Does it make sense to feed your horse low-sugar horse food?

To answer this question, we first need to know what happens to sugars in a horse’s body…

A very healthy body absorbs the carbohydrates from sugar and starch almost completely in the small intestine with a balanced diet, provided that not too much is fed per feeding. All the starch breaks down into sugar molecules. You have fast absorbing sugars and slow absorbing sugars. The absorbed sugar, the so-called blood glucose, then causes an insulin increase, so that the sugars are stored in fat and muscle tissue.

When a body is offered too large amounts of digestible carbohydrates, not everything can be absorbed in the small intestine and a part will flow to the large intestine. This can lead to dysbacteriosis. For horses with a healthy body, a maximum of 1.2 grams of sugar/starch per kg of body weight of digestible carbohydrates per meal applies. For a 600 kg horse, this is 720 grams, which equates to a maximum of 1.5 to 2 kg of concentrate per meal.

So you do not have to feed horse food without sugar, but do pay attention to the amount of sugar per meal and divide it ration over as many smaller portions as possible

Is molasses also sugar?

Molasses consists of 50% sugar. It is the remainder of the sugar extraction from sugar cane and sugar beet. It is a kind of syrup and also contains a portion of vitamins and minerals (unrefined sugars).

Which products contain sugar?

Horse chunks:
Horse chunks contain a maximum of 6% molasses. This equates to 30 grams of sugar in one kilogram of horse pellets (usually this is even less, between 1 and 4%). Basic or sports chunk contains an average of 20 to 45% sugar. This means about 200 to 450 grams of sugar in 1 kg of horse pellets, of which a maximum of 30 grams comes from molasses.

Grass:
Grass contains between 0.7 and 5.5% (an average of 3.1%). This is equivalent to 7 to 55 grams of sugar per kilogram of grass. A horse eats 4.5 kg of grass in an hour, which is 31 to 250 grams of sugar per hour. Horses that are outside 24 hours a day eat an average of 8 to 11 kg of dry matter. This means an average of 440 to 2,200 grams of sugar per day.

The same applies to the other types of roughage, such as 5.5 to 20% sugar in hay and haylage in dry matter. For horses weighing 550 kg, this absorbs at least 8 to 11 kg of dry matter, which is equivalent to an average of between 440 to 2,200 grams of sugar per day.

Redacteur VHiVer op bezoek bij Equilin en Drs Annette van Weezel Errens

When is sugar bad?

Horses have billions of bacteria in the blind and large intestines. These bacteria live in balance with each other and live on the nutrients that horses have not been able to absorb in the small intestine. In a healthy state, these are the substances that are not digestible by the digestive enzymes in a horse itself, for example fibers (crude fiber) and proteins. This digestion by bacteria is called fermentation and in turn provides all beneficial nutrients for horses, including fatty acids, B vitamins and biotin. If too much sugar flows through to the small intestine, this can cause a disturbance in the balance.

So then only fast carbohydrates?

Fast carbohydrates, sugars and/or starch can be broken down and absorbed very quickly. The result is high blood sugar after meals. These blood sugars are stored under the influence of insulin in the muscle and fat cells of the horse and are released again during exercise. As long as a horse gets enough exercise, sugar is not a problem at all, even an essential food.

But how necessary are those fast carbohydrates? Most horses take in much more energy than they need. For example, a horse that performs (light) work for an hour does not need scoops of concentrate. One hour of light work means a half hour walk, 27 minutes trot and a few minutes canter (up to M level) every day. If a horse grazes on an average pasture for 7 hours, it will receive sufficient energy and sugar for this.

Is the horse feed without sugar, molasses and grains hype justified?

Carbohydrates (sugar and starch) are in the horse feed, there is no escaping them and are also necessary to give to the horse to continue to function. Horses can handle carbohydrates, although it is important not to feed too large portions at once and in proportion to the amount of exercise horses get. And that’s where things regularly go wrong, a lot of ponies and horses that are overweight take in much more energy than they use, and that starts with the roughage.

Extra concentrate is then too much and can be compared to chips and biscuits, all of which is extra energy that is generally not necessary, but is tasty. And commerce and all kinds of self-proclaimed nutritionists benefit from it. Horse pellets nowadays have to be molasses and grain-free, and ‘light feed’ is now also on the market. Nice and ‘light’ with still 20% starch and more than 1 to 2 kilos of sugar per day from roughage! If we really want to feed well, let’s start worrying about making the ration sufficiently low in energy and high in fiber, because that’s what our horses really need.

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Horse feed with no added sugar

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2 bags of BASIC and 1 bag of BALANCER (ENG)

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