Horse Nutrition – The Basics

Whereas you might think this is a uncomplicated thing to do – feed your horse – you’d be shocked at the quantity of horse owners that don’t know the fundamentals.  There is no real rule of thumb for feeding, as each horse’s nutritional needs will differ depending on age, weight and amount of activity.

To start with, your horse in nature uses fodder as being a fundamental constituent of their diets. It is likely one of the Chief requirements for any properly functioning digestive system. When we speak of forage, we usually mean natural pasture and cut hay.

Mature horses as a rule eat approximately 2 to 2.5 pct of their body weight in feed each day. So a one thousand pound horse will consume roughly 20 to 25 pounds of feed per day. Meaning top quality feed, not low quality high fibre feed (which can interfere with proper digestion).

In a perfect pasture planet, your horse ought to consume no less than 1 percent of his body weight in hay/pasture forage daily. But if your horse doesn’t do much exertion, they’ll do well on strictly forage, with no grain introduced in.  On another hand, developing, breeding, or operational horses have to have supplements in addition to forage – such as grain or even a supplemental concentrate.  Consider it in this way, forages should provide at least one half or more of the whole mass of the feed eaten daily for maximum growth and development.

Before you can feed a healthy “meal” to your horse, you must be aware of the nutrient content and quality of your forage. When you know that, you can determine the precise quantities of each to fulfill nutrient requirements.

The best resource, and the least pricey one for summer feed is your pasture.  And, generally good pasture by itself can offer every one of the nutritional needs your horse needs.  How do you determine just how much pasture is needed to provide for a horse?  Here is a rough guideline that will help you: (using a mass 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

Wintry weather feed naturally would be cut hay, and again, premium if you can provide it.  It needs to be cut early, be leafy and green in color and as free as possible of airborne dirt and dust, moulds, weeds and stubble.  This feed will likely be rich in protein, mineral deposits and vitamins.

Yes, you can use alfalfa hay, but take care about the higher protein content when you are giving to young growing horses, as it could contain an excessive quantity of calcium in connection to phosphorus.  Excessive calcium isn’t good for rising horses.  If you’re not positive about hay quality, have it analyzed.

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