Digestive & Gut Health, Equine Vit&Min, Farmalogic, Feeding Tips, Foundations of Good Nutrition, Gastric Ulcers, Horse Health, Weight Gain, Weight Management
Top 10 Essential Feeding Tips Every Horse Owner Needs To Know
- Horses need roughage – lots of it. Unless they’re overweight, they should never run out of grass or hay.
- Roughage can also provide all of the calories a horse or pony needs.
- Larger horses, horses in hard work and growing horses may need more calories than unlimited, quality roughage gives them so they need a hard feed of grains or super-fibres to supplement the roughage to maintain weight.
- Roughage usually provides all the protein a mature horse needs.
- The protein and calorie level of pasture declines as the plants mature – young leafy shoots are highest in energy and in protein.
- If your horse loses weight when the grass is sparse or dry, add more roughage as unlimited hay before deciding to increase the hard feed.
- Grass and hay do not provide all the minerals a horse needs to give correct mineral balance across the whole diet. Copper, zinc, selenium, and iodine are often deficient in grass-only diets.
- Horses need salt added to their diet. This should be added to a feed or provided as loose salt rather than a hard lick which will not give them their daily requirement of 7 to 12 g per 100 kg of body weight.
- When horses are reliant on hay rather than fresh grass for roughage they often need supplementary vitamin A and E and some B group vitamins as well as an omega-3 rich source to balance fatty acid ratios.
- Horses in harder work often need vitamin supplementation to meet higher requirements and compensate for the compromised hindgut microbial populations often associated with their lifestyles.