strong or weak

Question

strong or weak   hello ma'am, how this horse looking to you, i mean, strong well built or weak? if weak, what all to feed it to make it look healthy?

Answer
Hello Rohit,

Your question really is two-fold, for body condition and muscle are not necessarily the same thing.  Strength and endurance are not fairly evaluated by visual inspection, but rather are measured by the horse's ability to sustain work.  If this horse hasn't the strength for the work he performs, he requires conditioning and muscle development.  If you want a horse to build muscle you must both exercise him and feed him adequate amounts of dietary protein.  Protein is found in forages, in complete feeds (not so much in cereal grains) and by-products like soybean meal, canola meal, corn gluten meal and feed and the likes.

If you want this horse to fill out with more body condition, what you want him to do is essentially gain fat.  In order for a horse to put on body condition he must consume more dietary energy every day than he uses up.  Energy comes from forages, fat sources and cereal grains.  If you choose cereal grains as an energy source, be cautious not to feed too much as many horses have difficulty handling the heavy starch loads from cereal grains.  Determining if a horse is in 'ideal' body condition is a little subjective as some horse owners prefer horses with more body condition and some prefer less.  Performance horses and growing horses should be maintained at a body condition of 4.5-5.0, although I prefer my horses closer to a 5.5.  Body condition is a little harder to evaluate in a picture than it is in person, but I would estimate this horse's body condition at about 4.5.

Thanks, Corlena