Horses evolved to survive nature's rhythms. When we force them to live counter to that evolution their health pays for it. Just because we do not see and understand the cause and effect does not mean that it is not there.
Instead of caring properly for horses, the established horse world creates a system of horse care that reduces active life span and radically increases lameness. Consider the picture of ideal horse care that many envision--an obese animal, with shoes nailed to his feet, wearing a blanket, or even worse, imprisoned in a stable, while being pumped full of sugars and unnatural feed.
Horses evolved to thrive in winter, not to avoid winter. A natural horse uses the increased energy of fall forage to store fat for the winter. As spring comes on that same horse begins to loose weight. He does not do so because he is starving. By dropping weight he reduces the likelihood that the high sugar grasses and forage of early spring will lead to insulin resistance on his part. (It is not a perfect preventative. Even thin horses are subject to serious problems from gorging on spring plants. Be careful with spring grazing)
Do we cause problems by reacting to that natural weight loss by increasing feed in the spring instead of waiting for the weight to return naturally in a few months? Quite likely. I suspect that future studies will link the practice to increased risk for insulin resistance.
I am more intrigued by the tendency of many mares to radically drop weight while a foal nurses on them, regardless of the sufficiency of their diet. Some mares drop the weight and do not put it back on until the foal weans unless they are nearly force fed a super high calorie diet.
Note: I am not asking why a mare's calorie needs increase with nursing. That is obvious. My question concerns those mares that become very thin while nursing, colt after, colt, after colt, to quickly return to fine form after weaning. My observation is that the longer backed black mares of Corolla are the most likely to become quite thin while nursing. I have not seen enough of them to state this as a conclusion, it is merely an observation.
Horses rarely evolve traits that are destructive in the long term. That is the nature of evolution. (Stop wondering why your horse always rolls in the dirt after you wash him so clean and pretty. Your detergents are an assault on the delicate balance of bacteria and fungi that assist his immune system in fighting off harmful skin invasions. He is simply trying to defend himself.)
Might it be that the mares that lose significant weight while nursing, regardless of the adequacy of their diet, derive a health benefit from doing so that we have not yet discovered? I am open to that possibility. In the mean time, I feed those mares well and try not to worry about their temporary appearance, but the question vexes me.
Look at this wild stallion from Corolla. Look at the environment around him. He looks great for a young horse, doesn't he? He is not a young horse. He is over 20 years old.
Sometimes truth does not whisper. Sometimes it screams. This horse is screaming about the advantages of natural horse care.
2 comments:
I read/heard somewhere that some mares cannot convert raw food into milk as fast as older foals consume it, so they use fat stores to increase their milk supply. I have also read the reason human females put fat on the hips and thighs and males don’t is that this fat store serves as a reserve for milk production. Using fat while lactating sounds like it is fairly normal.
The mares that get thinner may not have any evolutionary advantage over the others, they just may not have any evolutionary disadvantage either. If they look otherwise healthy (hooves, eyes, hair coat, attitude) and the weight goes back on after the foal is weaned, I would not worry about them.
This is beautiful, and mirrors my own views to the letter. Thank you!
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