Why do horses exercise?

Many equestrian people have written articles about overweight horses, and Bian Xiao has read many of them, and he also has some opinions on this issue. Today, Bian Xiao will tell you why our horses also need to control their weight and stay healthy.

Because the modern lifestyle and life concept change too much and too quickly, now, don't say that you are fat, and your horse is fat. Seriously, horse obesity is a very serious problem. As far as horse breeding is concerned, the proportion of horse obesity is high, which is not a good thing.

The main body of horse obesity is those horses that do not participate in high-performance activities (for example, obstacle crossing, comprehensive training, etc.) Of course, I'm not talking about extreme obesity here, because there are not many examples of extreme obesity, at least we don't often see them, but the fact is that a large number of horses are bearing weight that is harmful to their health.

It doesn't mean that a horse should have the same healthy standard weight as an athlete, but that when our horse doesn't do too much physical activity, you shouldn't let it consume too many calories. This is actually a very easy problem to solve, as long as the caregivers pay a little attention and control not to overfeed. But the main problem now is that most people simply don't know what a horse's healthy constitution is like, so they have no consciousness and ability to help their horses build a healthy constitution.

Next, let Bian Xiao teach you how to judge whether your horse is obese:

For the sake of our horses, we should consciously change. First of all, please be familiar with Hennecke's physical condition scoring system.

Hennecke Physical Fitness Score is a good system to score horses' physical fitness, which is evaluated according to the area where horses' body fat is located.

The division of individual points may be more complicated, such as the area with dense muscles on the horse (the ditch on the horse's back), which is indeed the deficiency of this scoring system, but it is a very good tool to evaluate the body fat status of horses in general, which is worthy of serious study by horse lovers.

I found another useful evaluation method for the pony shown in the above picture. Is to see if the upper half of its front legs and the upper half of its rear legs are in direct proportion to the rest of its body. In this way, we can compare the different muscle regions of the horse horizontally and compare the thickness of the horse chest muscle vertically.

As far as the example in the above picture is concerned, the two conditional scores of horses are about 5 points.

I know that if you find that you have fattened your horse, you will certainly have many reasons to make people feel ignorant, so the thoughtful Bian Xiao helped you find it!

0 1) "This breed I raised is like this, and its natural constitution is like this! Don't believe you look at other people's horses! " Many breeds of horses passively gain weight because of improper feeding during their growth. This situation is really common, but you can't say it's normal just because it's common.

02) "That's what my horse likes. I am just meeting his physiological needs. " Uh-oh, Bian Xiao heard that someone stole this concept.

03) "Winter is coming, so I have to dress it in autumn." Haha, in winter, only professional horse clothes can keep warm!

04) "It needs more meat to stay healthy." Fat is not meat! Just fat! Getting fat is not a good way to stay healthy ―― only a reasonable number of calories can!

Finally, there is a strong voice from Bian Xiao:

Being overweight makes the horse's heart load heavier, which leads to difficulty in breathing. It will interfere with the self-temperature regulation of the horse body and cause great and unnecessary pressure on joints, tendons, ligaments and feet. So one of the best things you can do for your horse is to get rid of the burden of excess fat.