As the temperature drops, horses burn extra vitality to remain heat, subsequently their power necessities will improve. We will present our horses additional power within the form 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 match concentrate and forage to your wooden stove. Concentrates are your kindling and Forage are the logs. Ideally a horse would obtain free alternative hay all through the winter. How a lot further forage does your horse need to remain heat? Then they will regulate in the event that they want kind of through the day and night time. A few of us have straightforward keepers who wouldn't do properly on free alternative 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 quantity of chew time. The first thing you might want to do is find out how much your horse weighs. Utilizing body length plus heart girth tends to be extra correct. I like to recommend utilizing the following method versus a weight tape that only wraps around the guts girth. Utilizing a soft measuring tape (the kind usually found in sewing kits) measure your horses coronary heart girth and write the variety of inches down. Subsequent, measure the body length from point of shoulder to point of hip, and write it down. Write down the HG and BL additionally, this may assist ensure you that you're measuring at the same location every time. Be sure you write all of it down to refer to all through the winter. In case you are a few inches off, most likely you're measuring from a slightly completely different location (until you can inform by trying that your horse has clearly gained or misplaced weight). Try to search out landmarks. Paint horses have great landmarks! Now that you understand how much your horse weighs, you may figure out how much hay he must eat. Your common horse in ideal weight ought to consume 2% of his physique weight. Some exhausting keepers require upwards of 2.5% of physique weight. In case you have an overweight horse, you possibly can drop right down to 1.5% of his physique weight, but no lower than that or you will be creating a whole different set of points! 23lb of hay per day. Max weighs 1,159lb and must eat 2% of his physique weight. When the temperature drops beneath forty five degrees F (together with wind chill) horses start to burn extra energy to stay warm. This 45 degree mark is known as "Vital Temperature". For each 1 diploma F under the critical temperature, your horse will require a 1% improve in digestible power (DE). As with the whole lot horse related, there are numerous variables to this rule, akin to wind chill, rain/sleet, your horses coat thickness or should 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'd calculate your horse's DE necessities, next calculate how a lot additional DE is required for your present temperature, next check your hay to see precisely how much DE it provides per pound, lastly famous horse statues calculate how a lot extra hay will provide the additional DE required for the current temperature. If it's 20 degrees F where our buddy Max lives he would need a further 2 1/2-5lb of hay. This guideline is for horses at maintenance or light work. Further hay might be needed if your horse is a hard keeper, in heavy work, or on poor high quality hay.
