What kind of food should you feed a horse?
I’m getting a horse and I need to know what to feed it and how much to feed it. What preportion of a horses diet should be hay/haylege and what would the cost of feeding a horse be per month?
A horse needs to eat a minimum of 1% of their body weight in forage. The grain to hay ratio depends on what your horse is doing for a living. Some maintenance horses eat 2% in forage and no grain (mineral supplement). Active pleasure horses may eat 1.5% forage and .5% grain. Performance horses and growing animals may be 50:50…. It really depends. Same goes with the type of feed, we would need to know:
What is the age of your horse?
What is the work level of your horse?
What type of hay do you have?
Is the horse over/under weight?
If I were you I would find a good local feed store that has someone there with horse knowledge who can ask the right questions and put that info together to make some feed suggestions.
good hay and oats mixture from the fed store it depends on how big the horse is and where you are located on prices do not feed wet or moldy hay or oats and keep the area Clean that they are eating in a average horse will eat a few flakes of hay (about a 6 inch section of a bale ) and about a 10 to 20 oz of oats a day more or less depending on the weather and the type and size of the horse and if you have pasture and grass for him to Graze on it will take a little while to get to know your horses needs horses need lots of attention and care so be sure you have the time to take with him before you get one they need a lot of fresh water every day and vet visits can be expensive you need to worm them monthly also and brush them daily keep their hoofs clean and good bedding straw if you do not have a good place for them to sleep and good pasture don’t get a horse as a pet
An average horse needs to eat at least 10kg of food a day, although this will vary depending on the amount of work they do, their weight and the type of feed.
Most of the food should be roughage- hay, hayledge, chaff or grass. At a minimum, if the horse is worked very hard, feed at least 50% roughage. For your average pony club or pleasure riding horse it’s better to feed 80-90% roughage. I would never feed oats because they make my horse psycho, but it is a good value food if your horse is a calmer type!
In Australia it costs me about $50/wk per horse when being fully hand fed (ie. they get minimal grazing). Full board (which is when you are paying for the agistment, care and all food) ranges from $100-150/wk. If you’ve got a really nice paddock with loads of grass you’ll save alot of money on feed! Buying food in bulk also saves money.
Talk to a expert or a person at a local farm or stable. If you don’t live near one research on line and find one and call them for the sake of your horses health. You should tell them the weight and kind of the horse. Good luck!
It all depends are what you are doing. Let me know what you will be doing with him/her, how tall he/she is, and what breed. I can then further help you.