Bring Back the Horse’s Instincts
A Letter from Juliet M. Getty, Ph.D.
The issue is free choice forage feeding.
I
respect and honor the way horses are made – they are different –
unique, really. In a suitable, native environment, they are quite
capable of taking care of themselves. They are free to eat and roam and,
well, be horses. Domestication involves removing them from their
natural setting, but that doesn’t change who they are. Horses have
physiological and mental needs and those needs are being ignored.
I
have very deep convictions on allowing a horse’s instincts to take
hold. Many horses have lost their ability to express them, but they can
resurface. Last month, I wrote about the stress of forage restriction.
Some have said that what I am describing appears to be a road to
increased obesity and an increased risk of laminitis. But they are
grossly mistaken.
When we see images of wild horses running free,
we all experience the hush, the chill, and the awe of their power and
majesty. That is Nature at her best – allowing these incredible animals
to live as they are intended. Why is it that we don’t see our own
domesticated horses in the same way? Why is it that we think we can
confine them to a small area for hours at a time, give them a few
“square meals” each day and expect them to be right, physically and
mentally? Are they not the same horses that long ago lived a different
life?
It’s been said that our horses have become different – that
horses living in the wild don’t suffer from the ravages of insulin
resistance, the main cause of laminitis. Yes, it’s true -- we don’t see
laminitis when horses are free to feed themselves. But we do see insulin
resistance, and that’s a blessing. Insulin resistance is the body’s way
of avoiding starvation. During a harsh winter, when the food supply is
sparse, horses will hold on to body fat to help them survive. They do
this by having an elevated blood insulin level. When insulin is high,
the cells cannot release fat. This is a survival mechanism.
We
duplicate this when we restrict forage. The horse responds the same way
– he is in survival mode! And he holds on to body fat.
Anything
that causes insulin to rise will keep a horse fat. Hundreds of studies
with humans confirm the connection between elevated insulin and obesity.
Stress causes obesity in humans. Why? Because cortisol (the stress
hormone) causes insulin to rise. At the cellular level, the same is true
for horses. We have equine studies to show how insulin rises during
stress. So why isn’t this being extrapolated to obesity in horses?
Perhaps
it’s because it doesn’t seem to make sense that eating more causes
weight loss. But we know that humans best lose weight by eating small
meals throughout the day – grazing, if you will. And we also know that
starving oneself will result in weight loss (mostly muscle loss) but
will slow down the metabolic rate so dramatically, that the weight comes
back on with far fewer calories than it originally took to maintain
one’s weight. Yet the studies we choose to do using horses involve
starving the horse to get him to lose weight. Which he does. And we
celebrate. The conventional advice appears to work: Give the horse hay
equal to 1.5% of his body weight, keep him in a stall much of the day so
he cannot graze, and he loses weight! And if he doesn’t, reduce the
amount of hay to 1%! The idiom, “not seeing the forest for the trees,”
comes to mind. What is the big picture? What are you left with? A horse
with less muscle mass, stressed to the max, with a sluggish metabolism
so he will never live a normal life of grazing on pasture again. Never.
We have forced our horses to abandon their instincts.
They
no longer get the inner signal that tells them to stop eating. To help
you appreciate this, I’d like you to think about your childhood. When
you were a toddler, you ate what you needed, and when you were no longer
hungry, you stopped eating. Yes, you were coddled to finish your green
beans, or no dessert! So you ate more to get that reward. But your
instincts (yes, you had them back then) were to eat only what your body
required. As you grew, you discovered that eating has more rewards than
just getting dessert; eating is comforting, it cures stress, boredom, or
disappointment, and is just plain fun! You likely don’t eat only when
you’re hungry; you eat whenever you gather with friends or celebrate a
special occasion. And guess what? Now that you’re grown, those instincts
to eat only what your body needs have long faded.
Horses are a
different story. They do not succumb to the pressures of society to
influence their appetites. But when they are forced to eat on our
schedules, they quickly become out of touch with that innate ability to
eat slowly, a little at a time, and stop when satisfied. Instead, they
eat quickly, ravenously, with barely a breath in between each bite,
because they do not know when their next meal will be available. When it
gets close to feeding time they pace, bob their heads, paw the ground,
and make strange noises. This is not normal; it is a result of what we
have done to our horses. We, well-meaning horse owners and caregivers,
are putting our horses into survival mode!
Horses are unlike humans in one very significant way.
