Horse Nutrition Basics on a Budget

2017 Animal Care Wednesday Webinars

Husbandry Practices in the Spotlight
During the June 7th Animal Care Wednesday Webinar, basic equine nutrition on a budget was the topic. Dr. Bob Coleman, Equine Extension Specialist with University of Kentucky, discussed the various considerations horse owners should evaluate when making feed decisions since feed costs are the major portion of the annual cost of a horse.

Nutrition, where do I start?
“From the stand point of the horse owner, it can be really hard to provide what horses need; however, sometimes what we can afford to do may actually get in the way and sometimes we can be a little more judicious in how we spend our money,” said Dr. Bob Coleman. To determine the best diet for a horse, there are three things to consider: 1) the horse, 2) feeds available, and 3) management or feeding method. Coleman elaborated on each of these considerations.

The Horse
Horses are designed to graze and eat forages. Thus, all horse diets should have forage as the largest percent of the daily ration, but it is important that the selected forage matches the horse’s actual nutrient requirements. Growing horses, pregnant/lactating mares or breeding stallions, and highly active performance horses have the greatest nutrient requirements. The average adult horse being lightly ridden less than three times per week would be considered at maintenance level and has the lowest nutrient requirements (assuming it is in good health).

When choosing the type feed, consider the horse’s actual nutrient requirements. A 1000-lb horse at maintenance needs 15 Mcal/day digestible energy (DE) and 1.2 lbs crude protein (CP); whereas a 1200-lb horse at maintenance needs 18 Mcal/day DE and 1.5 lbs CP (Freeman, based on NRC’s Recommendations for Nutrient Requirements of Horses-2007).

Feeds Available
The types of feedstuffs available may vary depending on geographic region. Regardless of what options you have, the decision to purchase each feedstuff should still be made based on each horse’s nutrient requirements for its workload or life stage. Remember, not every horse needs the highest quality forage, concentrates, or supplements to meet its nutrient requirements and stay healthy. Once nutrient requirements are determined, go shopping for the best deals. The important considerations to evaluate available feedstuffs for your horse include:

• Pasture quality: Does a horse have access to pasture during the grazing season? Managing pastures to ensure good production of grass species will greatly reduce the need to feed supplemental hay or concentrates; this means cost savings! Evaluate your pasture size, plant species diversity, and precipitation to get an idea of how long your grazing season may be and how many horses should be allowed to graze it for the period. If you are unfamiliar with the techniques used in managing pastures for optimized forage production, contact an SDSU Extension range/natural resource management specialist or a local grassland conservation organization (e.g. Natural Resource Conservation Services (NRCS) or South Dakota Grassland Coalition)
• Analyze feeds: Owners need to know the nutrient content of the different types of forages when making hay purchasing decisions. Ideally owners should have a feed analysis done either prior to purchase or before feeding hay. This saves money by being more precise in the amount of hay to feed because the CP level can be calculated accurately to meet the individual horse’s daily requirements. Feed analysis reports can also provide acid detergent fiber (ADF) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) values, which are used to estimate available DE in the forage. The DE is the amount of energy of the gross energy (amount fed) absorbed in the digestive tract. The three most common horse hays are grass hay, legume (alfalfa) hay, or mixed hay. The average protein level and DE value of these hays vary: grass hay is 9% CP, 0.83 Mcal/lb; mixed hay is 13.9%, 0.94 Mcal/lb; and legume hay is 18.7% CP, 1.03 Mcal/lb (adapted from NRC, 1989).
• Maturity impacts nutrient quality of forages: Don’t rely on phrases like “first or second cutting” or “mixed hay” to tell you the actual nutrients available to your horse. If you purchase hay in bulk, it is valuable to do a forage analysis to know how many pounds each horse should eat.
• Palatability impacts forage intake: Palatability of forages is correlated to maturity. Highly palatable forages are younger in maturity and have more leaves compared to stems. Horses will consume more pounds of highly palatable forages, which may mean they are overconsuming the required nutrients. Highly palatable forages are better suited for limit-feeding or to provide adequate nutrients to older horses that have difficulty keeping condition (or rehabilitating thin horses).
• Concentrate Options: Concentrate feeds include cereal grains (corn, oats, barley) and mixtures or pellets of these. Other options may include beet pulp or cottonseed. Concentrates typically should make up no more than 1-2 pounds of a horse’s daily ration, if it is even needed. Processing of grains (steaming, cracking, rolling) can be done to make starch more digestible, but many times is not needed. Processing also adds additional cost to concentrate feeds.
• Supplements: Not every horse needs additional supplements to meet its nutrient requirements. All horses benefit from having free-choice salt, but additional mineral needs vary depending on the other feedstuffs. The first step to saving money is to objectively decide if there is a measurable benefit from feeding each supplement.