While you may believe horse feeding is a simple thing to do – feed your horse – you’d be surprised at the amount of horse owners that don’t know about the basics. It is a fact that there is no golden rule relevant involving the nutritional requires of a horse, as it mostly depends on the age, body weight and the level of activity, which the horse goes through. Pasture is the primary ingredient of any horse diet and is one of the most crucial parts of his diet. Pasture grazing on grass keeps his digestive system working properly, and when we say grass we are meaning a compounding of natural pasture and cut hay.
Horse Feeding guideline:
Horses usually consume 1.5 to 2.5 % of their body weight in food each day so a 1,000 pound horse will consume roughly twenty to twenty five pounds of feed each day. Horses require good nutrition so this means high quality food, not low quality high fiber feed (which can interfere with correct digestion). A horse would be happy if you fed him with a feed of hay/pasture pasture amounting to one percent of his body weight. For horses, which are not very physically activity, a food of grass only without any grain is sufficient. On the other hand, horses which are active, or at the developing or breeding stage, need additional supplemental feeds over and above the grass like grains or concentrate supplements.
Horse Feeding – Balanced Diet:
When you are thinking about a balanced diet for your horse, think about the nutrient content as well as quality of the pasture grass. This information would help you to judge the amount of nutrients your horse requires. Pasture is possibly the best and the least expensive summer feed which can be given to your horse, which fulfills all his nutritional requires but how do you come to know how much pasture is right for your horse? Using a weight of 1,000 to 1,200 pounds, here is a rough guideline. This means that a mare and foal need 1.75 to 2 acres of pasture – yearlings 1.5 to 2 acre and weanlings 0.5 to 1 acre.
Winter-feed could consist of cut hay but please ensure its quality. Hay should be cut early, be leaf-like and green in color and be free as possible from dust, molds, weeds and stubble. This feed is enriched with protein, minerals and vitamins. While alfalfa exceeds the protein requirements of idle horses this does not mean all horses cannot eat straight alfalfa. It just means alfalfa provides more protein than an inactive horse needs. Alfalfa also tastes good to horses and is useful when you’ve got a picky eater or a horse with a poor appetite. If your horse has a predisposed to colic and founder or if your horse is obese or inactive, alfalfa should be avoided as alfalfa may/will cause colic or founder. When it comes to horse feeding, some people feel more comfortable not feeding alfalfa to horses, no matter what the horses activity level.
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