Three Essential Tips for Feeding Your Horses

Good feeding habits are essential for the health of your horses. If your horses are neglected or do not receive sufficient nutrition, they will become more vulnerable to diseases. Moreover, the animals will not be able to perform as expected, and they might even sustain accidental injury due to weakness. Therefore, you cannot afford to be negligent when handling the nutritional needs of your horses. If you are unfamiliar with correct feeding practices, you should consider the below-outlined tips for ideal results.

Provide Sufficient Roughage

You should ensure that your horse's diet has plenty of roughage for ideal health. In general, horses will gain roughage from good pasture, and the animals might not even need grain because they can absorb nutrients from the grass stalks. If you have trail or pleasure horses, you are unlikely to experience problems with providing roughage. If you do not have pasture or the season is unsuitable for grazing, you should replicate natural equine feeding patterns by placing hay in front of the horse. The animal will eat slowly, allowing the constant circulation of the roughage. 

Measure the Horse Grain

If you typically feed your horses grain, you should be diligent in measuring the quantity to avoid unexpected health problems. When evaluating the correct quantity of feed, you should think about the specific characteristics of the horses, including their size and the physical work performed daily. If you are uncertain, you should consult your veterinarian for advice. You should also consider the amount of hay consumed by the horse or the grazing habits. If the animal consumes a lot of grass, they will need minimal grain for supplementing the diet. Additionally, you should remember to adjust the feed as the horse grows or the physical work changes.

Avoid Feeding Changes

You should have a consistent timetable for feeding your horses, and the quantities of food should not be changed suddenly. Also, it is not advisable to make an unexpected transition from one stock feed type to another. If you must adjust some aspects of feeding, you should do so gradually. For example, if you would like to change the feed, you should do so incrementally by mixing it with the original feed. If you want to reduce or increase the ration sizes, you should ease the horses into it by adding a little at a time for a prolonged period. Remember, sudden changes can cause disorders such as colic.

Finally, you should remember to stick to a simple feeding schedule for the comfort and health of the horses. 

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