Overweight Horses Are Prone to Serious Health Problems

Just like humans, fat and obese horses are seen as unhealthy individuals and are prone to a series of health problems due to their excessive weight. Everyone has their own perception of what equates overweight and in the equine world that is even more difficult to determine.

Some experts say that we are on the verge of an epidemic of obesity in the equine world because the majority of horse owners don't consider or don't know how to determine if they are horses are overweight or not.

Recent studies and statistics show that overweight horses are a growing problem and so are the health problems related to it, like Laminitis, Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) and DOD (developmental orthopaedic disease).

To address this issue properly horse owners first need to know how to determine if their horses are overweight or not. Many commit the mistake of comparing with other animals in the yard. But with horses you need to apply an objective measure to your horse to tell if he is fat or not.

Back in 1989 a semi objective measure of fat was developed and published by equine publications worldwide to help owners determine if their animals were fat, obese or in good shape. This measuring system was named conditioning scoring. Recently this system has been updated and renamed to "Fat Scoring" and it has been used by major Roadshows and Championships around the globe.

This new system uses numbers from 0 to 5, where 0 is a skinny horse and 5 an obese horse. The ideal is to 2 or 3, 4 is considered fat.

What risks are posed to fat horses?

Overweight animals are prone to laminitis, equine metabolic syndrome and metabolic disorders that could lead to many diseases and gradual loss of vitality. Excessive weight can also affect the immune and reproductive systems, not to mention that has clear long term fitness consequences.

Horses are very similar to us humans when the subject is fitness. Just like a body builder a bulky show horse that looks fat is not fat at all because the bulk is muscle. Just like marathon runners, racehorses look lean and mean but in fact they have a fat score of 2 or 3 maximum.

When it comes down to determine if a horse is overweight each case should be addressed uniquely. Sometimes extra workout is not enough and you will need a feeding plan with specially formulated horse feeds.

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