http://www.equinenutritionist.com/, https://linktr.ee/claremacleod

Clare MacLeod MSc RNutr Independent Equine Nutritionist, 15 Meyer Close, Wellington, Taunton (2026)

01/05/2026

WORKING HORSES NEED ADDED SALT!

Lately I've had a bunch of questions come in about salt and electrolytes.

Working horses can lose significant amounts of electrolyte salts in their sweat, especially in warm weather.

The main electrolyte salts lost in sweat are sodium, potassium and chloride.

Potassium is oversupplied by most horse diets (from forage), whereas sodium and chloride are often undersupplied.

Firstly, what's the difference between 'salt' and 'electrolytes', when salt is an electrolyte??!!

Salt is a term we usually use to describe sodium chloride, although by definition it can include any mineral salt including potassium chloride.

Electrolyte is a term used to describe the salts involved in body fluid balance.

We need to replace sodium and chloride for horses in light to moderate work, and then also potassium for horses in heavy work or prolonged exercise, especially in hot and or humid weather (when sweat losses will be higher).

You can feed plain salt (sodium chloride) as your electrolyte for light to moderate work, and then a half and half mix of regular salt and lite- or lo-salt (which is a mix of sodium chloride and potassium chloride) for heavier work (to supply both sodium and potassium, as well as chloride).

Or you might choose to buy a commercial electrolyte instead, but if you do, check it actually provides enough sodium (not all do)!

Some commercial electrolytes are mostly sugar (also called dextrose) and don't contain enough sodium to replace sweat losses.

Always check there is enough sodium in your chosen electrolyte product if you are using it to replace sodium lost in sweat (as opposed to rehydration).

Aim for at least 20g of sodium chloride (common salt) (about 8g actual sodium) daily for light work up to 60g (about 24g sodium) for hard work.

Feel free to share 🐴🍏⚪️

01/05/2026

BAD ADVICE POST UPDATE !!

There's been some confusion about my post on the bad advice around haylage and I wanted to give some clarification on the sugar / EMS / insulin response issue.

Sometimes the entire post isn't read in full and this means the nuance is missed.

In addition, I perhaps could have explained the issue more clearly.

The whole diet is what matters.

Not just total intake per day of all the nutrients - but the whole diet.

So yes we do need to be concerned with every meal, every mouthful and not just the total dietary percent of various nutrients or components.

The main point I intended to make was that when dealing with insulin dysregulation it is an error to focus JUST on sugar intake and forget all other aspects of the diet - particularly the dietary energy or calories, because excess body fat contributes towards insulin dysregulation.

But that does not infer that a single meal sugar content, or forage sugar content doesn't matter - it does!

The advice from experts is that non-structural carb intake per meal for horses or ponies with insulin dysregulation may need to be no more than 0.1g NSC per kg bodyweight ie 50 g of NSC for control of the issue. I would add to that - along with getting body fat down to a condition score under 3 in the 0-5 scale, since we know body fat does directly impact insulin dysregulation.

(NSC includes starch, sugar and grass fructan).

This can't apply directly to forage since it tends not to be fed as a meal - as such - but we still follow the guideline of 12% max NSC in forage for controlled EMS and under 10% NSC for uncontrolled (laminitic or hyperinsulinaemic).

Perhaps I could have done a better job in explaining myself and if anyone has any questions about any of this, I will keep an eye on the comments and happily answer you today.

My aim - as always - is to give out correct, evidence based information and explanations.

Feel free to share
🐴🍏

01/05/2026

WHAT ON EARTH SHOULD I FEED?

🤷 A question I get asked almost daily from horse owners is ‘can I have a feed plan for my horse please’?

A wee while back I had an owner who had given up feeding anything but grass and hay, despite knowing it is deficient and unhealthy, because she was so confused about which feed and supplement products to choose.

She was stressed out from going around in circles trying to work out what on earth to feed 🥴

🙋‍♀️If you’ve felt like this, you’re not alone! It can be such a minefield trying to which products to feed your horse… trying to work out what is trustworthy and what is nutribaloney – because sadly there is more and more of this around nowadays.

There are many ways to feed well, but also many ways to feed badly and some products that are a waste of money and will not give your horse a correct, healthy diet.

Nutrition is the cornerstone of good health and well-being and our horses and ponies rely on us to make the right choices for them🐎

👉If you’re struggling with how to feed your horse, how to work out which forage is best, how much grass access they need, and then the big question of which feed or supplement to choose, you need to know where to start, and which brands to trust and which are talking nutribaloney.

In my horse feed plan solution short course, I teach you how to work out what your individual horse or pony needs, and then how to select the best products (no nutribaloney).

Right now my horse feed plan solution includes a bonus – you are invited to a live Q&A session with me in my zoom ‘feed room’! So you also get to ask your questions about the products you’re either feeding or considering.

