Dr. Worth has 3 tips for you on how to feed your horse on a budget: feed your hay in a net or bucket so it doesn't get trampled by your horse, feed your horse grains only if necessary, and finally look for generic nutrients such as feeding whole flax seed rather than expensive oil supplements.
Horses require both macro and micro minerals to maintain their health. The best way to feed this is using a mineral balance pellet or supplement, like LinPro instead of feeding a mineral block.
Everything you need to know about feeding your horse during show season: from fat sources, to feeding on a trailer, to water intake. Feed your horse right during the competition season with our advice from Dr. Melyni Worth at Foxden Equine.
Horses should be fed a mainly forage diet and only adding in grain as needed. In almost all cases, horses should have access to fiber at all times. For overweight horses, this may mean including low quality hay or straw mixed in with better quality hay. Consistent access to hay acts as an ulcer preventative, satisfies their chewing need, and aids the horse in digesting food in the hindgut.
In cold weather the best thing to feed horses is fiber as much as they will eat. Good quality hay is the best answer. Horses digest the fiber in the Hindgut (cecum and colons), where there is a huge population of bacteria which ferment the fiber. They give off short chain fatty acids as a by product of fermentation, the horse can absorb these through the gut walls and use them as an energy source.
Alfalfa, the legume, is a hay commonly fed to horses. Here we discuss how to identify alfalfa hay, when to feed it, and explain what the difference is between grass hay and legumes hay.
Dr. Worth discusses NSCs (non-structured carbohydrates), their effect on horses, what to look for when choosing a grain for your horse, and why some horses should limit their NSC intake, especially horses prone to laminitis or founder.
Dr. Worth discusses Quiessence, the popular magnesium chromium supplement for horses that provides magnesium in two different forms- as magnesium oxide and as magnesium protonate for maximum GI intake.
The amount of forage or hay fed to a horse during the summer and winter seasons depends on whether he has access to pasture, the amount and quality of that pasture, droughts, winter temperatures, and hours stalled.
