Horse nutrition

Basics of feeding a horse

• Learn the 10 important things to know in feeding your horse.

Providing carbohydrates and fats in your horse’s diet

• The type and amount of carbohydrates horses receive can affect their health.
• Fat is dense in calories and provides a good source of energy for the horse. 

How to take a hay sample

Understanding your hay analysis

• A hay analysis helps you better understand what you’re feeding your horse. 
• Always request a horse analysis when sending in hay samples. 

Harvest moisture level and bale wrapping affects hay quality for horses

• Moisture and bale wrapping affects mold and forage quality.
• Orchardgrass bales are prone to significant mold and poor forage quality at moistures slightly over 15 percent.

Feeding clover to your horse

• Clover is a good feed source for horses.

• There are clover-causing health problems that horse owners should be aware of.

• Learn how to identify different clovers.

Don’t feed your horse moldy hay

• Moldy hay presents risks to horse health.

• Mold spores can produce respiratory disease in horses.

Determining the value of rained-on hay

• Rainfall on cut hay laying in the field causes yield and quality losses.

• Rained-on hay can be a suitable forage, especially for horses prone to laminitis.

• The best way to check the quality of rained on hay is to have it tested.

Evaluating amino acid levels in forages and horses

• Forage plays a key role in the horse’s diet.
• Cool-season grass and alfalfa are higher in amino acids than teff.
• While alfalfa and cool-season grasses were higher in protein and lower in fiber, horses grazing teff had a similar blood amino acid response.

Feeding hay with a round bale feeder

• Round-bale feeders can reduce hay waste.

• Feeder design doesn’t affect the amount horses eat.

• All feeders reduce hay waste compared to not using a feeder, but hay waste differs based on the feeder design.

Using slow-feed hay nets

• Horses would naturally graze for about 14.5 hours a day.

• But many horses spend a lot of time in stalls or dry lots with limited time to forage.

• Horse owners try to mimic a more natural feeding pattern by providing free access to hay, but this can cause horses to eat too much and become overweight.

• Hay nets can help slow a horse’s eating in these situations.

Feeding your horse a ration balancer

• Ration balancer is a commercial horse feed designed to provide the trace minerals and vitamins your horse needs.

• Ration balancers do not add energy to the diet.

Caring for the overweight horse | Cuidado del caballo con sobrepeso

• Overweight horses are prone to disease, overheating and poor performance.

• Learn how to determine if your horse is overweight.

• Restricting diets and easing into regular exercise can help horse’s reach a healthy body weight.

Caring for the underweight horse | Cuidado del caballo con peso bajo

• Determine why the horse is thin by working with an equine veterinarian and nutritionist.

• Learn how to determine if your horse is underweight.

Soaking your horse’s hay

• Soaking hay can benefit horses with certain health issues by reducing water soluble carbohydrates, potassium and dust.

• Health issues soaking can help with include laminitis, polysaccharide storage myopathy (PSSM), hyperkalemic periodic paralysis (HYPP), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

• Rely on forage tests before and after soaking to decide which type of hay is best for your horse.

Grazing horses prone to laminitis and metabolic disease

• Laminitis, also known and founder, is inflammation of tissues inside the hoof.

• High amounts of sugars or fructans in grasses can bring about disease in susceptible horses.

• Many factors affect the amount of sugar in forages.

• Susceptible horses should have limited grazing or no grazing.

Managing forage carbohydrate content

• Horses require carbohydrates in their diet.
• Some horses are sensitive to the carbohydrate content of hay and pasture forages. This could lead to health problems.