Risks of grass in springtime
The sun is starting to shine more again, the temperature is rising and the grass is starting to grow. It seems like ideal weather to put the horses, which have often spent the winter in the paddock, back out to pasture. But there are also risks associated with this!
The first spring grass is very rich in protein and sugar and still contains relatively little structure. During the spring, the sun produces a lot of sugar (fructan) in the grass during the day, which has to be converted into cell walls, among other things, during the night.
When the nights are cold, sometimes with a night frost, nothing happens in the blades of grass. The fructans are not consumed, but accumulate in the grass and remain there the next morning.
When the sun shines the next day, new fructans are again produced. This accumulation of fructan causes many horses and ponies to get laminitis every year.
Laminitis is very painful for the horses. Thus, in sunny weather with cold nights, one should be very cautious and cautious about grazing.
The fructans in the grass are particularly high in the spring and autumn, when the day and night temperatures are further apart. Especially the austere breeds (Shetlanders, Icelanders, Welsh ponies and cobs etc) are susceptible, but any breed can have this condition.
In addition, the natural rhythm of horses and ponies causes the body to store fat faster in the spring, and fall.
In nature, winter is a tough period, if the animals come out of it skimpy, they have to strengthen quickly in the spring. In the fall, they need to build up reserves to survive the winter.
However, they do not come out of the winter skimpy, often even too fat because there is less exercise in the winter.
In addition to laminitis, (gas) colic also often occurs as a result of the high fructans in the grass. The fructans disrupt the intestinal flora and cause extra gas formation in the intestine. This can have serious consequences!
The transition from dry roughage to grass is an adjustment for the gastrointestinal system and thus must be handled carefully.
Tips
- Build up grazing time very slowly and apply strip grazing if necessary.
- Make sure that the horses always have access to structured roughage, both before and during grazing.
- The fructan content in the grass varies per day (part). Therefore keep a close eye on the weather conditions. Cold nights and a lot of sun during the day give a high fructan content. The fructan content is often lower when it is cloudy.
- A fructa table is available on the Internet that lists daily risk. This may possibly be a useful tool to consult.
- When fructan levels are high, be very reluctant to let them graze! Choose a later time in the day, for example.
- Shot, longer grass has more structure and contains comparatively less fructan. This is therefore preferable to the fresh young grass (horses also tend to eat the longer grass less willingly and thus will be less greedy).
