If for some reason you must give your horse a large quantity of grain, consider an additional lunchtime feeding. Small, frequent meals not only are more natural for the horse, but they also allow the horse to better digest and use their food.
When a horse is fed too much at once, the food isn't digested as effectively. Sign up to receive our exclusive e-book full of training techniques, problem-solving and important information about caring for your pet. Sudden differences in the amount or type of feed can lead to colic or founder. One method for changing the type of feed is to replace 25 percent of the current food with the new food every two days, so that in six days the horse is eating l00 percent of the new food.
The average thousand-pound horse who relies on hay for all their forage typically eats fifteen to twenty pounds of hay per day. Most hay is dispensed in flakes; however, the amount of hay in a flake can vary greatly, depending on the size of the flake and the kind of hay.
Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Featured Video. Related Topics. Article Sources. As mentioned, if your horse is not getting all the nutrients he needs from forage, then you might need to add a concentrate feed to his diet.
Nutrient requirements also increase during gestation and lactation. Diets for pregnant and lactating mares must contain adequate nutrition or the mare will rob her own body stores to some extent to support fetal growth or milk production.
Lawrence adds that good-quality commercial feeds usually contain adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals for the class of horse the label specifies. Again, feed by weight. As for the choice of grain, Hoffman suggests horse owners choose a commercially mixed and balanced grain concentrate rather than feeding basic grains, such as oats, or trying to mix your own feed to save a few bucks. Due to their size, horses must consume a large volume of water to keep their bodies functioning normally.
A mature average-sized horse will drink 5 to 10 gallons per day. Of course, factors such as exercise, hot temperatures, humidity, sweating, pregnancy or nursing, and increased hay intake multiply the amount of water a horse needs, sometimes up to three or four times the normal amount.
Make sure your horse always has free access to plenty of fresh water. Without enough water, impaction colic becomes a big risk, and an extended time without water can even result in kidney failure, brain damage, or organ shutdown.
Nutritionists also recommend that horse rations contain 1. Owners can provide additional salt through a mixture of one-third trace mineral or plain salt top-dressed on feed and two-thirds free-choice dicalcium phosphate e. This allows horses to meet their calcium and phosphorus needs as well, because these nutrients are not included in trace mineral salt blocks.
If you are new to feeding horses, check with your veterinarian or an equine nutritionist to make sure his diet offers the nutrients he needs. Otherwise, he could develop serious health problems. Favorite Share:. Start with Forage Coleman and Williams suggest that horses consume 1. DO feed by weight and not volume.
If group-feeding in a pasture setting, DO arrange feed buckets in a circle at least 30 feet apart to give each horse space. DO put out an extra bucket of grain if feeding a group of four or more so the submissive horse can move to another bucket if needed. The same is true for hay feeders.
Baffled about how best to feed your horse? Contact a Kentucky Equine Research nutritionist today for a free consultation. Subscribe to Equinews and get the latest equine nutrition and health news delivered to your inbox. Sign up for free now! Search Library Entire Site. Library Section Only.
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