As the temperature drops, horses burn extra energy to remain heat, therefore their energy necessities will increase. We can provide our horses additional power within the form of concentrates and forage. Forages are digested by the microbes in your horses large intestine and produce more heat than concentrates. An awesome analogy is to compare focus and forage to your wooden stove. Concentrates are your kindling and Forage are the logs. Ideally a horse would obtain free alternative hay throughout the winter. How much additional forage does your horse need to stay warm? Then they'll regulate in the event that they want more or less during the day and night. A few of us have simple keepers who wouldn't do nicely 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 you might want to do is learn the way much your horse weighs. Utilizing physique length plus heart girth tends to be more accurate. I like to recommend using the following method versus a weight tape that solely wraps around the heart girth. Utilizing a delicate measuring tape (the sort typically found in sewing kits) measure your horses heart girth and write the number of inches down. Subsequent, measure the body size from level of shoulder to level of hip, and write it down. Write down the HG and BL also, it will assist ensure you that you're measuring at the identical location each time. Ensure you write it all all the way down to confer with throughout the winter. If you're a couple of inches off, most probably you might be measuring from a barely totally different location (except you'll be able to tell by looking that your horse has obviously gained or misplaced weight). Try to painted horses figurines find landmarks. Paint horses have nice landmarks! Now that you know how a lot your horse weighs, you possibly can determine how a lot hay he needs to eat. Your average horse in ideally suited weight ought to eat 2% of his body weight. Some laborious keepers require upwards of 2.5% of body weight. If in case you have an overweight horse, you possibly can drop right down to 1.5% of his body weight, however no less 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 body weight. When the temperature drops below forty five levels F (including wind chill) horses start to burn extra vitality to stay heat. This 45 degree mark is named "Critical Temperature". For every 1 degree F beneath the critical temperature, your horse would require a 1% improve in digestible energy (DE). As with everything horse related, there are plenty of variables to this rule, reminiscent of wind chill, rain/sleet, your horses coat thickness or for those who blanket. Consider digestible vitality 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 further DE is required on your present temperature, next take a look at your hay to see precisely how a lot DE it gives per pound, lastly calculate how much extra hay will provide the additional DE required for the current temperature. If it is 20 degrees F the place our buddy Max lives he would need a further 2 1/2-5lb of hay. This guideline is for horses at upkeep or gentle work. Extra hay will probably be needed in case your horse is a tough keeper, in heavy work, or on poor quality hay.
