As the temperature drops, horses burn extra vitality to stay heat, subsequently their power necessities will enhance. We can present our horses extra vitality in the form of concentrates and forage. Forages are digested by the microbes in your horses giant intestine and produce extra heat than concentrates. An important analogy is to check focus and forage to your wooden stove. Concentrates are your kindling and Forage are the logs. Ideally a horse would obtain free choice hay all through the winter. How a lot further forage does your horse want to stay warm? Then they can regulate if they need more or less through the day and night. Some of us have easy keepers who wouldn't do properly on free selection hay! For these horses, we need to regulate their intake. Weigh out their hay and provide it in small hole hay nets to prolong their quantity of chew time. The first thing you have to do is find out how a lot your horse weighs. Utilizing physique length plus heart girth tends to be more correct. I recommend using the next method versus a weight tape that solely wraps around the guts girth. Using a comfortable measuring tape (the kind usually found in sewing kits) measure your horses coronary heart girth and write the number of inches down. Next, measure the body length from level of shoulder to point of hip, and write it down. Write down the HG and BL additionally, it will assist ensure you that you're measuring at the identical location each time. Be sure you write it all right down to confer with all through the winter. If you are a number of inches off, most certainly you are measuring from a barely completely different location (until you may inform by wanting that your horse has clearly gained or lost weight). Strive to seek out landmarks. Paint horses have nice landmarks! Now that you understand how a lot your horse weighs, you may determine how much hay he must eat. Your average horse in preferrred weight should eat 2% of his body weight. Some hard keepers require upwards of 2.5% of physique weight. If in case you have an overweight horse, you possibly can drop all the way down to 1.5% of his physique weight, however no less than that or you can be creating an entire other set of issues! 23lb of hay per day. Max weighs 1,159lb and must eat 2% of his physique weight. When the temperature drops beneath 45 levels F (together with wind chill) horses begin to burn additional vitality to remain heat. This forty five diploma mark is named "Crucial Temperature". For each 1 diploma F below the critical temperature, your horse will require a 1% increase in digestible power (DE). As with every little thing horse related, there are a number of variables to this rule, similar to wind chill, rain/sleet, your horses coat thickness or for those who blanket. Think of 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'd calculate your horse's DE requirements, subsequent calculate how a lot further DE is needed on your current temperature, subsequent take a look at your hay to see exactly how much DE it gives per pound, lastly calculate how a lot further hay will present the extra DE required for the current temperature. If it is 20 degrees F where our wooden horse statue buddy Max lives he would want an additional 2 1/2-5lb of hay. This guideline is for horses at maintenance or light work. Additional hay will be wanted in case your horse is a tough keeper, in heavy work, or on poor quality hay.
