About Horse Feeding

Horses evolved eating a relatively low protein diet of grasses while they were moving with their heads down for sixteen to eighteen hours a day. Often domestic horses are fed a nutrient rich diet once or twice a day that doesn’t give them adequate chew time, or gut fill. As a general rule, we feed hay with a protein value between eight and twelve percent, horses here have hay in front of them most of the day.

Horses need to eat between 1.5 and 2.5 % of their body weight a day in good quality forage. Because they don’t have a gall bladder, they excrete a continuous flow of bile and hydrochloric acid into the stomach. If the stomach is empty the gastric juices will tend to begin to digest the lining of the stomach. Approximately 90% of race horses have gastric ulcers, 60% of performance horses and about 12 to 15 % of the general horse population have gastric ulcers, and it is almost all related to feeding practices. Obese horses are no healthier than obese people so if we are going to keep a constant flow of forage going through their gut without pulsing it through we can’t feed them high protein, nutrient dense feeds and have them be healthy.

Horses are primarily heated by the digestion process of forage as it passes through the horses gut. The cecum in particular is a big fermentation vat. Most of the time horses are trying to get rid of heat rather than trying to retain heat. It’s only when the external temperature reaches the ”lower critical temperature” that the horse begins to use heat from the digestion process to keep itself warm. In my experience the most critical element of keeping horses warm regardless of how cold it is, is to make sure they have plenty of hay.

Competition and senior horses have different nutritional needs and we base our feed program on the individual horse's situation. We encourage our boarders to feed  FORCO supplements and Dynamite supplements; we are happy to help you find the best supplement or combination of supplements for your horse.