February 25, 2014

I want to talk a moment about feeding horses. . .

Not just feeding the starving, body score 1 types. . .

Feeding all horses. . .

I am always shocked how many issues horse folks are causing in their horses by misfeeding.

Horses biologically are not designed to do two things we do so often:

Eat twice a day for 30 minutes instead of 20 hours a day
or
Eat heavy grain feeds verses free choice forage

Many horses, if fed enough high quality hay/forage/pasture, will NOT need any grain or concentrate. Now. . . there are times this doesn’t apply – hard keepers, hard worked, dental issues. . .

Even then, before you go to the typical few scoops twice a day of textured or heavily grain based pellet (like most are), think about other options. You can add oil over soaked hay based pellets, over beet pulp, rice bran pellets, a low starch/ low grain pellet. . .

Sometimes some really do best with a heavy grain mix, but remember, that is NOT the general rule. Do not give grain to your easy keepers and set them up for a plethora of issues. . .

Give them FREE CHOICE hay. See if they need anything more after that. I’ve known many who needed nothing else or very little.

Fat horses. . .BAD, folks. Bad all around.

It isn’t loving or kind to make horses overweight.

The idea of free choice hay feeding or at relying on hay as the primarily source of nutrition seems so radical to too many horse people, but it is the best feeding choice for many, many horses.

We’ve been asked to accept this guy. His condition looks a bit worse now than in this photo, but they are not full body shots. He is a 10 year old OTTB. I am not sure we can accept him right now, but I am trying to work it out – he needs us, that is for sure! Please consider donating and helping us raise funds so we can help this guy out!