Horses have evolved to live on an almost entirely forage
based diet. In the wild, they will graze for up to 18
hours a day, covering many miles in doing so. When you
plan your horse's diet there are a few basics to remember
when deciding what to feed your horse:
• Always base your horse's diet around forage
• You only need to add concentrates to the diet
if your horse requires more energy for weight-gain.
In most cases, simply a change in forage will promote
weight gain e.g. changing from hay to haylage and from
straw-based chaff to an alfalfa based chaff.
• Lack of energy when exercising your horse, as
long as he is not under-weight, in 99% of most cases
is due to a schooling problem rather than a feeding
one.
• You should always provide salt in your horse’s
diet in the form of a pure salt lick in his stable /
field if living out all the time.
• If your horse does not require feeding, provide
a broad-spectrum vitamin and mineral supplement or a
feed balancer in a handful of low sugar chaff.
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In order to maintain
health and condition the horse needs to receive a regular
supply of certain dietary components or nutrients.
Just like humans, the nutrients the horse requires on
a daily basis are protein, energy, fibre, vitamins,
minerals and water.
The horse derives these nutrients from the feed ingredients
in his diet. In the wild, the horse would wander many
miles searching for grass and other herbage to satisfy
these nutrient requirements.
By domesticating the horse, we have restricted the pasture
they have access to and that pasture often contains
only a very limited number of plant species. Thus the
modern day horse may not be able to meet his total daily
nutrient requirement from his pasture. Available pasture
will provide sufficient levels of some nutrients but
not of others and so the horse will need supplemental
nutrients given to him in another form.
The horse, through evolutionary adaptation, which has
occurred over a period of 65 million years, has become
a ‘trickle-feeder’. His digestive system,
with its small stomach and very large, bacteria-filled
hind gut is designed to contend with an almost continuous
supply of grass and associated herbage.
HorseHage and Mollichaff offer a complete range of fibre
based feeds to meet the needs of all horses and ponies.
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