Whereas you might feel this is a easy thing to perform – feed your horse – you’d be surprised at the number of horse owners that do not appreciate the basics.  There is no factual rule of thumb for feeding, as every horse’s nutritional wants will alter based on age, weight and level of activity.

To start out with, your horse in nature uses forage as being a basic component of their diets. It is one of the Main requirements for any properly working digestive system. When we speak of forage, we usually mean natural pasture and cut hay.

Mature horses as a rule eat in the region of 2 to 2.5 percent of their body mass in feed every day. So a 1,000 pound horse will consume more or less 20 to 25 pounds of feed each day. This implies top quality feed, not low quality high fibre feed (which can interfere with correct digestion).

In an ideal pasture world, your horse ought to eat no less than 1 % of its body weight in hay/pasture forage daily. If your horse doesn’t do much labor, they will do nicely on strictly forage, with no grain introduced in.  On the other hand, growing, in breed, or operational horses will need to have dietary supplements along with forage – like grain or perhaps a supplement concentrate.  Consider it in this way, forages should provide at least one half or more of the total weight of the feed consumed each day for maximum growth and development.

Before you can feed a healthy “meal” to your horse, it’s a must to know the nutrient content and quality of your forage. Once you know that, you can figure out the right amounts of each to meet nutrient necessities.

The very best source, and the least high-priced one for summer time feed is your pasture.  And, typically good pasture by itself can provide the whole nutritional requirements your horse needs.  Just how do you work out the amount of pasture is required to provide for a horse?  This is a rough and ready guideline that can assist you: (using a mass of 1,000 – 1,200 lbs)

Mare and foal 1.75 to 2 acres
Yearlings 1.5 to 2 acre
Weanlings 0.5 to 1 acre

Winter feed certainly will be cut hay, and again, high quality if you can find it.  It ought to be cut early, be leafy and green in color and as free as viable of dust, moulds, weeds and stubble.  This feed is normally rich in protein, minerals and nutritional vitamins.

Yes, you can use alfalfa hay, but be careful about the higher protein contents in case you are giving to young growing horses, as it may contain an unnecessary amount of calcium in connection to phosphorus.  Excessive calcium just isn’t good for developing horses.  If you’re not clear in your mind about hay quality, have it checked.

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