Tips for Feeding Horses in Winter

Why do horses need dietary adjustments in the winter?

• Your horse’s diet should change over time. Many factors contribute to an evolving nutrition plan, including hormones, training and exercise, pasture availability, and the type of hay available. You may even find a need to increase or decrease calories to help your equine friend keep a healthy weight. There are many reasons to adjust feeding in the cold winter months.

Hormones

• As daylight hours fade, your horse starts to produce more ACTH and cortisol hormones. These signals tell your horse to grow a winter coat and pack their bodies with fat for warmth. These hormonal changes require appropriate vitamins, minerals, and calories to protect your horse fully.

• The amount of body fat varies greatly and depends on genetics, diet, overall health, and more. It’s not uncommon for a body condition scoring to change in the winter season.

Pasture availability

• Fresh pasture grass is ideal for low-laminitis risk horses. The fresh forage provides ample omega-3 amino acids, lots of chewing time, movement, herd dynamics, and calories.

• As winter approaches, the availability of pasture decreases, and the quality of what remains also decreases. Snow-covered grass means your horse is expending energy to dig for the good stuff, which may not replace those calories. With enough snow, digging becomes almost impossible.

• Adding more calories, Omega-3s, and other nutrients can supplement any missing pasture time.

Exercise and training plans

• It’s not uncommon to take a break from hard training and showing in cold temperatures. Either the rain, snow, and hard footing keep riding to a minimum, or your horse needs rest after a busy show season.

• In this case, caloric needs decrease, and you may not need to supplement your horse’s diet with extra calories. This may not be the case for hard-keepers, who may need help getting enough calories to stay warm.

First cut of hay vs. later cuts

• The cut of hay can determine how nutritious the forage is. The first cuts are higher in fiber and lower in protein and sugars. Later cuts have more protein and sugar. If you’re unsure what cut of hay you have, check how “stemmy” the forage is. Early cuts tend to have more stems, whereas later cuts have more leafy material.

• Second or third cuts have more calories and taste better, but may be too high in sugars for high-laminitis risk horses. Later cuts also have less fiber, a key ingredient for hindgut fermentation, which helps maintain your horse’s body heat. In thin or older horses, fiber helps maintain a good body condition.

• Know the type of hay you feed and the general NSC value and fiber content, as hay does vary between plants. The most important thing is that you have enough hay to last.

Feed to prevent colic

• Motion is lotion, and this goes for your horse’s gut as much as for their body. Grazing and movement go hand in hand, but this is often only for the summer months.

• Horses also may not drink enough water, creating a risk of impaction colic. You need to change your winter feeding plan to prevent colic.

• Fiber supplements and adding water to your horse’s “meals” can help.

How to Adjust Your Horse’s Diet – Calories, Fiber, Nutrients, and Gut Health

• Once you have a general idea of the changes needed for seasonal adjustments, here’s how to proceed.

Caloric needs in winter

• Keep tabs on your horse’s weight. Your horse’s body condition score is a great place to start, and your vet can help you determine this score during fall vaccinations. Then use a weight tape to track your horse’s body weight and look for trends.

• If you have a hard keeper with minimal body fat, consider adding calories through forage or a weight gain supplement. A thick winter coat can only do so much without that extra layer of fat.

• If your overweight horse treats winter weight gain like an Olympic sport, you still need to feed forage 24/7, but you can look into round bales, which are sometimes poor quality hay. They will keep the chewing going, without too many extra calories. You can also adjust the amount of feed you offer, or switch from a complete feed to a ration balancer.

Adjustments in response to pasture availability

• It’s not possible to feed more hay to equal any lost pasture grass. The vitamins, minerals, and Omega-3 fatty acids need replacement. Here are some things to consider when pasture is less available.

Reduce overgrazing

• Overgrazing is easy when dormant grass gets eaten down. Bare pastures also leave muddy messes in spring. If there is some grazing in winter, use grazing muzzles to save a little grass.

• Muzzles are wearable slow feeders that create a more natural way for your horse to eat, which encourages movement.

Supplement with more hay

• Prevent unnecessary weight loss by providing more hay. Grass hay is good for chewing time, and legumes have more calories if needed.

• Feed stores also have hay cubes, pellets, and chaff hay for more forage. These are pound-for-pound the same as long-stem forage. You’ll need less storage space, and these compressed hay products are easy to mix with water for additional hydration.

Read more about types of hay and why it matters in winter.

Add supplements to balance equine nutrition

• There’s a supplement for EVERY nutritional need. Even the healthy adult horse needs supplementation. The most common ones in winter include:

• Vitamin E. This antioxidant doesn’t last more than a week in hay, and with reduced grazing, adding some vitamin E is a great idea.

• Selenium. There are areas where this soil-based mineral is missing, like New England. Know where your horse’s forage comes from and the selenium content of any pasture grass.

• Omega-3 fatty acids are plentiful in fresh grass, but almost every single horse needs some. A horse’s diet is typically higher in Omega-6s, but feeding flax, chia, or fish oils can help with overall inflammation, immune function, skin health, and more.

