As the temperature drops, horses burn more power to stay warm, due to this fact their energy necessities will improve. We can present our horses additional power in the type of concentrates and forage. Forages are digested by the microbes in your horses large intestine and produce extra heat than concentrates. A great analogy is to compare concentrate and forage to your wood stove. Concentrates are your kindling and Forage are the logs. Ideally a horse would receive free alternative hay throughout the winter. How a lot further forage does your horse want to remain warm? Then they will regulate if they want roughly through the day and night time. Some of us have straightforward keepers who would not do nicely on free selection hay! For these horses, we have to regulate their intake. Weigh out their hay and supply it in small hole hay nets to prolong their amount of chew time. The very first thing you need to do is learn the way a lot your horse weighs. Utilizing physique size plus coronary 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 often found in sewing kits) measure your horses coronary heart girth and write the variety of inches down. Next, measure the physique size from level of shoulder to point of hip, and write it down. Write down the white horse statue HG and BL additionally, this will help ensure you that you are measuring at the identical location every time. Ensure you write it all all the way down to consult with all through the winter. If you're a number of inches off, almost certainly you are measuring from a barely completely different location (except you possibly can tell by looking that your horse has clearly gained or lost weight). Strive to find landmarks. Paint horses have nice landmarks! Now that you know how much your horse weighs, you possibly can work out how much hay he needs to eat. Your average horse in preferrred weight should eat 2% of his body weight. Some arduous keepers require upwards of 2.5% of physique weight. When you have an overweight horse, you may drop all the way down to 1.5% of his physique weight, however no lower than that or you'll be creating a complete different set of points! 23lb of hay per day. Max weighs 1,159lb and must eat 2% of his body weight. When the temperature drops below forty five levels F (together with wind chill) horses begin to burn further energy to stay heat. This forty five diploma mark is named "Essential Temperature". For every 1 degree F below the critical temperature, your horse would require a 1% increase in digestible energy (DE). As with all the pieces horse associated, there are a number of variables to this rule, such as wind chill, rain/sleet, your horses coat thickness or in case you blanket. Consider digestible power like your horses calorie requirement. Since horse nutrition is 90% math, lets get back to that! If I continue with the math we would calculate your horse's DE necessities, subsequent calculate how a lot further DE is needed on your current temperature, subsequent take a look at your hay to see exactly how a lot DE it provides per pound, lastly calculate how a lot extra hay will present the extra DE required for the current temperature. If it is 20 degrees F the place our buddy Max lives he would want an extra 2 1/2-5lb of hay. This guideline is for horses at maintenance or gentle work. Further hay will likely be wanted in case your horse is a hard keeper, in heavy work, or on poor high quality hay.
