25/01/2025
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Friday focus….feeding behaviour!
When formulating feed plans, taking into account the feeding behaviour of our equines is a key factor in getting everything in balance. Horses spend around 70% of their time looking for and eating food. For most equines this equates to 16-20 hours a day, depending on the individual!
Eating is a highly important part of every horse and ponies daily needs to ensure digestive and behavioural health and it is equally important whether your horse lives out, is stabled or on a combined system.
As most of you that use my services know, I am a huge advocate of ad lib feeding of appropriate forages (where possible) and enriching environments, whether they live in or out. Ideally, they should not be without forage for any more than 2 hours if they are stabled (preferably they should never run out) and if they are out on very short or bare paddocks, hay / haylage / straw should be provided to ensure they have enough fibre going through their digestive systems.
They are so many ways of enriching their environments whether they are in or out; haynets and piles of forage in different places, hay balls, slow feeders, different types of forages, chaffs, beets and succulents, hedgerow herbs, treat balls, fruit, vegetables, vegetable kebabs...the list goes on!
Even those on weight loss programmes can have an enriched environment, you just need to ensure that everything is accounted for and that you are giving them the right type of forages and feeds. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a horse or pony on a restricted diet, that doesn’t realise they are being restricted because their rations / environment satisfies their needs. There is nothing more stressful for them and us, if they are unhappy with their rations / environment and are stood for hours on end with no food.
Putting forage in different places, offering different forages and succulents to eat, will get them moving around and promote foraging type behaviour. Movement is key for digestion, horses are not meant to be stood still, they need to be moving around; so this will help satisfy their innate need to forage and seek out food. A little effort and creativeness on our part can make a huge difference to our horses!
I know it can be tricky to keep some of the greedier horses eating for as long as we would like them to be, but some of the above will help slow them down; by how much depends upon the individual though! Happy horses and ponies = happy us!
Suppliers of feed and bedding for your furry friends. Horses, cats, dogs, sheep, pigs, alpacas etc