Overall vitamin and mineral supplements

• No forage-based diet of hay will have the perfect combination of vitamins and minerals for your horse. Look for a broad vitamin and mineral supplement or ration balancer to fill in gaps.

• Most horses get adequate protein from their diets, but you can add more if needed. This can be especially helpful for seniors and injured horses.

Adding calories with feeds

• Hard keepers need help with additional calories for weight and body heat. Use beet pulp shreds, rice bran, or other calorie-boasting supplements.

• Be mindful of adding starches and sugars, which are not healthy, especially equines with metabolic disorders, gastric ulcers, hindgut ulcers, or any increased risk of colic and laminitis.

This article has more information on nutritional when feeding horses in winter.

Best Practices for Feeding Horses in Winter

• Horse owners may need to provide more interactive feeding methods to boost forage and water intake while reducing boredom.

Encourage movement with slow feeders and hay bags

• Get creative when delivering hay and feeds, and a slow feeder is always the way to go. Nets, bags, custom containers, boxes, and toys stimulate their brains and slow down their feeding. This also helps maintain a slow and steady fuel supply, keeping the hindgut fermenting and generating warmth continuously.

Slow feeding “meals” of grains and pellets

• You can slow feed pellets, grains, and supplements. One way is to make their ration soupy.

• Slow feeders for pellets and grains also exist. Break up the ration into several smaller doses rather than one big one. This helps prevent too many sugars and starches from entering the hindgut at once.

• Feed your grains and pellets after feeding hay. The hay creates a slow line of traffic, which also spreads out how sugars and starches enter the hindgut.

Is keeping water next to hay a great idea? YES. Is the jagged, icy bucket a good idea? Probs not. 

Add water for hydration

• Keep your horse hydrated for digestion, colic prevention, and overall health.

• Aside from adding water to feeds, you could soak hay if the weather permits.

• Ensure your horse has more than one water source. And water temperature matters! They prefer cold water, but will drink warm water when it’s the only option.

• Give your horse a water buffet with choices of plain water and buckets with juice, some hay pellets, a smidge of grain, or any treat to add flavor. Once you’ve found your horse’s favorite flavor, you can make several gallons of water treat.

• Track how much water your horse drinks, if possible, and note their gum health to monitor hydration. Checking for wet gums is the best way to notice dehydration.

Learn more about gum health and what it can tell you here.

Feeding horses in winter overnight

• Weirdly, equines can self-regulate eating forage, but this only happens when they have long-term, free access to forage 24/7, which isn’t always easy in cold weather.

• A large hay bag makes feeding horses in winter easy. Many designs can hold an entire bale.

• Add blankets if they require calories for weight gain. Any crushing of the hair doesn’t matter, as an appropriate blanket does that job and lets calories go toward weight instead of warmth.

The Science Behind Feeding Horses in Winter

• There is a lot of science about feeding your equine friend in colder weather. Here are some highlights.

Energy needs vs. temperature

• Some clever researchers published a paper on a horse’s energy needs and how they change as the weather changes. They examined varying temperatures and measured them against the lower critical temperature, which is the temperature at which a horse requires additional energy to generate warmth.

In cold weather, maintenance energy needs of adult and growing horses increase by 2.5% to 6% for each Celsius degree below their lower critical temperature.

Read this paper here.

The influence of breed on cold tolerance

• Icelandic horses are small, sturdy creatures that can withstand the icy Nordic winters. Researchers monitored a herd of Icelandics living outdoors and noted this:

It is concluded that a cold climate with temperatures down to -31°C does not challenge the thermoregulation of cold-acclimated Icelandic horses, provided that there is sufficient quality feed and access to a shelter.

• Also, a Thoroughbred could never without some significant help!

Read more here.

Fatty acid content and cold-weather horses

• Another group of scientists studies the Yakutian horse to see how their diet helps them prepare for the cold.

The cereal plants studied (B. inermis and A. sativa) accumulate lipids, phosphatidylcholine and fatty acids, in particular, during the period of natural cold hardening in extremely cold climates of the permafrost zone. Cereals enriched with nutrients are the basis for the Yakutian horse feeding during pre-winter fat accumulation.

Read more here.

Pasture and vitamins

• This study looked at how mares and foals receive vitamins A, D, and E, and they found that:

These results are interpreted to indicate that, in Finland, the commonly used amounts of dietary vitamins A and E or their bioavailability in vitamin-mineral concentrates are not sufficient to maintain serum concentrations in winter even close to the levels found in horses on pasture. Vitamin D status of horses is difficult to study due to very low serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

• This underlines the importance of some supplements if needed.

Read more here.

Turnout is vital for horses, all year long. 

Pay attention to your horse’s inputs and outputs

Track how your horse eats, drinks, pees, and poops. And changes can signal an upcoming health issue. Also track their vital signs (especially gums!) to stay ahead of dehydration.