Help! New horse owner, feeding advice needed!

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tanyajade

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Hi!

I've recently bought myself a 15.2 Section D. She's my first horse and I'm trying to do everything spot on. But I need a little guidance regarding feeding please.

Currently she's on breakfast and tea of Calm & Condition (one big scoop) and two hand fulls of Speedy Beet. That's the whole portion divided over two meals.
She grazes 8 hours a day 3 days a week. And 4 hours a day at the weekend.
I also keep her hay net full. About 4 slices a day.

I'm riding her around every other day, for about 45mins. Or light lunging.

Opinons please?

Thank you in advance x
 
Calm and condition is a conditioning feed... I'd doubt she needs it.

Perhaps she just needs a feed balancer to make sure she's getting all the vits and mins required. If she's got enough hay and grass she shouldn't really need any hard feed
 
Learn how to condition score and base your feeding on her condition rather than what the feed companies tell you in their adverts and on the side of the feed bag.

Why the restricted grazing? Grass is the natural feed for horses, though you wouldn't think so!:D
 
Thanks guys. There's so much to this horse keeping lark!
They don't get turned out two days a week to preserve the grass. Then they rotate on three fields.
 
tanyajade said:
Thanks guys. There's so much to this horse keeping lark!
They don't get turned out two days a week to preserve the grass. Then they rotate on three fields.
Click to expand...

What a strange idea, it is not good for horses to chop and change too much with their diets, being kept off grass for 2 days a week may help if the yard hasn't enough grazing to sustain the horses but will potentially cause problems, if restricted now what will the turnout be like in the winter?
I would start looking for somewhere where she can live out in the summer it has got to be better for her and makes keeping them much more simple and less risk of colic or stress related issues if she was in a routine.
 
How much land is at your yard? Horses don't just need turning out for grazing they need turning out for exercise as well. I wouldnt feed any hard feed as your horse is in very light work.

I would also sign up for the nutrition course as suggested.
 
UK grass/hay/haylage is very commonly deficient in copper and zinc, and in many cases it is also deficient in selenium.

So the first thing to do is to make sure your horse receives a full daily ration of a good vit/min supplement or feed balancer. I'd recommend including one with selenium yeast (as opposed to sodium selenite). Selenium yeast aka organic selenium is more bioavailable. It's a really important mineral for muscle function and immune function.

Blue Chip Original or Lite are my preferred ones at the moment (I keep Dales ponies).

Other than that, I'd be looking at grass/hay and nothing else really.

Sarah
 
d_morrow said:
OP there is a free online equine nutrition course coming up. It is run by the dick vet school - uni of edinburgh. I'm sure you would find it useful. You can register for it here: www.coursers.org/equinenutrition
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I did the online equine nutrition course a few months ago. It was excellent and I learned a lot. Unless they are running it again it has finished. As far as feeding a Section D, mine just has 2 feeds a day consisting of a small mug of Bailey's Lo-Cal Balancer, grazing for 9-10 hours on poor-ish grass in the day and 10lbs soaked hay whilst stabled at night. That's in the summer. Winter, there is less grazing but I put hay out , increase night net to 16 lbs and maybe add unmolassed sugar beet and bit of sugar free chaff to her feed. She looks fab.
 
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