12.5 x 85% =10.6kgs DM
Hence it takes almost 15kgs of hay to provide the 12.5kgs of actual fibre needed to feed the horse.
Comments