Feeding to Prevent and Control Disease

Dietary management can work like magic for specific equine diseases.
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

Horse owners often search for a magic feedstuff that will enable horses to go farther, run faster, be healthier, and move sounder. Often, a variety of oral supplements are added to the diet, with unknown results. Some feed additives can cause more harm than good, or, at the very least, put a large hole in your wallet. In many cases, performance improvements are best accomplished with conditioning, training, and stable management rather than through some oral potion given in the feed. Yet, that being said, dietary management can work like magic for specific equine diseases.

Muscular, joint, intestinal, and metabolic problems can be created by a horse’s intake of inappropriate or imbalanced nutrition. These same problems can be solved with proper dietary management. With careful consideration of how best to feed, there might be a simple solution at hand that relies only on inexpensive modifications to your horse’s nutritional routine.

Equine Metabolic Syndrome

One disease that has come into the spotlight in recent years is equine metabolic syndrome (EMS). In most cases, a horse with EMS is obese due to breed predisposition, body type, and management considerations such as overfeeding and restricted exercise. Because fat stores in abdominal locations do not just store fat, but also exert hormonal effects, these horses are often insulin resistant and prone to laminitis

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Nancy S. Loving, DVM, owns Loving Equine Clinic in Boulder, Colorado, and has a special interest in managing the care of sport horses. Her book, All Horse Systems Go, is a comprehensive veterinary care and conditioning resource in full color that covers all facets of horse care. She has also authored the books Go the Distance as a resource for endurance horse owners, Conformation and Performance, and First Aid for Horse and Rider in addition to many veterinary articles for both horse owner and professional audiences.

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

How much time do you usually spend grooming your horse?
437 votes · 437 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!