Health & Rehabilitation

Health of the rehabilitating horse

‘The New Feeding Concept’, back to the horse’s natural roughage needs. A healthy horse starts with a healthy intestinal flora. And that is where it often goes wrong with our average roughage, sometimes combined with kilos and kilos of concentrates.

Giving your rehabilitating horse only a handful of pellets or muesli because they are not ‘in work’ seems logical, but is not very wise. Especially at this time, plenty of vitamins and minerals in the diet and a healthy intestinal flora are of the utmost importance!

How can you deal with an injured horse?
Your horse has been injured and has to take it easy in training for a while, or was even prescribed complete box rest. This can be a rough deal, especially for your horse who would love nothing better than to play and run with their friends. At this time, keeping your horse feeling ‘happy’ is critical.

Boredom lurks, as does the risk of overfeeding with too much energy. It is important that your horse does not get too much energy, but still likes the taste of low-sugar roughage. Digestion also has to be mantained. In addition, your horse will have an increased need for high-quality nutrients for their recovery. No shortage of challenges there, then!

The risk of overweight?

Even if your horse is injured or already overweight, the minimum roughage requirement is still 1,5% of their body weight in dry matter in fibres/roughage to keep the body healthy and feeling satisfied. Feeding much more than this is not recommended, given the risk of overweight. Slow feeders may help to increase chewing time. Finding a low-energy batch of roughage to feed in part of the diet is also helpful.

To stimulate the intestines, wet fibres are recommended, for example beetroot mash, bran or ‘light’ mashes. Too much straw or flax hay is not such a good idea as the majority of this cannot be properly digested by the intestinal bacteria and may cause obstructions.

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The advantages of ‘The New Feeding Concept’ in the rehabilitation of the horse, with EQUILIN BASICs; ;

• Balances the intestinal flora.
• Antibiotics are sometimes necessary, but often this also negatively impacts the beneficial bacteria in the intestinal flora, and extra care and attention are needed here.
• Omega 3 (DHA), vitamin E and magnesium allow the horse to relax more and become less sensitive to stress. EquilinCOMFORT can help to stimulate this even more.
• Essential amino acids maintain the muscle mass without putting extra strain on the liver.

EQUILIN BALANCERs ensure your horse or pony gets sufficient highly-digestible vitamins and minerals so the immune system can do its job properly.