Basic Horse Nutrition
Posted on 29. Jul, 2009 by in Horse Care
The idea of feeding a horse may look simple but may horse owners are clueless about the basics. There is nothing called standard, when it concerns the nutritional necessities of a horse, as it would mostly be founded on the quantum of activity, its age and body size. Grass is the primary ingredient of any horse diet. Being one of the most essential components to keep its digestive system to function optimally, forage normally means natural grass and cut hay.
The amount of food a big horse needs per day is subject on its body size, which is 2 to two point five%, so if the horse weighs a 1,000 pound the measure of everyday food needed can be calculated to twenty to twenty five pounds. Horses need good nourishment so this means high quality feed, not low quality high fiber feed (which can intervene with correct digestion). In a perfect world, your horse should eat a minimum of 1 % of his body weight in hay/grass pasture daily. In case your horse is not employed in much activity, then the right feed is only forge without any grains. On the other hand, horses which are active, or at the growing or breeding stage, need additional supplementary feeds over and above the pasture like grains or concentrate supplements. Consider it this way, foraging should offer at least one half or more of the total size of the feed eaten everyday for optimum growth and development.
The nutrient content and the quality of the pasture are crucial considerations when you are planning to give your horse a stable diet. When you are aware of this, you can easily figure out the correct amounts of nutrients that would meet his specific needs. The best source, and the least expensive one for summer feed is your pasture and, in most cases good pasture by itself can provide all the nutritional requirements your horse requires. To know the correct amount of pasture that your horse needs, use this rough guideline, which uses the weight of 1000 to 1200 pounds. This means that a mare and foal 1.75 to 2 acres – yearlings 1.5 to 2 acre and weanling 0.5 to 1 acre.
During winter the feed could be cut hay, but mind the quality. Ensure that the hay is leafy and green in colored and cut in a systematic way, free of dust, molds, weeds or stubble. There is plenty of proteins, vitamins and minerals contained in this feed. Yes, you can use alfalfa hay, but be careful about the higher protein content if you are feeding to young growing horses, as it may contain an excessive amount of calcium in relationship to phosphorus. Overdose of calcium is not recommended for growing horses; so in case you have any doubts, get the hay quality analyzed.
