http://www.nutritionwithapril.co.uk/

Nutrition with April - Independent Equine Nutritionist MSc ANutr, Penrith (2025)

11/12/2025

❄️ Winter doesn’t always give us a break from laminitis…
Cold nights, frosty mornings and changed routines can all make managing a laminitic horse that little bit trickier.
But you don’t have to navigate it alone 💙🐴

I offer independent, science-based nutrition consultations to help you:
• Match calories to your horse’s needs through safe feeding methods
• Balance the diet to support hoof health
• Choose safe forage options through winter
• Create a realistic and tailored feeding plan you can actually stick to

If you’re worried about winter laminitis, or just want peace of mind, send me a message and I’ll get you booked in.

Give yourself peace of mind knowing your horse is supported all season long ❄️✨

09/12/2025

Horse eating bark? 🌳🐴

It’s more common than you think! Horses will often seek out extra fibre when their diet isn’t quite meeting their needs, especially if they’re on very wet feeds or lush, young grass.

If your horse has started nibbling twigs or bark, it might be their way of saying they need more long-stem fibre. Offering late-cut hay or a little straw can help satisfy that need and support a healthier gut.

If you’d like help reviewing or optimising your horse’s diet, just drop me a message. I’d love to create a tailored feeding plan for you and your horse 💚🐴🌱

07/12/2025

Is your horse quietly telling you their diet isn’t quite right? 🐴
We can easily notice the big signs, but sometimes our horse’s whisper quietly to us to tell us something is not quite right. SO here are some subtle (and not-so-subtle) signs that can point to a nutritional imbalance or a diet that just doesn’t suit your horse:

🔸 A dull, greasy, or sun-faded coat
🔸 Flaky skin or persistent itchiness
🔸 Loose droppings, very dry droppings, or sudden changes in consistency
🔸 Behaviour changes: sharper, spookier, more anxious, or unusually sluggish
🔸 Struggling to hold weight or gaining weight too easily
🔸 Poor topline or muscle not building despite suitable work
🔸 Stiffness, especially when starting work
🔸 Low stamina or feeling flat under saddle
🔸 Hoof issues: slow growth, cracks, brittle horn, or recurring thrush
🔸 Drinking noticeably more or less than usual
🔸 A big hay belly but poor overall condition
🔸 Overly hungry or constantly foraging even when well fed
🔸 Increased girthiness or sensitivity around the belly (a common gut-health clue)

None of these signs automatically mean the diet is “wrong” but they are your horse’s way of saying “Something’s not quite working for me.”

The good news? Small, targeted adjustments based on forage-first, evidence-led nutrition can transform how your horse looks, feels, and behaves 🌿

If you’d like help reviewing your horse’s diet or understanding these signs, just drop me a message, I’m always happy to help 🐴

Comment below if your horse has ever experienced these symptoms!

Feel free to share 💚

06/12/2025

More supplements does not equal better nutrition. It’s so easy to keep adding things, hoping something will finally make a difference. But, supplements are meant to fine-tune a well-designed diet, fill genuine gaps, and support specific needs. If you’re unsure what something does, it might not be doing what you think.
If you’d like help making sense of your horse’s diet (and saving money in the process), feel free to drop me a message so we can build a clear and tailored nutrition plan 💚
Do you feed any supplements? Comment them below!

05/12/2025

Your horse’s p**p is one of the best indicators towards their gut health and it’s free to check every day 💩🔍
It might not be glamorous, but paying attention to what ends up on the muck heap can reveal a lot about your horse’s diet, digestion, and overall wellbeing.

Here’s what to look for:

Consistency
• Too loose or watery: could point to high sugar/starch intake, sudden diet changes, stress, hindgut imbalance, or unsuitable forage.
• Very dry or hard: may indicate dehydration, lack of fibre variety, or insufficient salt/electrolytes.

Fibre Length: Visible long fibres suggest your horse isn’t chewing effectively or that the forage is too stemmy.
This can hint at:
• Dental issues
• Rushing hay due to restricted access
• Poor-quality forage

Smell: A noticeably sour or unusual smell can indicate fermentation problems or hindgut acidosis.

