Several of our horses have one problem or another with their diet. At least one of our miniature horses has a sugar problem, where she can’t eat fresh grass because of the sugar levels in the grass. She also must take daily medication to help offset the issues. In humans, we would call it diabetes. Still, in the equine world, they call it Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS), which is described as a disorder associated with inappropriate blood insulin levels (insulin dysregulation) along with a combination of increased fat deposition and a reduced ability to lose weight.

We have a horse that has a problem eating her food. She gets what is called Choke, and choke is just what it sounds like: the horse is choking on its food. Some days, the horse can clear it themselves, and other times, it requires human assistance, either helping to move it or a veterinarian putting a tube down the horse’s throat and clearing it that way.

Since she has this problem, we must ensure that her daily grain is soaked in water and that she drinks her grain. However, she still has issues eating hay.

One of our miniature horses has a weight problem, so we must limit his intake of grain and hay.

Because miniature horses should not have much grass, we keep the two miniature horses and the horse that gets choked really easily on what is known as a dry lot. This is a strange name as it has nothing to do with wet or dry; it has to do with grass vs. dirt. A dry lot is all dirt or mostly dirt. This, however, means that we need to feed them hay since they don’t have grass.

A horse will graze all day long, and the running joke for our full-size horse who gets choke easy, is that she will pull her lazy boy up to the hay rounder and sit her fat ass down and not move all day. She is part draft, where the lazy part comes from, as draft horses are known to be lazy.

We no longer feed them like that, where they would have a large 1,000-pound round bale of hay at their disposal all day long. Now, we feed them their hay in a large, netted bag that holds about one square bale of hay. This method slows them down a little, which helps control their weight.

Here is one of our miniature horses eating out of a hay bag.