If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

While you may believe this is an easy thing to do - feed your horse - you’d be surprised at the amount of horse owners that don’t know about the fundamental principles. There is no real rule of thumb for feeding, as all horse’s nutrition requires will vary depending on age, size and level of activity. Grass is the most fundamental part of a horse diet. Being one of the most essential factors to keep its digestive system to function optimally, grass ordinarily means natural pasture and cut hay.

The quantum of food a big horse requires is close to 2 to two point five% of their body weight, so when a horse weighs a thousand pound, it would require 20 to 25 pounds of feed per day. Horses require feed, which is high in nutrition value and not high-fiber, food which tampers with its digestive system. In a perfect world, your horse should consume a minimum of 1 percent of his body size in hay/grass grass daily.

If your horse doesn’t do much work, they will do nicely on strictly forage, with no grain thrown in. On the other hand, horses which are active, or at the growing or breeding stage, need extra secondary feeds over and above the forage like grains or concentrate supplements. Thus, for optimizing growth and development of the animal, foraging should make up for at least half or more of the body weight, as part of his daily diet.

On the other hand, horses which are active, or at the growing or breeding stage, require additional supplemental feeds over and above the grass like grains or concentrate supplements. Think about it this way, forages should supply at least one half or more of the total size of the feed eaten everyday for optimum growth and development. The food content and the quality of the grass are essential considerations when you are planning to give your horse a balanced diet. When you are aware of this, you can easily figure out the correct amounts of nutrients that would meet his specific requires.

The best source and the least expensive one for summer feed is your grass fields and, in most cases good pasture by itself can provide all the nutrition requisites your horse needs. But how do you come to know how much pasture is right for your horse? Using a weight of 1000 to 1200 pounds, here is a rough guideline. This means that a mare and foal 1.75 to 2 acres - yearlings 1.5 to 2 acre and weanlings 0.5 to 1 acre.

Winter food of course would be cut hay, and again, high quality if you can provide it. The hay which you food should be cut uniformly and have green leaf-like appearance and there should not be any dust, moulds, weeds or stubble accompanying the hay. This food is normally rich in protein, minerals and vitamins.

Alfalfa hay is great for horses in a developing phase as it is protein enriched by there could be abnormal calcium content in relation to phosphorus. Too much calcium is not good for developing horses so if you’re not sure about hay quality, have it analyzed.

Tags: Horses

Popularity: 10% [?]

Share This