Colour
• Light tan or very pale: could be from low-quality or mature forage.
• Very dark/green: indicates lush grass or rich haylage.
• Sudden changes: usually reflect a recent diet switch.

Undigested Feed: Seeing whole grains, beet pulp, or large pieces of hay means something isn’t being broken down properly.
Possible causes:
• Poor dentition
• Fast-eating
• Too much hard feed in one meal
• Feed not soaked/processed correctly

Water Around Droppings (Free F***l Water): A common issue in winter or in horses with gut sensitivity. It can be linked to stress, poor forage quality, abrupt forage changes, or hindgut irritation.

Frequency: more or fewer piles than normal can indicate changes in gut motility, stress, or hydration.

⭐ Why This Matters ⭐️

Your horse’s droppings offer constant feedback about:
✔ How well their diet is suiting them
✔ Whether their forage is appropriate
✔ Gut comfort
✔ Dehydration or electrolyte needs
✔ Chewing and dental function
✔ Potential hindgut imbalance

Small changes in p**p often show up before larger problems do so it’s a powerful early warning system.

Feel free to share 💚

If you’d like help understanding what your horse’s droppings might be telling you, or how to adjust their diet to support gut health, feel free to message me, I’m always happy to help 🐴

02/12/2025

Did you know that the majority of your horse’s nutrition should come from forage? 🌾🐴
It’s easy to get caught up in bags, buckets, and supplements, but the foundation of every healthy diet is simple: grass, hay, or haylage.

Forage supports:
🔹 Digestive health: horses are trickle feeders and their gut functions best with a steady supply of fibre.
🔹 Behaviour: adequate forage reduces stress, boredom, and undesirable behaviours like wood-chewing or cribbing.
🔹 Weight management: the right type and amount of forage can help both good doers and poor doers maintain condition.
🔹 Overall nutrition: forage provides calories, protein, vitamins, and minerals… but the levels vary hugely. Choosing the right one for your horse is super important, and then knowing exactly how to balance it (forage is deficient in some micronutrients for all horses) for optimal health.

And that’s where feeding wisely comes in.
Two haynets that look the same can be worlds apart nutritionally. One might support a laminitic pony, while another could be too energy-dense. Without knowing what’s in your forage, it’s easy to underfeed, overfeed, or accidentally create imbalances.

A forage-first approach doesn’t mean “forage only”. It means building everything else around the forage your horse is actually eating.
This avoids unnecessary hard feed, saves money, and keeps your horse healthier in the long run.

If you’d like support understanding your forage or balancing your horse’s diet, feel free to message me, I’m here to help. 💬🐴

Feel free to share 💚

30/11/2025

Every horse is an individual and their diet should be too 🐴
Even horses of the same age, breed, or workload can have completely different nutritional needs. That’s why “one-size-fits-all” feeding rarely works and can sometimes even cause more problems than it solves.

A horse’s ideal diet depends on factors such as:
🌾 Forage quality and availability: not all hay or grazing provides the same nutrients.
💪 Workload: a hacking pony and a competition horse use (and need) energy and nutrients very differently.
🐎 Body condition: good doers, poor doers, overweight, underweight… each requires a tailored approach.
🌿 Health conditions: laminitis, EMS, ulcers, PPID, allergies, dental issues and more all influence what and how a horse should be fed.
👶 Age: growing youngsters, adults in full work, and golden oldies all have different digestive capabilities and nutritional priorities.
⚖️ Temperament & behaviour: sharp, sluggish, stressy, or laid-back horses may respond differently to certain feed types or energy sources.

Feeding to the individual means looking beyond the bag and focusing on science based principles, and what your horse is telling you. It can save money, improve performance, support long-term health, and take the guesswork out of feeding.

If you’d like help creating a diet that truly fits your horse, feel free to message me because I’m always happy to help. 💬🐴

28/11/2025

It is only a small part of a horse’s diet but super important to not be overlooked…

By giving your horse 1-2tablespoons of salt a day helps replace the electrolytes lost in the sweat and keep their thirst mechanism up to encourage them to drink. This is so important in winter during the cold when horse’s may drink less.

