A guide to what, when and how to feed your horse
The very first time you went near a horse, you probably started hearing The Rules—don’t walk behind a horse, don’t run anywhere, always feed treats on your flat palm with fingers outstretched, and so on. The rules of feeding are the big ones. Remember them, and you’ll have a good foundation upon which to build your overall horse care.
Provide plenty of roughage Many pleasure and trail horses don’t need grain: good-quality hay or pasture is sufficient. If hay isn’t enough, grain can be added, but the bulk of a horse’s calories should always come from roughage.
Horses are meant to eat roughage, and their digestive system is designed to use the nutrition in grassy stalks. A horse should eat one to two percent of their body weight in roughage every day.
Horses who spend much of their time in stalls aren’t doing much grazing, but their natural feeding patterns can be replicated by keeping hay in front of them for most of the day. They can nibble at it for a while, take a break and snooze for a while, and then come back to it, keeping some roughage constantly moving through their systems.
Feed grain in small amounts and often
If you feed your horse grain, give it in multiple smaller meals rather than one large one. Most horses are given grain twice a day for the convenience of their human caretakers. 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.
Every horse has different needs. Consider both their size and the amount of work they do when deciding how much they need to eat.
Consider the amount of hay or pasture your horse gets: Horses who are grazing on good pasture the majority of the day don’t need much hay, if any. Horses who don’t get much turnout or aren't on good pasture will need more hay, whether they are inside or out.
During winter or drought, supplement pasture grazing with hay. When the grass is thick and lush, you can cut back or eliminate hay rations completely, depending on available pasture.
With grain, less is always more, so start with a minimal amount and adjust as necessary. You’ll find the right balance of pasture, hay, and grain for your particular horse’s needs.
If the amount of work your horse is doing changes, be sure to adjust their food ration.
Change feed and feed schedules gradually Whenever you make a change to your horse’s feed type or ration size, make the change incrementally. Sudden differences in the amount or type of feed can lead to colic or founder.
If you’re changing the amount of feed, increase or decrease each meal a little at a time, over several weeks if possible. 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 100 percent of the new food.
Measure feed accurately and feed consistently Start off measuring your horse’s feed by weight using a kitchen or postal scale, or by using the scale at your local feed store. Once you figure out how much your horse’s typical ration weighs, measure that portion at feeding time using a scoop, coffee can, or whatever suits your needs.
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. If you don’t know how much the bales of hay you are feeding weigh, you can use a bathroom scale to check, then feed that portion of a bale that your horse needs.
Don't feed immediately before or after exercise Ideally, you should wait an hour or so after your horse has finished a meal before riding them. If you’re going to do something really strenuous, it should be closer to three hours. A full digestive system gives the horse’s lungs less room to work, and makes exercise much harder on them. In addition, blood flow is diverted away from the digestive organs during periods of exertion, so gut movement slows and colic may be a real danger. When feeding a horse after work, let them cool down completely—their breathing rate should be back to normal, and their skin should not feel hot or sweaty.
Stick to a routine Horses thrive on routine, and their amazingly accurate internal clocks make them much better timekeepers than their human caretakers. Horses should be kept on a consistent feeding schedule, with meals arriving at the same time each day. Most horses aren’t harmed by an abrupt change in schedule, but for horses who are prone to colic, a sudden change in routine can be more than an annoyance and might be enough to trigger a colic episode.
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