I have a 10-year-old Paso Fino. When I got her five months ago, she was a body condition score of 8. I have tried to use the winter weather as a weight-management tool. I have three horses with 24/7 access to 12 acres. I have been letting her pick what she can from the pasture, hoping that the low-calorie winter forage would get the weight off of her. She gets no hay. Going into spring, she’s still fat as can be! I don’t get it. The only other option I can think of is to put her in a drylot at night to reduce her grazing hours. Thoughts on how to get the weight off? Also, is it safe to not supplement with hay in the winter if they are maintaining their body condition?

Can you think of a reason why witch hazel would be fed to horses, perhaps as some sort of digestive palliative, maybe for stomach ulcers, like aloe vera juice?

Is it harmful to give my horses an extra scoop or two of feed when it’s especially frigid outside?

My four-year-old Quarter Horse mare died of a ruptured stomach due to perforating gastric ulcers. While I suspect the stress of a 20-hour haul in hot weather caused the ulcerations, the vet who performed the necropsy suggested the ulcers had been brewing awhile, even mentioning her low weight as a sign (she had a drawn or tucked-up appearance). After discussing my mare’s diet and management, she said ulceration might have been due to “meal feeding.” I should have asked what she meant by that, but I was upset at the time. I fed her two or three thin flakes of local-sourced grass hay with a coffee can of all-purpose grain twice a day (5 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.). She was pretty demanding at feeding time, kicking walls and tossing her head, but I chalked up that to being a mare and being in a stall for most of the day. Could “meal feeding” cause chronic gastric ulceration that led to stomach rupture? Could ulcers, in turn, cause her weird mealtime behavior? I feel like a lot of horse owners feed as I do, two big meals a day. I just want to avoid any management missteps in the future.

Over the years, I’ve heard that changes in weather can be a cause of colic. Do you think this is true?

I own a Welsh/Thoroughbred pony broodmare. She’s 14 hands with the metabolism of a sloth. She’s entering the final few months of her first pregnancy, and she still looks great, with a condition score of 7 on free-choice high-quality grass hay topped off with a balancer pellet. This is the same diet she was on when she was a show pony, being hauled every week to a new venue for years and years. Maintaining weight then was never a problem either. The question is this: what do I feed her as she heads into these calorie-draining few months? If, by chance, she drops weight while nursing, what can I do to increase calories?

We recently lost our 20-year-old mare to a twisted colon. She had a month-old colt by her side. We are bucket-feeding every four hours. I have been feeding him 6 times a day with 3 quarts (2.8 liters) of goat’s milk mixed with 2% milk and warm water for the last two weeks. He also gets a handful of growth concentrate a few times each day , along with fresh water and alfalfa hay. He has a field buddy for companionship, and he seems to be healthy and happy. I don’t know if I am feeding him too much or not enough.

I own a 20-year-old Quarter Horse—14.1 hands, 1,000 lb (450 kg). He’s on 24-hour turnout, occasionally ridden, and his weight is just right. He’s fed 3 quarts of a maintenance sweet feed, trace minerals, ground flax, and round-baled grass hay. When he comes into the barn, he is offered grass hay. I’d like to improve his general muscle development, and specifically his topline, and I am especially curious about adding vitamin E to his diet.

I’m shopping for an Arabian horse, and one candidate has patches of vitiligo. In searching for information on vitiligo, some advocate increasing vitamin A, B-group vitamins, and biotin to potentially reduce spread, and some think it’s related to a copper deficiency. Is there any actual research on nutritional factors? What are your thoughts?

I own a young Warmblood-cross gelding that is a week away from finishing treatment (omeprazole, sucralfate, and misoprostol) for squamous and glandular gastric ulcers. He’s a low-level event horse normally, though he’s been off work for a month to help heal the ulcers. He maintains his weight easily on 8 lb (3.6 kg) of senior feed (fed as two 4-lb {1.8-kg} meals) and free-choice hay that includes some alfalfa. He’s also fed a popular gastric-support supplement as well as another stomach-support product that’s a mixture of prebiotics, yeast, and plant-based substances. How do I transition him onto an ulcer preventive? What product would be most beneficial to him? I’d like to streamline my supplement and medication purchases.