Feeding Horses
- May 25, 2020
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- Lynn Kohr
Posted in: Featured, Horse Care, Uncategorized
There is a wealth of knowledge available for the intricate and specific needs of many horses along many diverse and particular nutritional circumstances. For these situations, visit with your veterinarian, your feed store and your nutritional expert. This article is our basic and humble feeding program, applying to our wide range of horses; ranging for senior horses, young horses and horses at varying levels of training.
At our place, we all do chores, mostly at the same time daily, and each one of us in the very best of our intentions, feed slightly differently: a bit more here and there. Therefore, I want a good safe feed, that if fed with a little excess one day or another, will have no ill effects. I also require a balanced vitamin and mineral in our feed. I prefer a higher fat in our feed, especially during our cold winters and adjust the fat level in our summers. I do pride our herd on looking fit, fat and shiny. We choose to ride off a little extra energy rather than feed for lower energy. We also feed high quality grass/alfalfa mix hay 24/7.
Young futurity horse coming out of winter.
With all of this being said, we feed Purina Equine Senior to everything on our place. It’s a complete feed so it is also supplemental if they are not getting enough hay. It has Amplify which is a balanced vitamin and mineral included and it is easily palpable. As we travel to rodeos, barrel futurities and ropings, Equine Senior is available in any town we go through, making it accessible and easy to grab as we run out, eliminating any change in feed.
With our younger horses that we are competing on, we add Woody’s Sales Prep to their daily grain and adjust that to their body type, energy needs and their tolerance to a hotter feed. With our middle-aged horses that are being ridden hard, we will hang an extra gallon of Equine Senior while we saddle, again also depending on their body type and condition.
This past winter we have added EquiLix (EquiPride in Lick tubs) tubs in all the pastures. I have noted that, our horses (especially our older guys over 20) retained their body condition and hair coat very well. They seem to go through the tubs and lick them as needed. I watched the tubs literally disappear at times and then level off as the horses got what their body needed. EquiLix comes in 60lb, 125lb and 250 lb tubs making it easy to situate any sized lot, pen or pasture. I am noticing as our winter turns into spring and we have caught up with their needs, our Equine Senior has been enough and our horses are leaving their lick tubs, with the exception of one older horse that refuses to leave his personal lick tub! We still head and break away on him and he is 22, probably still needing a little extra!
Our 22 yr old Head and Breakaway Horse, mid-winter
As a side not, we diligently deworm our horses. With a good solid safe feeding program plus deworming regularly (see deworming article) we expect our horses to stay fit, fat and shiny.
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Posted in: Featured, Horse Care, Uncategorized
About Lynn Kohr
I am a barrel and pole horse trainer, giving springtime barrel racing and pole bending clinics and workshops, competing in barrel racing and pole bending futurities while marketing our horses for sale. I am a Mom of 3: Sage, Cedar, and Stratton. And wife of...