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Adding Energy to Your Horse’s Diet

Peggy Miller, Ph.D.

Department of Animal Science,  IA State University

Maintaining adequate fuel supplies to support a certain level of work is often the most difficult challenge in feeding the performance horse. To meet the large demands on fuel usage during exercise, one must be concerned with energy. In recent years, research has shown that the addition of fat (vegetable oil or animal fat) will supply a more concentrated form of energy) in an amount of feed that can be safely consumed by the horse. In race horses and cutting horses, adding fat to diets has improved muscle glycogen storage and work performance; fat helps protect them from fatigue. During long duration exercise, performance is enhanced by sparing muscle glycogen utilization and maintaining more constant blood glucose concentrations. Feeding a fat supplemented diet also decreases thermal stress on horses. High-fat diets benefit both aerobic and anaerobic performance and delays fatigue.

Fat is added to horses diets to increase the energy density of the diet, give the horse a shinier hair coat, and to help control dust.  Oils/fats  provides about 3 times more digestible energy than an equal weight of cereal grain.  Most common horse feeds contain 3-6% fat. Horses can utilize up to 20% added fat in the total diet or 30% in the grain mix. Higher concentrations than this results in loose stools and the horse does not like to eat the product. Fat increases the energy density of diet which allows the horse to consume more dietary energy with out an increase in feed intake. In table 1, a horse performing moderate exercise given a typical horse diet will need to consume between 2.0-2.5% of their body weight in feed daily. For a 1,000 lb. horse this would equal 20-25 lb. of feed per day. If the diet was supplemented with 5-10% fat, the total feed required to meet the same horse’s requirement would be 1.75-2.0% of their body weight or 17.50-20.00 lb. of feed per day.

Prior to considering adding an energy concentrate (fat) to your horse’s diet you need to consider that 1) horses have to adapt to utilization and this adaptation can take as long as 4 weeks, 2) a fat-supplemented diet will provide more energy, so total daily feed intake must be decreased if the work level and body condition are to remain the same, and 3) the diet you are feeding should be reassessed for maintenance of nutrient balance. The energy concentrate may be added and mixed with the grain at each feeding.  When you begin to add fat to the feed, either top dressing or in a mix,  begin with small amounts and increase the amount gradually.