Feeding a horse may appear easy, but you would be amazed if you knew about the ignorance level of various horse owners. It is a fact that there is no golden rule relevant involving the nutritional needs of a horse, as it mostly depends on the age, body weight and the level of activity, which the horse goes through. Grass is the most fundamental part of a horse diet. It is one of the MAJOR necessities for a properly functioning digestive system so when we speak of forage, we normally mean natural pasture and cut hay.

The quantum of food a big horse requires is close to 2 to two point five% of their body weight, so when a horse weighs a thousand pound, it would require 20 to 25 pounds of feed per day. Horses require feed, which is high in nutrition value and not high-fiber, food which tampers with its digestive system. In a perfect world, your horse should consume a minimum of 1 percent of his body size in hay/grass grass daily.

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 feed of course would be cut hay, and again, high quality if you can provide it. Ensure that the hay is leafy and green in colored and cut in a systematic way, free of dust, moulds weeds or stubble. There is plenty of proteins, vitamins and minerals contained in this feed.

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.