Should you feed more to a horse that feels tired and lazy?

Well… it depends!

If your horse is light in condition and possibly losing some weight and feels tired and lazy then yes, feeding more is probably the solution.

Light condition and/or weight loss are both symptoms of not quite enough energy (or calories) in the diet. Feeding more and increasing energy intake should help with energy levels when being ridden.

BUT! If your horse is overweight or gaining weight, more feed is not the answer to overcoming your horse feeling tired or lazy when being ridden. This feeling/behaviour could be caused by multiple things, including just a lack of fitness or even a lack of education in the ‘go forward’ area.

But, overwhelmingly when I work with horses like this, more often than not the horse is tying up. But tying up on such a mild level that the only real symptom is this feeling of being tired and lazy when ridden.

Because changing diets to a diet suitable for a horse with tying up is simple and safe, it is worth a shot to see if your horse’s level of energy improves with a change in diet. Most horses that feel like this are warmblood or warmblood crosses or heavy horse or heavy horse crosses, which means the most likely form of tying up will be PSSM (polysaccharide storage myopathy).

If you eliminate all grain and grain by-product from the diet of a horse with PSSM and keep starch and sugar levels as low as possible, you should see an improvement in energy levels within 2 to 3 weeks (provided the horse is fit enough to do the work you are asking).

Look for feeds that contain less than 12% non-structural carbohydrate (NSC). NSC =  starch + water soluble carbohydrates (WSC), avoid feeds that list grains or grain by-products as major components.

Also beware of misleading marketing. There are, unfortunately many products sold as ‘grain-free’ that are made almost exclusively from grain byproducts like wheat midds/millmix. These feeds typically have far more NSC than is acceptable for horses with the PSSM form of tying up.

You should also avoid hays like oaten or ryegrass hay that can and frequently do accumulate large amounts of WSC.

And be mindful that high NSC in pastures can trigger tying up. Autumn and spring are particularly high-risk times for pasture NSC accumulation, especially in cool season grasses like ryegrass.

To avoid pasture NSC triggering tying up in susceptible horses, you should only allow at risk horses to graze in the very early allows of the morning, from 2 hours before sunrise until 2 to 4 hours after sunrise, depending on your pasture and their sensitivity to sugars.