As the temperature drops, horses burn more energy to stay warm, due to this fact their vitality necessities will increase. We can provide our horses additional energy in the form of concentrates and forage. Forages are digested by the microbes in your horses giant intestine and produce more heat than concentrates. An amazing analogy is to compare concentrate and forage to your wood stove. Concentrates are your kindling and Forage are the logs. Ideally a horse would obtain free selection hay all through the winter. How a lot additional forage does your horse need to remain heat? Then they will regulate if they need kind of through the day and night time. Some of us have simple keepers who wouldn't do properly on free choice hay! For these horses, we need to regulate their intake. Weigh out their hay and provide it in small gap hay nets to prolong their quantity of chew time. The first thing it's essential to do is learn how much your horse weighs. Utilizing physique length plus coronary heart life size horse statue girth tends to be more accurate. I recommend using the following methodology versus a weight tape that only wraps round the heart girth. Utilizing a smooth measuring tape (the type usually present in sewing kits) measure your horses heart girth and write the variety of inches down. Next, measure the physique length from level of shoulder to point of hip, and write it down. Write down the HG and BL additionally, this may assist make sure you that you're measuring at the same location every time. Ensure you write it all right down to check with throughout the winter. In case you are a few inches off, probably you might be measuring from a barely totally different location (until you possibly can tell by looking that your horse has clearly gained or lost weight). Try to find landmarks. Paint horses have great landmarks! Now that you know how much your horse weighs, you'll be able to work out how a lot hay he needs to eat. Your average horse in ideally suited weight ought to consume 2% of his body weight. Some exhausting keepers require upwards of 2.5% of body weight. When you have an overweight horse, you possibly can drop down to 1.5% of his physique weight, however no less than that or you will 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 below 45 degrees F (together with wind chill) horses start to burn additional vitality to remain heat. This forty five diploma mark is called "Vital Temperature". For each 1 diploma F beneath the vital temperature, your horse will require a 1% increase in digestible power (DE). As with every little thing horse associated, there are a lot of variables to this rule, resembling wind chill, rain/sleet, your horses coat thickness or should you blanket. Consider digestible vitality like your horses calorie requirement. Since horse nutrition is 90% math, lets get again to that! If I continue with the math we might calculate your horse's DE necessities, subsequent calculate how much further DE is needed in your current temperature, next check your hay to see precisely how much DE it offers per pound, lastly calculate how much further 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 wish an additional 2 1/2-5lb of hay. This guideline is for horses at upkeep or light work. Extra hay might be wanted if your horse is a hard keeper, in heavy work, or on poor high quality hay.
