Essential Horse Nutrition
While you might think this is an easy thing to do – feed your horse – you would be stunned at the number of horse owners that do not know about the fundamentals. There isn’t any real rough guide for feeding, as each horse’s nutritive desires will change depending on age, weight and level of activity. To start with, your horse naturally uses forage as a first part of their diets. It happens to be one of the MAJOR must haves for properly functioning guts. When we talk of forage, we usually mean natural pasture and cut hay. Mature horses often eat about 2 to 2.5 p.c of their body weight in feed each day. So a 1,000 pound horse will eat approximately 20 to 25 pounds of feed a day. This means top of the range feed, not sub-standard high fibre feed (which can interfere with proper digestion).
In an ideal pasture world, your horse should eat at least 1 % of his body weight in hay/pasture forage daily. If your pony does not do much work, they will do nicely on precisely forage, with no grain thrown in. On the other hand, growing, breeding, or working horses must have supplements as well as forage – such as grain or a supplement concentrate. Consider it this way, forages should ideally supply at least one half or more of the total weight of the feed eaten daily for optimum growth and development.
Before it is possible to feed a well balanced “meal” to your horse, you have to know the nutrient content and quality of your forage. When you know that, you can work out the correct amounts of each to meet nutrient requirements.
The number one source, and the least costly one for summer feed is your pasture. And, in most cases good pasture on it’s own can offer all the nutritional needs your horse wants. How does one figure out how much pasture is needed to feed a horse? Here is a rough suggestion to help you: (using a weight of 1,000 – 1,200 pounds)
Mare and foal 1.75 to 2 acres Yearlings 1.5 to 2 acre Weanlings 0.5 to 1 acre
Winter feed naturally would be cut hay, and again, top of the range if you can provide it. It should be cut early, be leafy and green in color and as free as practical of dust, moulds, weeds and stubble. This feed is usually rich in protein, vitamins and minerals.
Yes, you can use alfalfa hay, but watch out about the higher protein content if you’re feeding to young growing horses, as it may contain an exorbitant amount of calcium in relationship to phosphorus. Too much calcium is not good for growing horses. If you are not sure about hay quality, have it analyzed.
Harriet Harman is a horse enthusiast and correspondent on horse racing systems, including well-liked manuals and software such as The 5 Step Lay.
