Managing The Ems Pony

Senior Nutritionist, Lizzie Drury, explains what to look out for when managing horses and ponies with equine metabolic syndrome (EMS), based on her own management techniques with her pony Rita, whose body shape illustrates very well where fat pad areas and higher risk areas are.

Rita is a 15 year old British riding pony, and is regular light to medium work, consisting of hacking, flat work and jumping.

Before we took Rita on we knew that she had Equine Metabolic Syndrome and therefore had to be managed very carefully and also kept in regular work. This was an extremely important part of the commitment on our part to ensure that she was managed strictly with regards to her feeding and really importantly, her grazing times and routines, as well as ensuring that she could always be kept active and not become a stable or paddock ornament. These factors were key to maintaining her health and as harsh as it may sound, actually keeping her alive! Laminitis can be a life threatening disease.

Rita is regularly weighed, and body fat scored, so that we keep a track of any fluctuations. This helps us to pick up on any gain in condition, much more quickly than by just using the eye alone. We can therefore be proactive and not reactive to any increases or decreases and make any feed adjustments as required.

We are lucky that at our yard, we have some all-weather turn out pens, which means that we can turn Rita out while restricting her grass intake. Rita is incredibly sensitive to grass intake and sometimes it can seem that in a matter of minutes you will see how the crest becomes more ‘lumpy’ and harder, and this is immediate alarm bells! The two images below show the change in crest as she was introduced to just 15 minutes of grazing time on this springs pasture! To manage her grazing at this time of the year, we set a timer for some grazing time without a grazing muzzle, followed by some time with a grazing muzzle before she goes back into her all-weather turnout pen.

Rita is on soaked hay all of the time. I have noticed that even on periods of dry hay, this could sometimes be enough to make changes to her fat pads, and as it is not practically possible to analyse the hay from batch to batch to check the WSC level, we soak her hay as a matter of routine for up to 12 hours and then it is rinsed before feeding.

Being a little pony, she is already quite energetic and can be sharp, so concentrate feeding is simple! We don’t need to feed a concentrate feed to maintain her body condition or to fuel her work, but we need a high-quality feed balancer to provide her with a balanced diet and replace the nutrients that are not being provided by the hay. She eats 300g of Essential Balancer a day, which is mixed with a small handful of a molasses free chaff, to slow down her rate of intake and encourage proper chewing.

EMS pony’s are hard work from a management perspective and it has to be a year round and daily process! You cannot take a day off from being strict with the feed and work management.