Because the temperature drops, horses burn more energy to remain warm, subsequently their power requirements will improve. We can provide our horses additional energy in the type of concentrates and forage. Forages are digested by the microbes in your horses massive white horse statue intestine and produce more heat than concentrates. A terrific analogy is to match focus and forage to your wood stove. Concentrates are your kindling and Forage are the logs. Ideally a horse would obtain free choice hay throughout the winter. How much further forage does your horse want to remain heat? Then they can regulate if they need more or less in the course of the day and night time. A few of us have straightforward keepers who wouldn't do well on free choice 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 very first thing you could do is learn the way much your horse weighs. Using body size plus coronary heart girth tends to be extra accurate. I like to recommend using the following method versus a weight tape that solely wraps around the heart girth. Using a delicate measuring tape (the type usually present in sewing kits) measure your horses heart girth and write the variety of inches down. Subsequent, measure the physique size from point of shoulder to point of hip, and write it down. Write down the HG and BL also, this may help ensure you that you're measuring at the identical location every time. Make sure you write it all all the way down to confer with all through the winter. If you're a couple of inches off, most probably you're measuring from a barely completely different location (until you may inform by looking that your horse has clearly gained or misplaced weight). Strive to search out landmarks. Paint horses have nice landmarks! Now that you know how much your horse weighs, you'll be able to determine how a lot hay he needs to eat. Your common horse in excellent weight should consume 2% of his physique weight. Some arduous keepers require upwards of 2.5% of body weight. If you have an overweight horse, you can drop right down to 1.5% of his physique weight, however no less than that or you may be creating a complete different set of points! 23lb of hay per day. Max weighs 1,159lb and needs to eat 2% of his body weight. When the temperature drops under 45 degrees F (including wind chill) horses start to burn additional power to stay heat. This 45 degree mark is known as "Critical Temperature". For each 1 degree F under the crucial temperature, your horse will require a 1% enhance in digestible power (DE). As with all the pieces horse related, there are a number of variables to this rule, resembling wind chill, rain/sleet, your horses coat thickness or if you blanket. Consider digestible vitality like your horses calorie requirement. Since horse nutrition is 90% math, lets get again to that! If I proceed with the math we would calculate your horse's DE requirements, next calculate how a lot further DE is required for your current temperature, subsequent test your hay to see precisely how a lot DE it provides per pound, lastly calculate how a lot further hay will provide the extra DE required for the present temperature. If it's 20 levels F the place our buddy Max lives he would need an additional 2 1/2-5lb of hay. This guideline is for horses at maintenance or gentle work. Additional hay shall be wanted if your horse is a hard keeper, in heavy work, or on poor high quality hay.
