Feeding Your Horse - Are Additional Supplements Necessary?

Horses are herbivores, designed to graze. In the wild a horse’s diet will vary depending on the type of grazing available, some days they will have access to rich grass pasture and other days to nothing better than scrubland. Our modern lifestyle rem

   Horses are herbivores, designed to graze. In the wild a horse’s diet will vary depending on the type of grazing available, some days they will have access to rich grass pasture and other days to nothing better than scrubland.

Our modern lifestyle removes the horse’s natural way of feeding either through restricted grazing opportunities or quality of grazing available.

For most of us it is a battle between restricting rich grass intake to prevent our horses from becoming overweight or laminitic, whilst maintaining sufficient fibre and nutrients to maintain good health.

Your grazing pastures will probably be sprayed to remove weeds, which unfortunately also removes many of the plants that can be beneficial.

In Winter most of us will have our horses stabled overnight and feed hay or haylage and a balancer plus any number of additional herbs and supplements.

Research has shown that supplementary vitamins and minerals are just as important for our horses in Spring and Summer, as a grass only diet can be lacking in many of the vitamins and minerals required to maintain good condition and a healthy coat and digestive system.

There are numerous feed manufactures and a vast range of balancers and additional supplements available. You may need to try several combinations before you find the best diet for your own horse, as a lot will depend on the breed of horse and your horse’s exercise regime.

Speak to other owners in your livery yard to see what they use and seek guidance from the feed suppliers, may of whom will happily provide you with feeding guidelines to suit your horse.

My traditional piebald cob (gypsy vanner) came to me with very poor skin condition, having been a brood mare, living as part of a natural herd. I feed her a balancer with additional herbs and a preparatory skin supplement all year round and by treating her condition from the inside we seem to have overcome the problems, but it has taken 2 years.

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