Contents:
- Horse and Pony Feed
Horses and Ponies prefer natural food like Bluegrass horse feed to eat steadily throughout the day, as they do in nature when grazing on pasture. Although this is not always possible with modern stabling practices and human schedules that favor feeding horses twice a day, it is important to remember the underlying biology of the animal when determining what to feed, how often, and in what quantities.
Horses are unable to regurgitate food, except from the esophagus. Thus, if they overeat or eat something poisonous, vomiting is not an option. They also have a long, complex large intestine and a balance of beneficial microbes in their cecum that can be upset by rapid changes in feed. Because of these factors, they are very susceptible to colic, which is a leading cause of death in horses. Therefore, horses require clean, high-quality feed, provided at regular intervals, and may become ill if subjected to abrupt changes in their diets. Horses are also sensitive to molds and toxins. For this reason, they must never be fed contaminated fermentable materials such as lawn clippings. Fermented silage or "haylage" is fed to horses in some places; however, contamination or failure of the fermentation process that allows any mold or spoilage may be toxic.
Horses can consume approximately 2-2.5% of their body weight in dry feed each day. Therefore, a 1,000 lb (450 kg) adult horse could eat up to 25 lb (11 kg) of food. Foals less than six months of age eat 2-4% of their weight each day.
Haylage and Solid feed are placed into three categories: forages (such as haylage, fresh hay and grass), concentrates (including grain or pelleted rations), and supplements (such as prepared vitamin or mineral pellets). Equine nutritionists recommend that 50% or more of the animal's diet by weight should be forages. If a horse is working hard and requires more energy, the use of grain is increased and the percentage of forage decreased so that the horse obtains the energy content it needs for the work it is performing. However, forage amount should never go below 1% of the horse's body weight per day.
Forages, also known as "roughage," are plant materials classified as legumes or grasses, found in pastures or in hay. Often, pastures and hayfields will contain a blend of both grasses and legumes. Nutrients available in forage vary greatly with maturity of the grasses, fertilization, management, and environmental conditions. Grasses are tolerant of a wide range of conditions and contain most necessary nutrients. Some commonly used grasses include timothy, Bluegrass Horse Feed, fescue, coastal Bermuda grass, orchard grass, and Kentucky bluegrass. Another type of forage sometimes provided to horses is beet pulp, a byproduct left over from the processing of sugar beets, which is high in energy as well as fiber.
Legumes such as clover or alfalfa are usually higher in protein, calcium, and energy than grasses. However, they require warm weather and good soil to produce the best nutrients. Legume hays are generally higher in protein than the grass hays. They are also higher in minerals, particularly calcium, but have an incorrect ratio of calcium to phosphorus. Because they are high in protein, they are very desirable for growing horses or those subjected to very hard work, but the calcium:phosphorus ratio must be balanced by other feeds to prevent bone abnormalities.
Hay:
Hay is a dried mixture of grasses and legumes. It is cut in the field and then dried and baled for storage. Good quality grass hay is green and has visible leaves and young seed heads.
Hay is most nutritious when it is cut early on, before the seed heads are fully mature and before the stems of the plants become tough and thick. Hay that is very green can be a good indicator of the amount of nutrients in the hay; however, color is not the sole indicator of quality—smell and texture are also important. Hay can be analyzed by many laboratories and that is the most reliable way to tell the nutritional values it contains.
Hay, particularly alfalfa, is sometimes compressed into pellets or cubes. Processed hay can be of more consistent quality and is more convenient to ship and to store. It is also easily obtained in areas that may be suffering localized hay shortages. However, these more concentrated forms can be overfed and horses are somewhat more prone to choke on them. On the other hand, hay pellets and cubes can be soaked until they break apart into a pulp or thick slurry, and in this state are a very useful source of food for horses with tooth problems such as dental disease, tooth loss due to age, or structural anomalies.
Haylage, also known as Round bale silage is a term for grass sealed in airtight plastic bags, a form of forage that is frequently fed in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, but is not often seen in the United States. Because haylage is a type of silage, hay stored in this fashion must remain completely sealed in plastic, as any holes or tears can stop the preservation properties of fermentation and lead to mold or spoilage. Rodents chewing through the plastic can also spoil the hay introducing contamination to the bale. If a rodent dies inside the plastic, the subsequent botulism toxins released can contaminate the entire bale.
Sometimes, straw or chaff is fed to animals. However, this is roughage with little nutritional value other than providing fiber. It is sometimes used as a filler; it can slow down horses who eat their grain too fast, or it can provide additional fiber when the horse must meet most nutritional needs via concentrated feeds.
Straw is more often used as a bedding in stalls to absorb wastes.
A premixed ration of crimped corn, oats, barley and pelleted supplement
Grains
Whole or crushed grains are the most common form of concentrated feed, sometimes referred to generically as "oats" or "corn" even if those grains are not present, also sometimes called straights in the UK.
Oats are the most popular grain for horses. Oats have a lower digestible energy value and higher fiber content than most other grains. They form a loose mass in the stomach that is well suited to the equine digestive system. They are also more palatable and digestible than other grains.
Corn (USA), or maize (British English), is the second most palatable grain. It provides twice as much digestible energy as an equal volume of oats and is low in fiber. Because of these characteristics, it is easy to over-feed corn, causing obesity, so horses are seldom fed corn all by itself. Nutritionists caution horse owners that moldy corn is poisonous if fed to horses.
Barley is also fed to horses, but needs to be processed to crack the seed hull and allow easier digestibility. It is frequently fed in combination with oats and corn, a mix informally referred to by the acronym "COB" (for Corn, Oats and Barley).
Wheat is generally not used as a concentrate. However, wheat bran is sometimes added to the diet of a horse for supplemental nutrition, usually moistened and in the form of a bran mash. Wheat bran is high in phosphorus, so must be fed carefully so that it does not cause an imbalance in the Ca:P ratio of a ration. Once touted for a laxative effect, this use of bran is now considered unnecessary, as horses, unlike humans, obtain sufficient fiber in their diets from other sources.
Mixes and Pellets
Many feed manufacturers combine various grains and add additional vitamin and mineral supplements to create a complete premixed feed that is easy for owners to feed and of predictable nutritional quality. Some of these prepared feeds are manufactured in pelleted form, others retain the grains in their original form. In many cases molasses is used as a binder to keep down dust and for increased palatability. Grain mixes with added molasses are usually called "Sweet feed" in the USA and "Coarse mix" in the United Kingdom. Pelleted or extruded feeds (sometimes referred to as "nuts" in the UK) may be easier to chew and result in less wasted feed. Horses generally eat pellets as easily as grain. However, pellets are also more expensive, and even "complete" rations do not eliminate the necessity for forage.