As the temperature drops, horses burn more energy to stay heat, subsequently their power requirements will enhance. We can provide our horses extra energy in the form of concentrates and forage. Forages are digested by the microbes in your horses giant intestine and produce extra heat than concentrates. A fantastic analogy is to check concentrate and forage to your wood stove. Concentrates are your kindling and Forage are the logs. Ideally a horse would obtain free alternative hay all through the winter. How much further forage does your horse want to stay heat? Then they'll regulate in the event that they need roughly through the day and night. Some of us have easy keepers who wouldn't do nicely on free alternative hay! For these horses, we need to regulate their intake. Weigh out their hay and supply it in small hole hay nets to prolong their quantity of kelpies statue chew time. The first thing you have to do is learn how much your horse weighs. Using physique length plus heart girth tends to be more correct. I recommend using the next methodology versus a weight tape that only wraps around the guts girth. Using a gentle measuring tape (the sort typically present in sewing kits) measure your horses heart girth and write the variety of inches down. Subsequent, measure the physique length from point of shoulder to level of hip, and write it down. Write down the HG and BL also, this will assist make sure you that you're measuring at the identical location each time. Make sure you write all of it right down to refer to throughout the winter. If you are just a few inches off, almost certainly you are measuring from a slightly completely different location (until you possibly can tell by wanting that your horse has obviously gained or lost weight). Attempt to find landmarks. Paint horses have great landmarks! Now that you know how a lot your horse weighs, you possibly can determine how a lot hay he needs to eat. Your common horse in excellent weight ought to eat 2% of his physique weight. Some onerous keepers require upwards of 2.5% of physique weight. When you've got an overweight horse, you can drop down to 1.5% of his body weight, but no less than that or you can be creating an entire other set of issues! 23lb of hay per day. Max weighs 1,159lb and must eat 2% of his body weight. When the temperature drops beneath 45 degrees F (including wind chill) horses begin to burn additional energy to remain heat. This 45 degree mark known as "Essential Temperature". For each 1 diploma F beneath the important temperature, your horse will require a 1% enhance in digestible power (DE). As with every part horse associated, there are plenty of variables to this rule, comparable to wind chill, rain/sleet, your horses coat thickness or in case you blanket. Think of digestible vitality like your horses calorie requirement. Since horse nutrition is 90% math, lets get back to that! If I proceed with the math we would calculate your horse's DE requirements, next calculate how much extra DE is required to your present temperature, subsequent test your hay to see exactly how a lot DE it provides per pound, lastly calculate how much additional hay will present the additional DE required for the present temperature. If it is 20 degrees F the place our buddy Max lives he would need an extra 2 1/2-5lb of hay. This guideline is for horses at upkeep or light work. Further hay will likely be wanted in case your horse is a tough keeper, in heavy work, or on poor quality hay.
