TRAKEHNERS CAN JUMP part 9

FEEDING:
...it's a minefield, here I'll try to make it simple, that's how it should be.

What to feed your horse can be a very tricky affair.  There are so many new feeds about all claiming to be the thing that’s been missing from your horse’s diet. But I believe in keeping feeding as easy as I can.

Tom enjoying ad lib haylage

I thought hard and researched long before finally coming up with a plan for Tom & Henry.  I considered very carefully many factors: size, age – they were still growing and developing, warmbloods (like mine) are slow developers, often they don’t finish growing until they are 8! 

Super safe rubber buckets made from recycled car tyres

Breeding, level of work and fitness and – this is something the magazines sometimes leave out…what would my horse choose to eat or what types of forage would they want to eat in the wild?

 

My boys are fit and healthy and in very good condition and get all the ‘stuff’ they need from a very simple bowl of dinner:  firstly they get ad lib HorseHage HIGH FIBRE – and I really mean they get as much as they can eat, fresh every day, they never run out.  

Weighing hay nets is all very well (and messy and boring), but if you think about how much time your horse would spend munching in the wild – about 18hours a day (that’s more than a Rand even!), they need enough nosh to give them this stimulation – while they are eating they are happy and content, and being a horse.  Some people might worry about this strategy, especially if their horse is overweight or prone to Laminitis, but if you cut down on all the cereals you have been using for years without much thought to change, you can plan a much larger percentage of you horses diet to be forage - it's so much better for them (and their tummies). So plan to feed your horse hay or haylage for the time it will last rather than how much it weighs. And soaking your hay will decrease the sugar level too, so ask a nutritionist to help you plan a forage heavy diet.

They even eat the old stuff out of the bin!!! So embarassing.

Even in the summer, when there are 3 acres of very nice grass for them to eat, they come into their stables for a couple of hours a day and eat hay. 

The ultimate length for grass for horses is 2.5cm tall, horses often graze on pasture sewn for cattle, this is longer and may not have some of the herbs a horse pasture mix of grass seed would have.

So I leave hay out for them all year round – this would also explain why my grass is never eaten right down to the ground – they wander, munch, wander, munch, wander to the yard, munch some more – the more variety the better.  And HorseHage comes in a couple of flavours too – depending on the type of horse etc, there are 4 different types, some higher in fibre (that’s the one I use - blue), some higher in sugar, a timothy grass etc – so occasionally I buy a couple of bags of green or purple just for a change – and they love this.

Then they get more hay – in the form of chop – Dengie Hifi light, again you can feed loads of this to make his dinner last for ages if you use the ‘light’ version, as it has a very low sugar level, then a balancer for all the other stuff (Dodson & Horrell):

 

A hoof supplement (Equine America Hoof Power Plus: because I am obsessed with good feet, but I won’t tell my farrier because he wouldn’t approve, farriers don’t believe in hoof supplements):

 

Lots of carrots al la julienne. And in the winter they get ‘mush’: Fibre-Beet (from the Speedy- Beet people)!

 

Horses in the wild would not eat grains (they probably wouldn’t be able to get their hoofs on Dr Johnsons treat cubes either – but that’s not the point); I don’t believe horses can cope with this type of feed.  Of course in the wild they probably wouldn’t bounce about on the spot and fancy fancy side step around or jump some fences either – so we have to make some compromises – I just think the closest you can get, to as natural as you can get the better.

Henry gives grass the hoofs up!

There is lots of advice about how much food to give your horse, I’d recommend one of the help lines from a feed company like Dodson & Horrell, they helped me plan the menu here at chez Rand.  And it works a treat, my 2 are always healthy and they never run out of energy.

Apple Bobbing!

Food can be a nice game too, in the summer when it's very hot, I put a large bucket of water in their yard, they drink from it happily (I wonder whether it's because they can drink together), Henry will often stick his feet in for a paddle...but the funniest thing happened once upon a hot day.....

...and you may not know, that pears dont float, so Henry had to reach down to the bottom to get them out!

i threw some apples in thinking they'd push them about in the water and play, I did not expect what happened next...Henry of course!

Up to his eyes in it!

he bobbed for the apples! plunging his head deep into the water, up to his eyes to get all the fruit out!!!!  so funny.

Tom was amused by the whole thing and was happy sharing Henry's catch x

Don't you just love your horse?

part 10 worming...or not!