✅ Comment ‘feed right” below to learn more about my horse feed plan solution, which is on a special bank holiday weekend offer, with 30% off AND a space in my live feed room on Tuesday 12th May!

Here’s what you’ll get👇:
🐴 a proven shortcut to build your own horse’s perfect feed plan, in a couple of hours
🍏 leave guesswork or worrying about what you’re feeding behind
🐴 find out which feed and forage-balancing supplements I recommend
🍏 build a DIY feed plan that supports optimal health, happiness and well-being in your horse or pony

As we go through the horse feed plan solution course, I help you to navigate the feed and supplement products available, to understand how to build a feed plan for your horse, and which brands of feeds and supplements are the best, so that your horse gets the diet they need 🐴✅.

Your horse feed plan solution is yours for life, so you can go back at any time to rewatch. Get access to all this help from the comfort of your sofa, with short, easy-to-watch video trainings and a handful of pdfs.

I’ve worked with thousands of horses and owners over more than 2 decades and I know that what I share in my program and courses will work to give you clarity about how to feed your horse well, for long-term health and happiness 🥳🐴.

Comment ‘feed right” below to learn more about this horse feed plan solution!

Enjoy your horses
Clare 🐴🍏

30/04/2026

'HE JUST WON'T STOP EATING!'

I remember someone once saying they thought the term good doer should be changed because it could be just a horse that has no ability to self regulate.

(By a good doer, we mean horses and ponies that seem to maintain weight and condition on very little forage/feed intake)

But I don't think we should be expecting our horses and ponies to self regulate, and this is why..

Horses are not designed to “eat sensibly” in the way we might hope. Their physiology has been shaped by survival, not moderation.

The concept referred to as the 'thrifty gene' helps explain this - individuals who were driven to eat enthusiastically when food was available, especially high-energy, sugar and fructan-rich forage, were more likely to survive harsh winters and successfully reproduce.

In a natural environment where food supply fluctuates, holding onto weight and seizing every opportunity to consume calories is a survival advantage!

The horses who didn’t do this, the ones who self-regulated too tightly, were less likely to make it through. So when we see a “good doer” today who doesn’t seem to switch off around food, we’re not seeing a problem horse - we’re seeing a horse whose physiology is working as evolution intended, just in an environment where calories are no longer scarce.

But it is an interesting question - what actually makes a good doer, a good doer?

We might assume that it's due to a more efficient metabolism but this may not be the whole story, and it could also be due to:
> a higher drive to eat / a larger appetite - could be linked to hormone signalling involved in feed-seeking behaviour
> a dysfunctional appetite (much larger than usual) - again could be linked to hormone signalling
> greater digestive efficiency (extracting more energy from the same forage/feed) potentially linked to their gut microbiome
> reduced spontaneous movement - they simply move around less compared to other horses - which makes their calorie requirements lower

Note that all these are conjecture, and we don't know exactly why or how some horses are good doers or 'easy keepers'.

In my experience from watching horses and ponies over my lifetime, I would say that the one factor I notice in most good doers is how driven they are to search for feed, and eat. And conversely, how the poor doers are the ones most likely to be standing around not searching for feed or eating when you stop and observe them!

Have you noticed this?

Tell me about your good doer, or poor doer, in the comments....
🐴🍏

29/04/2026

THE SAFEST GRASS?? 🌱🪻🌾

There's a lot of talk of what's the best and/or safest grass for your horse (for good doers).

I posted about this yesterday (in FBook).

This picture is a meadow which we developed and nurtured at our place in Wiltshire, a few years back, and which we also cut for haylage. It was diverse in species, it was full of insects and it was a joy to walk through.

But it still way oversupplied calories (dietary energy) for horses, even for my mare in moderate work. We had a track system with run-in shelters and we grazed various small strips and patches in summer, then used haylage regrowth as standing hay over winter.

Although long, stalky meadow grass might be lower in calories and sugar/fructan per kilo compared to shorter, 'richer' grass, or even 'stressed' overgrazed grass, what affects the horse is how many TOTAL calories and nutrients (including sugar and fructan) and what RATE they can be eaten at.

I've consulted to hundreds of horse and pony owners trying different methods to keep their grazing equids slim enough to be healthy.

The key to good health is to continually monitor your horse or pony and adjust the amount of pasture they have access to in order to maintain a healthy bodyweight. In other words, you need to use their body fat levels as your guide, not what type of pasture you have.

Most leisure horses and ponies and some sports ones will need significant grass restriction - however you choose to do that - regardless of what type of pasture you have.

Feel free to share 🌱🪻🌾🐴🍏

28/04/2026

YOU ARE BEING LIED TO ABOUT GRASS LENGTH !!!