Their
digestive tract is not the same as ours. The biology that drives the
horse’s digestion is indisputable: The horse’s stomach produces acid
continuously, necessitating the action of chewing to release
acid-neutralizing saliva. The digestive tract is made of muscles and
needs to be exercised to prevent colic by having a steady flow of forage
running through it. The cecum (the hindgut where forage is digested by
billions of microbes) has both its entrance and exit at the top, thereby
requiring it to be full so material can exit, lest it become impacted.
I appeal to you to look at this logically.
You
should not put your horse in a dry lot or a stall with no hay. You
should test your hay, make sure it is suitable for the horse (low in
sugar, starch, and calories) and put it in lots of slow feeders, placed
everywhere you can – encouraging your horse to move! Exercise, even a
small amount will make a difference. A larger amount will make a bigger
difference.
When a horse loses weight the right way, his
metabolic rate stays sound and he will be able to graze on pasture
again. Perhaps you will have to limit it a bit, but maybe not. Some
supplements may be helpful. I have seen hundreds of cases over the years
where horses have returned to a normal life – healthy, full of vigor,
with no grass restrictions.
Let your horse tell you how much he needs to eat.
Show
him that he can start trusting his instincts—that’s the strong message
you want him to understand. And you do that by being invariably
trustworthy about feeding. Start by giving him more hay (that you’ve
tested for suitability) than he could possibly eat – enough to last all
day and enough so there is some left over in the morning. That means he
needs to always have forage available. If he runs out, he will never get
the message and will continue to overeat and continue to be fat.
Let
me repeat that… If he runs out, even for 10 minutes, he will never get
the message and will continue to overeat and continue to be fat. And
worse, the hormonal response to this stress can induce a laminitis
attack or relapse. I’ve seen this more times than I can count.
It
may take a few weeks (though most of the time it is far shorter than
that) for the magic moment to occur – when he walks away from the hay,
knowing that it will still be there when he wants it. And then, watch
his instincts start to return… just like yours were when you were a
small child… where he will eat only what his body needs to be healthy.
(You’ll notice a beautiful change in his behavior, too.)
I have
many, many clients who have put their trust in me and done this for
their horses with success. It is not easy to do at first – I understand
that. But when done properly, it works – the overweight horse loses
weight. The horse with chronic laminitis doesn’t suffer any more. The
horse with Cushing’s disease can live a longer, healthier life. Equine
metabolic syndrome becomes a thing of the past. And the owners… ah, the
owners… can throw away all that worry and experience the sheer joy that
horse ownership can bring.
I know that I am a trailblazer.
This seems like something new. Actually, if you think about it, it is so old, that it is
new! But that’s how change happens. We used to feed oats to horses –
gallons of oats every day. We now know that a large amount of starch is
detrimental. I am encouraged by this change, not only because of its own
value, but because it tells me that there is every likelihood that
feeding forage free choice will also come to be accepted as mainstream.
I
am doing everything I possibly can to help horse owners and
professionals understand this basic, foundational concept. I have 7
years of post-graduate study in the field of animal nutrition. I work
completely independently of feed, supplement, and pharmaceutical
companies. My approach is based on observation and years of excellent
results. There is no better science than that.
New forum offered for free choice feeding
For
the growing community of horse owners and managers who allow their
horses free choice feeding, I have set up a special forum for you to
share your experiences with each other and to let me and others know how
you’re doing. It is a place for support, celebrations, congratulations,
and idea sharing. Go to jmgetty.blogspot.com.
Please
share this article with your fellow horsemen and women. Permission to
reprint this article is granted providing that full credit is given to
Dr. Getty and publisher informs Dr. Getty about the use of the article. No editorial changes may be made without her approval.
Juliet
M. Getty, Ph.D. is an internationally respected, independent equine
nutritionist who believes that optimizing horse health comes from
understanding how the horse’s physiology and instincts determine the
correct feeding and nutrition practices. She is the Contributing
Nutrition Editor for the Horse Journal, and is available for private consultations and speaking engagements.
Keep learning with Dr. Getty! At www.gettyequinenutrition.com, sign up for her informative, free monthly newsletter, Forage for Thought;
browse her library of reference articles; search her nutrition forum;
and purchase recordings of her informative teleseminars. You can also
pick up copies of her books, including Dr. Getty’s comprehensive
reference, Feed Your Horse Like A Horse along with the various volumes in her Spotlight on Equine Nutrition Series, the latest of which—on horse digestion—will be published this fall.
