How To Put Weight On A Horse Quickly

If you are concerned that your horse is getting too skinny, then you have come to the correct place. We understand this problem completely as we had some trouble a few years ago when we needed to increase the horses’ weight for a competition. Even if it is not for a competition, a skinny horse will pose many health issues for the horses. It can also be an indication that the horse is not well. Hence, we have every motivation to keep the horse in the healthy weight range.

When you wish to help your horse to gain weight fast, the most natural inclination is to feed them with more food. While it is indeed the most viable option, there are several aspects that you might want to consider before you start to feed your horse with random food.

Before you decide on allowing your horse to be a bottomless pit for food, you should always investigate the under lying reasons behind the horse’s weight lost. IT can be due to an undetected medical condition, or it can be due to worms in the horse’s body. The loss of appetite can sometimes be attributed to pain in the horse’s mouth. As such, if these are the problems, and you still try to go feed the horse with more food, chances are the horse’s condition does not improve. To remove worms from the horses’ body, you can read this guide.

While you are at this, we recommend you to conduct a blood test for your horse. There are several medical conditions that can affect the horse’s weight, and such conditions can only be determined via the blood tests. Also, the blood test will reveal if your horse is lacking in any vitamins too.

Of course, before you can even make the assumption that your horse is indeed overweight, you will need to first verify and validate your horse’s condition. Typically, the horse’s condition is rated from 1 to 9. The rating is a measure of the horse’s muscles and fats at 6 different points of the horse’s body. You do not have to use medical equipment for this. You just have to look and feel the 6 different areas and rate them. Once properly rated, you will then be in a better position to assess your horse’s condition.

A horse with a condition of 1 to 3 is considered to be underweight. They are thin and therefore will need more feed to increase its weight. If the horse is on the lower end of this range, you will need to feed them with feed that is high in protein. Protein promotes weight gain. Suitable feed with be rice bran.

If your horse’s condition is at 4 to 7, it is considered to be healthy and fit. For this, you just need to maintain the horse’s condition with its regular exercise and feeding them regularly.

Horses, with condition ranging from 7 to 9, is considered to be fat and hence overweight. These horses are not suitable for competition or shows, and we will recommend you not to over exercise them. All you need to do is to exercise them regularly while controlling the intake of food.

Once you determine your horse’s condition, it is time for you to select the feed for your horse. The type of feed that you select for your horse will determine how much weight or other minerals they will be getting.

Horses need fiber in order to have a balanced diet. Fiber is found in grass and hay, and they can actually be the main source of food for the horses. Some horses cannot derive energy from fiber, but that is not a problem as you can craft out some strategies for this.

The main reason why fiber is so easy to break down in the horse stomach is due to the microbes that exist in the digestive tract of the horse. This allows the horse to have ready access to the stored energy after consuming high fiber food. Fresh green spring grass is one example of an excellent source of fiber. This is why we usually ask our readers to ensure that their pasture is well tended to. Also, high quality harvested hay will always have more energy content than hay that has been harvested for awhile.

As such, fiber is an excellent source of energy, and since horses can digest fiber fast enough, you should feed your horse with high fiber food if you want them to gain weight quickly.

While not really surprising to us, many people assumed that feeding your horse with fat is a total nono, since fat is usually considered to be dangerous for most people. This is a myth. In fact, experts feed add fat to the horse diet if they know that the horses will be going through some strenuous activity such as for races or other competition. Rice bran is a good source of fat. Fat is an excellent source of energy. It is also proven that adding fat to horses who are tough to bulk up is actually awesome to them.

Fat burn much slower than other compounds, and hence this is why expert uses them often. Horses, after being fed a high-fat diet, is able to have a higher endurance than most other horses.

One main problem for adding fat into the horse diet is that some of the horses do have gastrointestinal problems which render the horse intolerant against fat. If this is the case, then you should feed your horse with other forms of energy giving food

In ages past, farmers usually utilize starch-heavy food to fatten up their horses if the usage of grass, fiber, and other food fail to do the trick. When the grains are added to the horse’s diet, it helps to fatten up the horse in the less costly manner. This is because the breaking down of starch is considered to be a much simpler task than breaking down of fiber. As such, energy is easily obtained from starch, and lesser starch is needed, pound to pound vs fiber.

While it may seem that feeding your horse grain is the best way to help them gain weight, it might not truly be the case. This is because starch molecules are easily broken down into simple sugars, and these substances are easily absorbed into the horse’s bloodstream. This is good as the energy is then transferred to all parts of the horse’s body. However, some horses will find it tough to break down the grains efficiently. This results in most of the starch being channeled to the large intestine. This will be detrimental to the horse as most of the energy will hence be lost. To add on, not all grains are the same too. There are some grains that are easier to be broken down, and some process also controls the viability of using them as food.

As such, after much research, we will recommend the steam or cooked barley as well as the steamed flaked corn as good sources of starch as grains.

So which is exactly the best feed for weight gain in horses? At least from Amazon, we found just the right feed that has garnered excellent reviews on Amazon itself. Introducing the Horse Guard Super Weight Gain Equine Vitamin Mineral, Probiotic & Weight Gain Supplement.

This is one of the best supplements or food that you can feed to your horse. This is especially useful for skinny horses, as this weight builder for horses packs the best nutrients and minerals that is excellent in building up your horse’s weight in a healthy manner.

It comprises mainly of protein, and not just starch and sugar. This allows your horse to build up its mass healthy and at the same time helping it to build quality and compact muscles, which is essential for competition. There are probiotics and prebiotics added into the food too.

This company had developed this weight builder for horses for those hard keepers in mind. Essentially, hard keepers are horses that find it tough to maintain or grow their weight. As such, specially formulated food will be needed, and this particular bag of horse feed for skinny horses works extremely well.

We highly recommend you to purchase this for your skinny horse.

As a conclusion, there are indeed many types of food that you can feed to your horse if you want to help them gain weight fast. Based on what we have written, the three main groups of food consist of fat, starch as well as fiber. Each of them has its own benefits and usages, so do consider carefully before you decide on the type of food to feed your horse.