Horse Food: 5 Good Practices to Know!

To properly feed your horse whether for leisure, competition, or farm, it is essential to adhere to certain criteria: their age, weight, physical activity, and herbivorous diet. Similarly, it's crucial to understand your horse's nutritional needs, both in terms of rations and supplements. Focus on your proud stallion's feeding!

1. Horse Food: Quality Forage
2. Concentrated Supplies, Vitamins and Minerals
3. Proper Ration Balancing
4. Proper Rationing According to Seasons
5. Water Not Too Cold

Horse Food: How to Feed Them Well? 5 Good Practices

1. Horse Food: Quality Forage

Ensure your horse has the best forage according to their needs and physical activity. Knowing that it represents no less than 60% of a horse's daily intake, it is crucial to choose wisely:

Meadow Hay: it is the most used in horse feed. Derived from a mixture of several natural meadow grasses, it is generally rich in fiber (about 30%) but provides very little in the way of proteins.
Straw: more often used as bedding, it should not be overlooked, because if your horse lives on straw, they will consume it in large quantities. However, it is not very digestive or nutritious.
Luzern: recommended especially for sporting horses. It is well-digested by horses but can cause digestive issues if ingested in excessive amounts due to its high protein content.
Ensilage: this is forage with a moisture content over 50%, which can encourage mold growth if not properly stored. It is more protein-rich than hay, making it an important food for your horse, but consumption should be monitored as ensilage is highly palatable.

Whatever forage you choose for your horse, ensure the calcium-phosphorus ratio (Ca/P) is adequate for your animal, meaning the balanced proportion of calcium and phosphorus in a ration. This ratio should generally be higher than 1 and lower than 3. To provide all necessary elements for maintaining good health, consider adding supplements to their feed.

2. Concentrated Supplies, Vitamins and Minerals

The horse requires various vitamin and mineral supplies to maintain good health. These needs differ based on the age of your horse (foal, aged horse), their physical expenditure (stable horse, working horse, or racehorse) or if they are a mare in late gestation or lactation. In addition to daily forage, you can supplement with additional vitamins and minerals in various forms:

Pellets: generally formulated for all horse types (sporting or inactive, foals or seniors, pregnant mares...) they are highly appreciated as a supplement.
Cereals: such as barley or oats, both highly proteinaceous and therefore ideal, especially for competition or working horses.
Mash: a very moist and digestible food, it's crucial for helping the horse rehydrate after significant physical exertion or during recovery.
Mixed Feeds: perfect supplements for older horses when they have specific deficiencies or to help them maintain a shinier coat, the blends are designed to meet specific needs.
Fresh Fruits and Vegetables: artichokes, carrots, beets, apples, or pears are interesting to offer to horses as rewards, for example, because they are rich in fiber, sugar, vitamins, and water. Care should be taken to give them in moderation to avoid colic and diarrhea, and to cut them into pieces before feeding.
Nettles: very rich in vitamins, minerals, trace elements, and amino acids, nettles are wonderful allies for horses. Preventive or curative, they have anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antimicrobial, and anti-fatigue properties (against fatigue), as well as diuretic effects. However, be careful not to give them to pregnant or lactating mares, as nettles are abortive and affect the menstrual cycle.
Dried Charcoal: to help combat all digestive disorders and purify the blood.

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It is also possible to provide them with mineral blocks and salt licks (especially when their sodium chloride intake is low, and they lose even more in their sweat and urine) to promote cellular exchanges.

Branches of hazel, willow, hawthorn, ash, or other fruit trees will also be beneficial to meet their gnawing needs.

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3. Proper Ration Balancing

Physical Activity	Foods	Horse < 500 Kg	Horse > 500 Kg
Little or no activity	Hay	4 to 5 kg/day	4 kg/day
	Pellets	2 to 3 kg/day	2 kg/day
Moderate activity	Hay	4 to 5 kg/day	4 kg/day
	Pellets	3 kg/day	2 kg/day
Working or competition horse	Hay	4 to 5 kg/day	4 kg/day
	Pellets	3 to 4 kg/day	2 kg/day
Foal or aged horse	Ad libitum + supplements according to needs

These rations being indicative, it's also important to note other points such as a stable horse in full activity needing ad-libitum hay and at least 3 kg of pellets, just like a pasture horse without a blanket whose activity is moderate, to whom we will also give lick or chew blocks.

Always take into account your horse's age, regular physical expenditures (a horse that never exercises won't necessarily have the same needs as a competition horse), their weight, as well as their health problems or deficiencies.

4. Proper Rationing According to Seasons

According to the season, ensure to provide the appropriate rations to your horse:

In autumn and winter: often frozen, grass is scarcer. It is colder, and the horse burns on average 10% more energy during this season, usually a resting period for them.
In spring and summer: grass being richer, it will be easier for them to find it to feed.

Given the horse's small, fragile stomach, ensure to split rations into 3 to 5 meals per day. They don't chew like cattle and physiologically cannot vomit, so be cautious that rations aren't too large each time. However, meals should be distributed at regular intervals.

5. Water Not Too Cold

Proper hydration ensures a well-functioning digestive system and prevents colic, so it's crucial to monitor their water troughs. If the water is not to the horse's liking, they may stop drinking. Make sure their water troughs don't freeze in winter, or generally, that the provided water temperature is not too low.

IN SUMMARY! To ensure your horse retains its legendary fine form and robust health, pay attention to meeting their nutritional requirements by providing all necessary foods. Consider adding supplements when the calcium-phosphorus ratio is insufficient to prevent deficiencies. Your expert veterinarian will advise you on the best practices in equine nutrition.