Horse nutrition requirements 

The idea of feeding a horse may appear easy but may horse owners are uninformed about the fundamentals. It is a fact that there is no golden rule relevant involving the nutritionary requires of a horse, as it for the most part depends on the age, body weight and the level of activity, which the horse goes through. Grass is the most essential part of a horse diet. Being one of the most essential components to keep its digestive system to work optimally, grass normally means natural pasture and cut hay.

The amount of food a big horse needs per day is subject on its body weight, which is 2 to two point five%, so if the horse weighs a thousand pound the quantity of daily feed needed can be calculated to 20 to 25 pounds. Horses need good nutrition so this means high quality food, not low quality high fiber feed (which can interfere with correct digestion). Ideally, your horse would be healthy if you fed him with 1% of his body weight made up of hay/pasture forage.

In case your horse is not employed in much activity, then the right feed is only forge without any grains. On the other hand, horses which are active, or at the growing or breeding stage, require additional supplemental feeds over and above the grass like grains or concentrate supplements. Think about it this way, forages should supply at least one half or more of the total size of the feed eaten everyday for optimum growth and development.

The food content and the quality of the grass are essential considerations when you are planning to give your horse a balanced diet. When you are aware of this, you can easily figure out the correct amounts of nutrients that would meet his specific requires.

The best source, and the least expensive one for summer feed is your grass fields and, in most cases good pasture by itself can provide all the nutritionary requisites your horse needs. But how do you come to know how much pasture is right for your horse? Using a weight of 1000 to 1200 pounds, here is a rough guideline. This means that a mare and foal 1.75 to 2 acres - yearlings 1.5 to 2 acre and weanlings 0.5 to 1 acre.

During winter the food could be cut hay, but mind the quality. The hay which you food should be cut uniformly and have green leaf-like appearance and there should not be any dust, moulds, weeds or stubble accompanying the hay.

There is plenty of proteins, vitamins and minerals contained in this food. Yes, you can use alfalfa hay, but be mindful about the higher protein content if you are feeding to young developing horses, as it may contain an excessive amount of calcium in relationship to phosphorus. Too much calcium is not good for growing horses so if you're not sure about hay quality, have it analyzed.