Filled legs and feeding horses

Last week we received a query about the connection between filled legs in horses and feeding and, three days later, I went out to feed my own horses and found that the Irish Draught x had four extremely puffy, filled legs.

Sometimes, especially with a larger, older horse, his legs are slightly filled in the mornings and this disappears as soon as he has walked a few rounds of his stable while waiting for his breakfast. Once his circulation starts moving, the filling goes down. Last week, however, the filling only slightly went down and was worse in the off fore leg. What could have caused this? I knew he had only been for a hack the day before.

His diet had been the same for months but I then remembered that the feed supplement I give him had not been available in ‘Original’ at our local feed store and I had been sold a ‘Pro’ version for the same price. The ‘Pro’ version is for eventers and horses in hard work (not like my old horse who takes life easy now he’s semi-retired) and, even though I had been warned to cut the amount back by half, it was obviously still too much protein for him.

I reduced the horse’s feed immediately, gave him only one feed instead of two that day, let him out in a field without too much grass and fed no supplement for several days. His legs were soon back to normal.

So, if you find four filled legs greeting you in the morning, reduce the feed straight away, especially the protein amount. Increased exercise and harder work both help as well. Feeding a horse is a fine balancing act between type of horse, type of work, weight of horse, etc. so, no matter how long we have owned horses, we are always adjusting feed to suit each individual.

Please note: four filled legs is usually a sign of a feed problem, one filled leg is more serious as it could mean an infection.