Long grass is not lower in sugar and fructan for horses and ponies than short grass in terms of WHAT THEY EAT.

An attention grabbing headline?

Yes! I am getting really frustrated with this persistent nutribaloney that short grass is bad for horses, not suitable for laminitics, not suitable for weight loss or healthy weight maintenance.

This is Simply Not True.

Worryingly, it's not just uneducated people I've heard saying this, or writing it.

Even if short, overgrazed grass IS higher in sugar and fructan and lower in fibre per kilo, it is the TOTAL AMOUNT that the horse eats and the RATE they eat it that matters, not what is in the forage per kilo.

Capitalised because this is the key and why so many horse owners and even vets get this wrong.

Well-or over-grazed, short grass will generally provide more suitable grazing for a good doer or EMS / laminitis prone horse or pony.

On this type of grazing they will get LESS nutrients (less sugar, less fructan, less calories) per hour of grazing compared to the longer, stemmier grass, simply because of how much they can eat.

I cannot tell you how many owners I've had come to me for advice, and reported in my Facebook comments that their horse or pony has piled on the pounds (gained body fat) and sadly in some cases succumbed to laminitis, when they have tried putting them on free choice longer grass.

Now, the horse on overgrazed, sprouting pasture will likely need more fibre e.g. from a strip of the longer stemmier grass and/or supplementary forage like soaked hay BUT! grazing very short grass is sometimes the only way to keep a good doer slim and healthy (if they don't wear a grazing muzzle).

The key is to monitor the individual horse or pony and adjust their grass access from their bodyweight and condition, and any signs of metabolic disturbances or laminitis.

Some take home tips:
> always monitor your individual horse or pony and adjust their grass access accordingly
> never assume that long meadow grass is safe for your horse or pony prone to weight gain and laminitis
> over-grazed pasture with supplementary forage (if out 24/7) is a method used successfully by thousands of owners of good doers and laminitis-prone horse and pony owners
> if you have no option but to graze bottle-height grass (about 3" or 10cm) for overweight horses or ponies, good doers or those prone to laminitis, I recommend using a grazing muzzle (and potentially strip grazing as well)
> always monitor your individual horse or pony and adjust their grass access accordingly (yes, I meant to repeat myself!) - you can monitor their weight and condition (body fat), any signs of laminitis, their gut comfort and their droppings

Feel free to share!
🐴🍏🌱

27/04/2026

Interesting new product!! HAYDROP

Has anyone got one of these?

I'd be really interested to find out how you are getting on with it. Please comment below!

A product that allows your horse to have a portion of their forage when you're not there, for example in the middle of the night.

I love innovation and this looks really good, and really useful.

Thank you to my friend Sally Brett - Horsemanship instructor for bringing it to my attention!
🐴🍏

27/04/2026

BAD ADVICE - WATCH OUT !

It's total intake that matters, so don't fixate on the percent of a small part whilst being unaware of the rest of the diet.

It's amazing what 'advice' comes from all sorts of sources nowadays, and just how flawed much of it is.

Advice for a horse with raised insulin that I heard about recently:

'You can't feed that haylage, it's too high in sugar and starch'

(It makes my skin actually crawl to even write that)

Where do I even start with this one...

But here are some of my initial thoughts:

1. How much haylage is the horse being fed and what other forage is the horse eating?
2. What about fructan level and calorie (energy) level of the haylage and all the other forage the horse is eating?
3. Haylage tends to be lower in sugar than hay but not always, so never make assumptions about forage!
4. Starch is consistently low in UK grass forages (2-3%) and does not vary like sugar and fructan (the water soluble carbs)
5. Why is the horse's insulin elevated and what is being done about it e.g. management changes, exercise, medication?
6. Yes, we do need to change something in the diet of horses with hypersinsulinaemia, but a broad brush 'this is bad, this is good' is a flawed approach

Thankfully, the owner of the horse who this advice was aimed at has an excellent knowledge of nutrition and was able to ignore the vet's advice and carry on with assessing the WHOLE diet of the horse, instead of fixating on about 20% of it and panicking about changing that part.

To me it seems so obvious to look at the whole diet, so for example, if someone is feeding haylage mixed with straw, you look at the nutrient supply of the mixture, not one or the other.

It wasn't so much bad advice in advising to watch out for haylage (see below) but what was bad about the advice, was not looking at the full history and the whole diet.

On that note:
Is haylage always appropriate for horses with hyperinsulinaemia (elevated insulin)?
No, not as the sole forage because it's usually too high in calories - but if it is being fed as part of a correctly balanced diet, then yes, absolutely.

