The Feed Room

It occurred to me as I was typing out a lengthy explanation on Facebook about what I feed my horses that perhaps that topic warranted it's own Blog page. Their diet is fairly simple but I thought I'd lay it all out here (mostly) coherently for anyone who is curious.

Basically, all my horses and the mini live on large pastures or mid size paddocks in Blaze's case, outdoors all the time unless there's a really bad winter storm when I may stall them overnight, but not for longer than that. Pasture grazing only lasts about 2 months in spring, with very minimal supplemental feeding needed in that short span, but by July it's all pretty much just dirt and scrub brush.

Ahh, spring
Scrappy looking pretty..on a bare summer pasture
 Hay
Most of the year, I feed quality hay twice a day. Generally it's a flake of hay to each horse, 1/3 flake to mini, extra hay maybe if it's really cold/wet or the horse worked hard. Ideally, it's grass hay, but in the last few years good grass hay has reached as high as $22 a bale in local feed stores. Grain hays are always more affordable in this area. I've gotten both kinds of hay of poorer quality through local growers for less, but mostly have depended on a local feed store with mid-range hay prices that never sold me a bad bale for the past few years.  I feed a small amount of alfalfa supplementally and do try to keep it around in general, but I do notice a couple of my horses get way too spicy with any significant amount of alfalfa, so often it's just fed "to taste," as it were.

Hay Pellets vs. Grain
Along with lots of quality forage, I feed all my horses sloppy mashes. Only to those who work for it on a daily basis, but at least twice a week to all my horses. Since we live in a hot climate it's a great way to bolster their hydration as well as deliver any meds or extras you need to. Despite the sprinkling of obviously delicious dark grain in the photo above, I try to stay away from feeding grain in general. For the mash itself I have had some success with Elk Grove Milling pelleted hay products, but after having a few horses reject it I've recently (as of May 2014) been using plain old timothy/grass pellets from Tractor Supply and trying out SafeChoice. So far so good with shiny happy horses hoovering it all up.

Supplements? and Electrolytes
As to the rest of the modern horse feeding regime, I don't really believe in excessive supplements, especially after having spent lots of money on every sort of joint supplement under the sun for my teenaged mare who is plagued with hock trouble. None of the pricey (AERC legal) supplements (nor injections) did a whole lot and I'm back to the simple, fairly effective, and notably cheap MSM option available at the local Tractor Supply for the now retired mare.*

 I only electrolyte my one picky drinker for actual endurance rides, pre-loading with Quench in mashes or syringing EnduraMax Plus if it's hot and I'm really worried about it. I don't electrolyte my Rushcreek at all and he always drinks fantastically. Adapt your strategies to the individual horse!  I either leave loose plain salt out free choice in pans for the horses or add the salt to their EGM mashes, since none of them reliably go after salt blocks. Otherwise they are just outdoor, happy, healthy, shiny, plump horses! 
Scrappy enjoying an EGM mash


*MSM is banned for use in AERC

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