Equine Obesity

And the Misunderstanding of Forage

 

Equine obesity is one of the most persistent and misunderstood problems in modern horse management, and it is an issue I have had to address repeatedly over many years. Too often, well-meaning owners attempt to reduce a horse’s body condition by restricting the quantity of forage offered, believing that less feed must logically lead to less weight. I fundamentally disagree with this approach. Reducing forage intake undermines the horse’s natural need to eat almost continuously and introduces stress, behavioural issues, and digestive instability that work against long term metabolic balance.

 

The issue is not how much a horse eats, but what that forage provides. In a natural setting, horses spend the majority of their time consuming large volumes of low-energy, weathered plant material that satisfies their behavioural need to chew while delivering relatively modest fermentable energy. When modern management replaces this with smaller quantities of highly nutritious forage, the result is often excessive caloric intake delivered in a way the horse is not biologically adapted to manage.

 

My position has always been consistent: do not alter the quantity, alter the quality. By selecting lower quality or more mature forage, including weathered hay where appropriate, the horse is allowed to eat in a manner that satisfies both its digestive physiology and its emotional need for near constant intake, while overall caloric load is naturally reduced. This approach respects the horse’s design, reduces unnecessary metabolic pressure, and avoids the cycle of restriction and compensation that so often drives obesity in the first place.

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Why Restriction Fails

 

Restricting forage intake fails because it works against the horse’s biology rather than with it. The equine digestive system is designed for near continuous intake, not intermittent feeding, and when forage is limited, the horse does not become metabolically efficient; it becomes physiologically stressed. That stress expresses itself through elevated cortisol, altered insulin dynamics, heightened food-seeking behaviour, and disruption of normal hindgut fermentation. Instead of calmly processing fibre over time, the digestive system is pushed into peaks and troughs that encourage fat storage and metabolic instability rather than gradual weight normalisation.

 

Restriction also creates a behavioural conflict that cannot be trained away. A horse deprived of adequate forage remains psychologically driven to eat, and this often results in rapid consumption when feed is available, increased anxiety, and the development or worsening of stereotypical behaviours. In practical terms, restricted horses frequently extract more energy from what little they receive due to slowed gut transit and altered microbial activity, which directly undermines the intended goal of weight reduction. The outcome is predictable: frustration for the owner, continued obesity in the horse, and a management cycle that becomes progressively more severe while delivering diminishing returns.

 

This is why restriction feels logical on paper but repeatedly fails in real horses. It ignores the difference between reducing calories and disrupting a biological system that depends on volume, time, and rhythm to function correctly.

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The Correct Approach to Managing Equine Obesity

 

The correct way to address equine obesity is to work with the horse’s digestive design rather than attempting to override it. This begins by preserving continuous access to forage so the horse’s need to chew, salivate, and maintain steady gut fill is met, while deliberately reducing the fermentable energy delivered through that forage. By selecting more mature, lower energy, or weather affected hay, the horse can continue to eat for the majority of the day without being driven into stress or metabolic compensation. This approach reduces total caloric intake naturally, without triggering the hormonal and behavioural responses that make restriction counterproductive.

 

At the same time, feeding must support correct digestive sequencing, where enzymatic digestion in the small intestine is not overloaded and the hindgut is left to ferment fibre steadily rather than starch or excess sugars. When intake is structured this way, energy delivery becomes slower, more predictable, and better aligned with the horse’s actual workload and environment. Over time, body condition begins to normalise not through deprivation, but through stability. Obesity resolves because the system is no longer being challenged, rushed, or forced to adapt to feeding patterns that conflict with the horse’s natural physiology.

 

This approach requires patience and observation rather than intervention and control, but it produces results that are sustainable, humane, and biologically appropriate.