Horses, as prey animals, are inherently alert and reactive. This natural disposition can sometimes make it challenging to keep them calm and focused on their work. Your horse’s diet can play a crucial role in influencing your horse’s behaviour, particularly horses who are prone to so-called ‘fizzy’ behaviour, so it’s essential to provide the right nutrients for optimal performance without causing excitability.

In our latest blog post we explore the right diet and nutrition to support a calmer, balanced temperament whatever the situation:

Focus on Fibre

Forage such as hay and grass should form the foundation of a horse’s diet. A constant supply of fibre is crucial for maintaining digestive health. Fibre is broken down in the horse’s gut by billions of microbes through fermentation, which is a slow process, producing ‘slow release’ energy. This type of energy fuels exercise and normal bodily functions while promoting calmness, helping your horse stay focused.

However, at this time of year, we often notice a change in excitability and energy levels from spring grass and this is because spring grass is much higher in sugar. If your horse is more reactive to spring grass then it may be necessary to manage intake by turning your horse out overnight when sugar levels in grass are lower, using a muzzle to limit grass intake or strip grazing your paddock to limit access to high-sugar grass, but replacing this with alternative forms of forage like hay or haylage.

A high-fibre diet ensures your horse receives adequate B vitamins, produced through fermentation by hindgut microbes, and will help provide magnesium, both of which are believed to help maintain calm behaviour. Providing a variety of fibre sources can further enhance calmness by satisfying your horse’s natural foraging instincts, which research has shown to support mental well-being and help keep them more relaxed.

Highly digestible fibre sources like CoolStance Copra that are non-heating, offer excellent energy for work and performance while supporting calm behaviour and provide additional fibre variety for a healthy, balanced hindgut microbiome, which will also help optimise digestive health and promote calmness.

Provide Additional Energy through Oil

Like fibre, oil provides slow-release energy. Research shows that horses fed a high-oil diet exhibit significantly less reactivity to new stimuli compared to those on a high-starch diet. If your horse requires extra energy for work but needs to remain calm and focused, oil can be an ideal solution. CoolStance Copra is an excellent source of oil helping to support work and performance whilst maintaining an even temperament.

Additionally, Medium Chain fatty acids (MCT) in oils have been shown to support brain health and development. Ensuring your horse’s diet includes good levels of these essential fatty acids, particularly from readily digestible sources of oil like CoolStance Copra promotes healthy brain function, enabling better concentration and focus, and less excitability.

Minimise Cereals

Cereals contain starch, which is rapidly digested into glucose (a simple sugar) in the horse’s foregut. This ‘fast release’ energy can lead to excitable behaviour as glucose crosses directly into the brain from the bloodstream. Additionally, large cereal meals can result in undigested starch reaching the hindgut, causing microbial imbalances and acidic conditions that lead to digestive discomfort. A horse experiencing digestive discomfort may struggle to stay calm and focused, often exhibiting ‘fizzy’ behaviour due to the discomfort.

To mitigate this, and particularly for horses who are prone to a more excitable temperament, cereals should be avoided. Instead basing the diet on feeds like CoolStance Copra, which provides additional energy to support work and condition through fibre and oil with minimal starch and sugar levels – is ideal to help minimize fizziness and promote calmer behaviour for a more focused performance.

Provide Essential Micronutrients

Deficiencies in nutrients like vitamin B1 and magnesium can impact behaviour, so it’s important to ensure you are feeding a fully balanced diet which supplies a full range of essential vitamins and minerals to support overall health and well-being.

A high specification vitamin and mineral supplement with targeted nutrition to regulate stress and promote a calmer demeanour like VitaStance B1 Cool Mix is ideal. This broad spectrum supplement helps ensure your horse receives the necessary micronutrients to keep them more relaxed, focused, and healthy.

Feeding your horse for a calmer temperament involves a combination of providing the right nutrition whilst being mindful of individual needs and reactions. By focusing on a forage-based diet and providing feeds which are lower in sugars and starches, higher in fibre and oils, and supplemented with essential micronutrients, you can help minimise excitability, and promote calmness, for optimum focus and performance.

If you have any questions about creating the best diet and nutrition for your horse or pony, please contact 01488 73322 or info@boomerangnutrition.co.uk