Feed - The right stuff

Originally Posted by Cherrij    

Hey guys. I can offer my advice, I have just finished a nutrition course.
Any horse should eat at least 2% of its body weight a day. Horses that work very hard can eat up to 2.25% -2.5% ( that is mainly any horse whose work is the same as a racehorse)
Medium workers need 2-2.25% of body weight in food.
Never, even for hard workers, should forage be lower than 50-60% of daily intake, the more the better. So lets say 70% is forage - grass hay, alfalfa etc. preferable given through slow feeders as horses should have the chance to eat all the time and also limits your losses.

Grains are quality food, but have to be very careful with those. Unless you need fast release energy, can avoid feeding then, however they will be in most mixes, but in processed form where they are quite easy to digest no matter on the NSC levels. Never overfeed just grain - no horse should have more than 1gram of starch for 100 kg of body weight in one meal, eg, 1100 lbs horse should not eat more than 3 lbs of oats in one meal as oats have 40% starch content, which aint good for horses digestive system, and that gives 0.48 kg of starch in those 3 lbs of oats.


Purchase good quality hay, can mix it with lower quality, if the horse has a tendency to get fat, but if need to up the weight then just really good hay. All the alfalfa and thimothy pellets will just help with fibre intake, but is not really forage - as they will be soaked and eaten differently. Sugarbeat pulp is good for fibre, oil meals - sunflower meal etc - lower fat but high on proteins..
When feeding 70% forgage - any mixed meal, either purchased or self made, should still go in at least 2 portions, no more than 2 kg of dry feed should enter the horses stomach..

I hope this makes sense?
So 1100 lbs horse would eat 22 lbs a day for maintenance. If want to up the feed for more energy requirements or increase weight go up to 24-26 lbs a day. There at least 15.4 Lbs should be forage, the rest can be mixed foods - your 7 lbs of different mixes - that is for a working horse. If the horse works very little, feed 17-18 lbs forage, 4-5 lbs of mix to include all supplements and balancers, vitamins etc.
If adding oil for energy instead of grain - make sure to feed more vitamin E (most feed mixes don't have that)
And no matter what you feed keep an eye on the fed Calcium: phosphorous ratio, should be at 2:1 usually, cereal grains put it down, balanced mixes can help :)

Any more questions ?