Please take care with nutrition advice and don't forget to:

> Always consider the TOTAL dietary intake of ALL nutrients
> Never fixate on one part of the diet without considering the total dietary intake because something important could be forgotten
> Never forget calories (energy) by focusing too much on sugar, starch or any other nutrient
> If a vet is giving you nutrition advice, they should ALWAYS take a full history as a nutritionist would, and unless they have nutrition expertise, you should check with a properly qualified nutritionist for a clinical case where diet is part of the management of a health condition

Tomorrow I am writing about long grass versus short grass because I am VERY concerned about the myths surrounding this and how dangerous it can be for horses and ponies.

(I've just been on holiday to Scotland and I'm fully recharged, so myths, bad advice and nutribaloney better watch out).

Please feel free to share
🐴🍏

26/04/2026

URGENT APPEAL TO HELP AVOID LAMINITIS !

The grass has gone mad lately here in the UK, with the moisture in the ground and now the sun and temperatures warming up.

Sadly the same old dangerous nutribaloney has been circulating....

PLEASE do not believe that sprinkling a bit of this or that (e.g. salt, magnesium oxide, green clay, pre/probiotics, metabolic-supporting herbs) will stop your horse or pony getting laminitis.

Care for your horse or pony and reduce laminitis risk by what you REMOVE from their diet, NOT what you ADD.

Keep your horse healthy and help avoid laminitis by:
1. keeping them slim with low body fat covering (can you feel their ribs easily?)
2. taking action NOW if they're too fat, by reducing calorie intake (grass restriction, soaking hay/adding straw weighing forage etc)
3. RESTRICT their grass intake by area, strip grazing, grazing muzzle or any other strategy

And feed them a well-balanced diet with appropriate salt, minerals and herbs of your choice if you wish.

You will NOT make lush (or long) free choice grass safe by adding minerals or anything else to their diet.

Please help me share the word. Thank you
🐴🍏

25/04/2026

LAMINITIS SAFE??

This is an unproductive, unfertilised species - diverse pasture. Perfect for insects.

But not perfect for good doers, those who gain weight easily and definitely NOT for laminitics!

But please don't be lulled into a false sense of security that this type of pasture is safe for your laminitis or ID/ EMS horses or ponies, or won't cause weight gain.

This kind of pasture is still far too rich in water soluble carbs (sugar and fructan) and energy (calories) for all horses and ponies except those with high energy requirements or a small appetite.

Despite what is banded about on social media.

Feel free to share to spread the word and help avoid unnecessary laminitis cases from owners thinking that long grass with herbs and flowers is safe
🐴🍏

ps this is a picture of a field we were experimenting on at my old place in Wiltshire - we planted yellow rattle in this part, to encourage the wild flowers and inhibit the grass.

23/04/2026

LAMINITIS PREVENTION ⛔️
..is much better than 'cure' (treatment).

There is more to it, but if you control body fat and grass access, you'll be covering the most important, biggest-by-far factors in laminitis prevention.

I have loads of resources to help, including articles in my online library the quine nutrition learning centre, and watch on demand webinars (as well as working with me direct) so please reach out if you need help.

Please feel free to share
🐴🍏

22/04/2026

BE CAREFUL NOT TO CONFUSE A 'HAY BELLY' WITH FAT!

I regularly see horses with quite large bellies, but who are not particularly fat. I also sometimes see horses with 'streamlined' bellies, who carry a moderate or high level of body fat.

A wee while ago, I saw two horses on a yard whilst out doing Consultation visits and the one with the larger (relative) belly had the lower external body fat level.

A 'hay belly' - a distended abdomen - tends to occur in horses who are not worked in such a way to tone their abdominal muscles, and who have a large intake of fibrous forage. Forage holds water in the horses' gut and the higher in fibre it is, the more it holds. The horse's hindgut has a volume of around 150 litres (half a large bathful).

Fat does not get laid down in significant amounts on the horse's belly, until they are extremely obese.

There are exceptions to the above, but the key is to feel for fat, and not just look at the horse's belly.

Feel for fat in the neck crest, behind the shoulders and over the ribs, over the pelvis and at the top of the tail.

Consider using a condition scoring guide to be sure you are assessing actual body fat covering if you're not sure. You can find one in a blog on my website (link in the comments).

It might be that a horse with a big belly of grass (or hay) is overweight as well, but it is possible for a horse to be too thin in terms of body fat covering, but have a big 'hay belly'.

Feel free to share!

Also feel free to share your 'hay bellies' below!
🐴🍏

Clare MacLeod MSc RNutr Independent Equine Nutritionist

01/05/2026

01/05/2026

01/05/2026

30/04/2026

29/04/2026

28/04/2026

27/04/2026

27/04/2026

26/04/2026

25/04/2026

23/04/2026

22/04/2026

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Nutrition isn’t everything, but there’s nothing without it