Message me if you’d like any support with your horse’s diet 🍏🌱💚

09/11/2025

Let’s talk about laminitis and why diet absolutely does matter! 🍏🌱

Recently, I saw a post circulating that claimed laminitis isn’t caused by diet, and that it’s due to bad confirmation causing the P3 bone to rotate. Unfortunately, this is not factually correct, and it worries me to see misinformation like this continuing to be shared, especially when it could influence how horse owners feed and manage their horses.

Laminitis is a serious, painful, and potentially life-threatening condition. In severe cases, it can result in the need for euthanasia. Suggesting that diet has no role in laminitis isn’t just wrong, it is dangerous.

Here’s what the science actually tells us:

Laminitis is the inflammation and damage of the laminae - the tissues that connect the hoof wall to the pedal bone (P3). When these tissues weaken, P3 can rotate or sink. That rotation is a result, not a cause.

🥕 Diet-induced laminitis is well-documented in research. High intakes of non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs), e.g. sugars, starch, and fructans, can trigger laminitis in susceptible horses and ponies.
• Laat et al (2012) showed that excessive NSC intake (could be from bucket feeds or forage) leads to metabolic and inflammatory changes in the hoof’s laminae.
• Horses with equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) or PPID (Cushing’s) are at particularly high risk, as they can have an exaggerated insulin response to high-sugar feeds or rich grazing.

Management and diet go hand in hand. Controlling pasture intake, providing low-NSC forage, using balanced vitamin/mineral support, maintaining a healthy weight, and regular trimming of the hooves to keep them balanced are proven, evidence-based strategies for preventing laminitis.

So please be cautious with online advice. The wellbeing of horses depends on us basing decisions on science, not opinions.

If you ever feel unsure about your horse’s diet or laminitis risk, speak with an independent equine nutritionist or your vet. It’s always better to prevent than to treat ❤️🐴

08/11/2025

Even overweight horses need their vitamins and minerals! 🌱Forage alone isn’t balanced, especially with soaked hay or restricted grazing. A balancer or vit & min supplement can help because they have low calories with the amount fed and big benefits. Need help choosing the right one? Drop me a message!

30/08/2025

Which Supplement is Best?

One of the most common questions I get asked is: “What’s the best supplement for joints / hooves / coat / digestion… but it also needs to be cheap?”

Here’s the thing… I completely understand wanting to keep costs down. Horses are expensive (sometimes painfully so!) but when it comes to nutrition, cutting corners can actually end up costing more in the long run. Why? Because poor-quality products or the wrong supplement can cause nutritional imbalances and simply won’t give you the results you’re hoping for.

The dose is key. Think about how we take medications ourselves, we’re always told the correct amount to take. Too little, and it won’t work. Too much, and it could be harmful. For example, with paracetamol, there’s a safe and effective amount that we know will actually relieve pain.

It’s exactly the same with supplements for horses. For joint health (and other conditions), there’s a minimum amount of the active ingredient that research shows is needed for it to be effective. Unfortunately, not every company puts enough of that ingredient into their product. Sometimes you’d need to feed several times the suggested daily amount just to reach the effective level and this is expensive but also dangerous in case you feed too much of another ingredient in the tub.

That means if the dose isn’t high enough, you could be feeding your horse an expensive powder that isn’t actually doing anything at all.

My advice? Always look beyond the shiny marketing and check the label. Ask yourself:
• Does this contain the right ingredient in the right amount?
• Is it backed up by independent research?
• Is this product actually worth feeding, or am I throwing money away?

At the end of the day, supplements can be fantastic tools but only if they’re used correctly, in the right context, and at the right dose. Otherwise, your money is far better spent elsewhere in your horse’s diet.

💬 Have you ever been surprised when you looked closely at a supplement label? Drop your experiences below – I’d love to hear them!

Feel free to share 🐴

29/08/2025

Just because a horse is carrying extra weight doesn’t mean their nutrition should be cut out completely!

Overweight horses often get their calories from forage alone, but forage rarely provides all the essential vitamins, minerals, and amino acids they need for health. That’s where a balancer comes in, giving them the goodness without lots of calories, or for even less calories try a vitamin and mineral supplement!

Feel free to share 🌱

Nutrition with April - Independent Equine Nutritionist MSc ANutr

11/12/2025

09/12/2025

07/12/2025

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05/12/2025

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