Video: Horse Feeding Schedules

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Many quarter horses can do with one scoop of feed in each of the morning and night and hay for grazing during the day. Feed a horse enough to maintain weight with tips from a ranch owner in this free horse care video.

- Put Polo Wraps on a Horse

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Video Transcript

Horse nutrition should be as simple as human, calories in, calories out. We look at our hard working horses and determine just how much feed do they need. And then we also have to compare, some of our horses may become a bit obese or on the overweight side. Some tend to get a little bit ribby. How do we know what's safe and what we can provide to create the best environment for the horses physique. We know that we start with a good leafy grass hay. I have some horses that can actually get overweight with simple grass hay feeding. Veterinarians agree that if their maintaining their weight well on a grass hay that's all the feed that they need. And we do very little but maybe add a handful of grain just to attract them and keep them easy to catch. But most horses are going to require some kind of additional nutrition. You wonder well how much feed can one horse eat, and safely. Horses are creatures of foraging, so that means they eat continuously throughout their day in a natural environment. It's important that we don't try to force feed a horse to put weight on them quickly. But for general common sense feeding, usually you can take a scoop like this, and twice a day give the average working horse one scoop in the morning, one at night. Along with free foraging coastal hay, perhaps in the form of a round bale, or leafs of hay out a small square bale, that would be adequate enough. We do the one in the morning, one in the evening for all of our quarter horses that remain in good health with that amount. We do have some thoroughbreds, horses off the track, other higher maintenance animals that will feed safely up to two scoops of feed morning, and two at night with all the free choice hay that they can eat. Occasionally, we'll add one leaf of alfalfa, perhaps at midday just to kind of boost their intake if we feel that they're starting to lose weight. That's a standard way to look at your horse feeding, some horses may require special attention. But most of my horses will do very well with that formula.

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Horse Feeding Schedules

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