Posted Under: Pets
Equine owners know that optimum eating habits is key to maintaining the wellness of their equine loved ones. Every horse needs a balanced diet. From broodmares and stallions, foals and growing youngsters, show and performance horses, even retirees and pastures pets, all horses can benefit from the correct sequence of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and fiber to compliment their specific lifestyle. Yet with all of the many feed options on the market, each claiming to be the best attainable, how is a horse owner to decide which diet to choose?
Horses Require Forage
The majority of any horse?s daily feed should come from some type of forage. Whether hay or pasture, horses need large quantities of plant material to satisfy their evolutionary need to graze. The challenge horse owners face is that the quality of the forage can vary from year to year, or even season to season, depending on factors such as rainfall, temperature, fertilization and growth cycle of the plants. In order to better understand exactly what their horses are eating, horse owners can order a forage analysis test from a feed specialist or agriculture extension office.
Forage Analysis
A basic forage analysis will typically measure the percentage of dry matter, crude protein, sugars, ash and fiber. Additional analyses can include calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, phosphorous, sodium and zinc. All of these nutrients are vital to a horse?s health, and they must be available in the correct ratio to provide maximum nutrition. The testing lab will provide information on how to interpret the test findings so that each horse owner can properly supplement their horse?s diet, if necessary. It is best to conduct an analysis early in the spring to get a jump on immediate nutritional needs, and again later in the summer to see if the analyzed values have changed.
How to Provide Samples to the Lab
When testing the forage of a horse?s hay, the owner should open several bales and take a portion from the middle of each bale, mix the samples together and send them all in one bag. This ensures that the test is not limited to one small portion of one bale and allows for a much more accurate result. When sampling pasture, both grass and other forage should be collected from a variety of different locations throughout the field. Samples should be collected using scissors, with plants cut close to the ground but excluding roots or soil. Again, the samples should be combined to give an overall result for the pasture and not one small portion of it.
Selecting Supplementary Feeds
Once the nutritional value of the forage is known, the testing lab or other feed experts can advise horse owners on the feeds or supplements that may be needed to ensure maximum nutrition for their horses. It is just as important to know what to feed as it is to know what not to feed, as the proper balance is critical.
Test, Test, Test
Responsible horse owners do not leave the health of their valued equine partners to chance. Simple lab tests can give a very detailed account of what the horses are eating and what they need. Given the cost of feeding horses and the health risks of feeding incorrectly, a nutritional analysis of any horse?s forage is an small investment with big returns.
Forage for horses is an everyday requirement, if the horses chaff is low in minerals you will need to supplement their diet.
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