The impact of emaciation or obesity on your equestrian companion’s health is immense. If your horse is healthy, it’ll not only look good but feel great as well. That is why you need to understand your companion’s nutritional needs. An optimum tool to confidently figure out the exact nutrition requirements of your horse is a body condition scoring chart!
Proper horse management can’t and shouldn’t ignore regular body condition scoring. After identifying the body condition score that is appropriate for your horse, you’ll need to keep evaluating the horse from time-to-time. The feed intake of your horse will depend on these evaluations. With regular evaluation, you’ll even be able to determine proper exercises to ensure that the perfect body condition score is maintained.
Ribs
To assess the body condition score of your horse, the first place to look is the ribcage. If the ribs are starkly visible, the score over the ribcage should be below 5. If they can’t be seen, the score will be 5 or above. If you’ve got a very thin horse, the ribs will be prominent. As it gains some weight, you will feel a little padding around the area.
Shoulders
If the score is 5, the shoulder will blend smoothly with the horse’s body. As the score increases, fat starts getting deposited behind the shoulder, and it starts bulging. You can observe this easily behind the elbow region.
Neck
In underweight horses, the bony structure of the neck is visible. Fat gets deposited on the neck’s top when the horse gains condition. The neck will blend smoothly into the horse’s body as the condition score reaches 5.
Withers
The area between the horse’s shoulder blade’s top and the spinal vertebrae will have no fat if it is extremely thin. Both the structures will be discernible easily. When the condition score increases, fat fills the area. The withers appear rounded at a score of 5.
Tailhead
If your horse is really thin, you’ll find that the tailhead is prominent. Once your horse puts on some weight, fat will start filling in around the tailhead. With the condition score exceeding 7, the fat will begin to bulge.
Loin
A score of 5 means the area is relatively leveled. The spine won’t be sticking up, nor will you find a crease or dent when you trace the spine. Below condition score 5, the spine starts becoming prominent. This is called a “negative crease.”
As an equestrian, you need to be mindful of your companion’s body condition score. You can download HYGAIN’s body condition scoring chart. For other equestrian essentials, do explore the collection of products we carry!
]]>Proper exercise and nutrition are keys to keeping your equestrian friend healthy and happy! While getting your horse to work its muscles and joints every day might be a breeze for you, the diet part can be quite complicated. Granted that you may be procuring the best quality grass, hay, or haylage for your companion, but is it actually getting the best nutrients that play an integral role in maintaining its coat, skin, and overall health? Or is their diet actually causing them a lot of harm?
Many horse owners are unaware of the toxic compounds in horse feeds and forages that have an impact on their horse’s health. For instance, molds and fungi in their feed are known to produce mycotoxins which can slow down their body’s ability to repair and regenerate tissues. In addition to this, mycotoxins may also cause long- and short-term respiratory, gastrointestinal, neurological, and reproductive problems.
Mycotoxins In Your Horse’s Feed
As per studies, it is extremely difficult, almost impossible to source horse feed that doesn’t contain at least some amounts of toxins. Moreover, tests to trace them can be expensive.
Even if the feed is treated to keep mold at bay, it is important to bear in mind that mycotoxins can remain even after the mold dies. While monitoring moisture and temperature levels can help lower contamination to some extent, it is vital that you take additional steps to mitigate your horse’s risk of consuming mycotoxins. This starts with regular vet visits and preparing the feed for consumption with broad-spectrum mycotoxin binders such as Hygain Safeguard EQ.
Benefits Of Hygain Safeguard EQ
Specially formulated for your horse and containing natural ingredients such as wheat bran, wheat germ, organic mineral compounds, and yeast extracts, this binder facilitates the rapid passage of mycotoxins through the digestive system in the form of manure. Adding it to your horse’s feed will ensure good health by allowing for minimum absorption of this harmful substance.
Mycotoxins can be especially harmful to some horses as gastric juices in the digestive system are unable to break it down. It may eventually pass through the small intestine, the hindgut, and the intestinal lining, making it into the horse’s bloodstream.
This may lead to health problems in your horse such as excessive weight loss, fatigue, lethargy, depression, neurological problems, muscle diseases, gait incoordination, ulcers, and stringhalt, to name a few. All these issues can be largely avoided by adding Hygain Safeguard EQ to your horse’s feed.
This small addition to their diet can go a long way in keeping your horse in the prime of its health. To keep equine diseases at bay, make sure that you get Hygain Safeguard EQ supplements for your horse today.
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Call Amanda or email me at 310 739 8605 amanda@geegeeequine.com
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