To determin what your horse needs, take a critical look at your
horse, and at what you do with your horse.
Weight - Is your horse at the perfect weight? Too heavy? Too skinny?
Digestion - Is your horse digesting most of his food? Or too little?
Work - Are you increasing the amount of work your horse does? Is this
affecting the horse's weight?
The basics for all horses is good hay, lots of water, and access to salt.
After that, everyone has an opinion.
If your horse is the perfect weight, you must be doing something right.
Don't start screwing it up by adding a bunch of stuff you might not
need. If your horse is heavy (can you run you hand along his sides
and not feel any ribs no matter how hard you press?), a bit of a diet
and a bit more work is in order. If your horse is too skinny (can
you see the ribs all the time?), you need to add calories and make
sure the horse is getting all the nutrients from the food.
[Isn't this easy so far?]
If the horse is not maintaining body weight, first check the horse.
* Teeth? Are they good and free of spurs? You might want to float
the teeth. If the horse is really old, or had some teeth kicked out,
you may need to skip hay and move to a mushy feed that doesn't need
teeth.
* Worms? Do you have the horse on a routine to de-worm regularly?
At least 4 times a year, if you are on a clean pasture. More if
you are in a messy stall, or with horses that are not wormed regularly.
* Over all health? Have the vet check out the horse. You need a
healthy horse to participate in this sport.
HAY
A horse needs about 2-3 % of its body weight in hay each day.
So, a 1000 pound horse needs 20 to 30 pounds of hay. [You *are*
weighing your hay, aren't you?] At least weigh the hay a few times
to get the feel of how much you are feeding. If the horse has
free access to pasture, it is more difficult to determine the quantity
of feed.
Hay should be grass hay for the most part. It should be good quality.
No mold, weeds, stickers, or dust.
GRAIN
Corn, barely, oats, and other grains can be added to the horses diet
as needed to maintain weight and add vitamines and minerals. The order
listed above is the order of calories with corn having the most, but
also being considered a "hot" feed, and oats having the least of the
three.
Studies of top endurance riders show that they feed between 3 and 10
pounds of grain per day. Some don't feed any.
SUPPLIMENTS
There are so many suppliments that you don't know what to do.
Consider the suppliments for people. There are suppliments to add
weight, loose weight, get more energy, calm down the kids, and add
vitamins and minerals in so many different mixes anyone would be confused.
The same is true for horses.
Endurance horses need electrolytes at rides. That is about the only
given. All other suppliments depend on what your individual horse
needs.
Carrots and apples are frequent suppliments also:-)
OIL
Oil is a suppliment that in some endurance horses is needed because
they are working much more than their capacity to take in food.
Oil has mega calories.
WEIGHT
No you don't need to know the exact weight of your horse. It's fun though.
If your horse is over weight (rare in endurance horses), try working
a bit more. Then get rid of the extras. Reduce hay last. Make
changes gradually.
If your horse is perfect, don't change a thing.
If your horse is under weight, or starts loosing weight as you get
more into training, do the following, in order.
* Increase the good grass hay till you find the horse is leaving
some behind at each meal.
* Add grain to the diet. Which one(s) depends on your horse and what
is available locally. Start with a pound per feeding. Do not
go over 10 pounds per day.
* Add oil to the diet. Start with 1/4 a cup over grain. You can also
buy a high fat feed. You can slowly increase the amount of oil to
about 1 cup per feeding. Over feeding of oil with show itself by
a runny stool, and an oily rear end.
* If you think you need a suppliment, read all about it. Just what
are the claims - read the fine print. Read what is in the suppliment.
And ask around. Determine why you want to feed any suppliment.
Then pick the suppliment that does what you want.
Once you are pushing the limits of what you think a horse can do,
all the nitty gritty details of feeding become very important.
But for most of us, doing the good old basics of nutrition will
get the most from our horses right now.
Have fun:-)
-- Wendy\|/ /\ -O- /**\ /|\ /****\ /\ / \ /**\ Here there be dragons / /\ / \ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\/\ /\ / / \ / \ / \/\/ \/ \ /\/ \/\ /\ /\/ / / \/ \ / / \/ /\ \ / \ \ / \/ / / \/ \/ \ / \ \ / / \/ \/\ \ / \ / / \ __/__/_______/___/__\___\__________________________________________________
Wendy Milner HPDesk: wendy_milner@hp4000 Hewlett-Packard Company e-mail: wendy@fc.hp.com Mail Stop A2 Telnet: 229-2182 3404 E. Harmony Rd. AT&T: (970) 229-2182 Fort Collins, CO, 80525 FAX: (970) 229-2038