Feeding

'My thoroughbred is not eating all of his food and has started malting by the handful. He has his teeth checked regularly. Any ideas?' Ensuring that you are providing your horse with a balanced diet - including the correct amounts of vitamins, minerals, proteins and calories is essential if you're aiming to achieve the optimum level of health for your horse. The better health that your horse is in, the better their performance shall be, which is just another reason that you shoul...

With winter looming and many horses’ routines changing, either switching from being out to in, or generally spending more time indoors, you might be thinking about moving to their winter feed routine. While nutrition is too vast and complex a subject to fully cover here, hopefully this article might help to give you a few pointers to consider. How much should you feed? This should be based on the weight of the animal with an aim of feeding between 2.5% and 3% of their body weight per day. The ...

Mother Nature did not get it wrong when she designed the horse’s digestive system and the feed that works best with it. With equines being ‘prey animals’ their natural instinct is ‘fight or flight’ when danger is real or perceived. They must be prepared to travel long distances at speed to evade capture. The natural way is to take in fuel and fluid through forage as they move along to ensure they stay ahead of their predator! However, with the modern horse, the danger is more often ...

Ever wondered what the real difference is between hay and haylage? After all, they are both grass and maybe smell a little different but what is the difference? Horses require forage all year round but grass growth is seasonal and therefore there are 2 main preservation methods that help keep forage good to eat all year round. The 2 methods of forage preservation are: 1. Fermentation – where the pH is reduced and the growth of bacteria pauses. This is haylage. 2. Dehydration – wh...

You may have read my previous article about the challenges of keeping Rock (an over height Connemara) trim or you may have previously tried and failed with a grazing muzzle. Perhaps you’ve never tried one as you’ve heard the disaster stories or perhaps you think this type of article would be better in early spring... for all and any of these reasons, please read on. Equine obesity is a huge issue in the UK and this increases the risk of laminitis, equine metabolic syndrome, insulin resist...

With summer finally here, horse owners are naturally keen to give their four legged friends a cooling treat! But it’s essential to ensure you know which treats are ok for your horse to have. If you feed them the wrong thing, it can not only cause them a lot of discomfort and pain, but can even cause lasting damage to their digestive and urinary systems, and in severe cases lead to fatality. When feeding your horse, it’s always best to stick to a regular feeding routine and for your horse�...