Horse Nutrition Guidelines

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by Elias Maseko

The idea of feeding a horse may appear easy but may horse owners are uninformed about the fundamentals. It is a fact that there is no golden rule relevant involving the nutrition requires of a horse, as it for the most part depends on the age, body weight and the level of activity, which the horse goes through. Grass is the most essential part of a horse diet. Being one of the most essential components to keep its digestive system to work optimally, grass normally means natural pasture and cut hay.

big horses usually eat about 2 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 food per day. Horses require good nutrition so this means high quality food, not low quality high fiber food (which can interfere with correct digestion).

If your horse doesn't do much work, they will do nicely on strictly forage, with no grain thrown in. On the other hand, horses which are active, or at the growing or breeding stage, need extra secondary feeds over and above the forage like grains or concentrate supplements. Thus, for optimizing growth and development of the animal, foraging should make up for at least half or more of the body weight, as part of his daily diet.

The food content and the quality of the grass are essential considerations when you are planning to give your horse a balanced diet. When you are aware of this, you can easily figure out the correct amounts of nutrients that would meet his specific requires. The best source and the least expensive one for summer feed is your grass fields and, in most cases good pasture by itself can provide all the nutrition requisites your horse needs. But how do you come to know how much pasture is right for your horse? Using a weight of 1000 to 1200 pounds, here is a rough guideline. This means that a mare and foal 1.75 to 2 acres - yearlings 1.5 to 2 acre and weanlings 0.5 to 1 acre.

Winter food of course would be cut hay, and again, high quality if you can provide it. The hay which you food should be cut uniformly and have green leaf-like appearance and there should not be any dust, moulds, weeds or stubble accompanying the hay. This food is normally rich in protein, minerals and vitamins.

Alfalfa hay is great for horses in a developing phase as it is protein enriched by there could be excessive calcium content in relation to phosphorus. Since abnormal calcium may not be good for growing horses, you could opt for a hay analysis, in case you are not too sure.

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