Equine Muscles - Use It or Lose It

Summer is well and truly here. And with it, plenty of time to ride. A nice gentle trail ride is always pleasant on a long summer day, but are you really exercising your horse to prevent muscle loss?

Muscle loss is caused by:

Lack of movement: The horse equivalent of a sedentary lifestyle.

Calorie restriction: Where the horse loses muscle because it is metabolized to fuel life processes.

Winter weight loss: The horse uses energy for heat production, resulting in weight loss, and potentially muscle loss.

Aging: Where the horse’s hormones shift to muscle breakdown and not muscle building.

When we focus on horse health, it’s easy to overlook the status of the horse’s muscles. One of the reasons that we overlook the muscle status is because if the horse is overweight, we equate that with being fit. To our eye, the horse looks fit and healthy. In fact, the layers of fat could be hiding muscle loss.

Lack of movement:

As our society has changed, horses are rarely used as work horses. For the vast majority of the horses, they no longer have a physical job to do. This results in muscle loss from not being used. We may think that because they are turned out in pasture, they have plenty of movement, but the reality is that they may not be getting enough exercise to preserve their muscles.

Possible action item:
Think about putting your horse on an exercise routine. When you go out for a trail ride, plan that a part of the trail ride is at a trot or canter. Aim to increase the amount of time at the trot to help your horse develop muscles. It’s important to have graded levels of activity. It would be unfair to the horse to go from being a pasture puff to trying to do too much. Just like a distance runner needs time to build up and acclimate, so do horses.

Calorie restriction:

In our efforts to help our overweight horse lose weight, we cut back his food intake so that he can lose extra fat. Along with losing fat, he may also be burning muscle. Having a severe of calorie restriction, or wanting him to lose weight too quickly, may have the unintended consequence of muscle loss instead of just fat loss.

Possible action item: Reduce the feed intake by no more than 2 lbs per day for slow weight loss. This will help the horse lose weight gradually, and also help prevent the metabolism from slowing to preserve energy.

Winter weight loss:

To keep warm in the winter, horses frequently utilize energy consumed for heat production. This invariably will cause a weight loss. When the amount consumed doesn’t meet the increased daily requirements, the horse will use stored fat, but may also burn muscle to meet the energy needs.

Possible action item: Closely monitor your horse’s intake in the winter and increase the amount of feed to account for the possible muscle loss that could result from inactivity and the need to create heat.

Aging:

In a previous newsletter, Accelerated aging on muscles, we discussed how muscle is replaced with fat during the aging process. Hormones shift with aging, resulting in less muscle mass with fewer mitochondria. Because of this, it’s important to monitor the horse’s protein intake. The Merck Veterinary Manual states, “Aged horses may require protein intakes equivalent to those for young, growing horses to maintain body condition”.

Strategies to help your horse regain muscle.

➡ Review your feeds to determine if you have sufficient protein in your horse’s diet, especially for the aged horse.

➡ Ensure that there are sufficient limiting amino acids in the diet. This will help the horse get the most out of their feed. This can be accomplished by supplementing the limiting amino acids, lysine, methionine, and threonine.

➡ Consider adding leucine to the diet. This is a signaling amino acid that supports muscle development.

➡ Support the aging mitochondria with the use of acetyl l-carnitine. This supplement may help increase the number of mitochondria in the muscle, as well as help the existing mitochondria be more robust.

➡ Take advantage of the summer weather to develop an exercise program for your horse. Start slow, with a half an hour of walking, then adding 5 minutes of trotting, gradually working up to longer periods of time. Exercise is critically important to preserving and developing muscle mass and strength.

We do the best that we can do to help our horse. It's important to be mindful of muscle loss.

Disclaimer: Statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition.

©Joan Kulifay 2024

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