Buying feed is like buying many other things, you have to read the label, and most of all, know what you are looking for. A good balanced feed should contain:
- Oats
- Barley
- Corn
- Soybean or Cottonseed meal
- Wheat millrun or Bran
- Salt with trace minerals
- Molasses
- Vitamins A-D-E-K-B complex (thiamine, Riboflavin, pyridoxine, niacin, folic acid, choline, pantothenic acid, biotin and B-12)
- Calcium
- Potassium
All grains are high in phosphorus and low in calcium and alfalfa hay is higher in calcium but grass hays are more closely balanced in calcium and phosphorus. This is why I don't add phosphorus to my grain mix, for it would unbalance the calcium, phosphorus ratio. As I have said before, excess phosphorus is one of the worst enemies to the health and life of the horse. With all of the ingredients above, in their proper amounts, you will have about a 15% protein grain that will meet most of the nutritional needs of the horse along with hay and water. The quality of ingredients used, like poor hay is poor feed.
This is a reproduction of an article written by Bud Wrona as it was published for the local Redmond (WA) paper, in a column titled "Off the Hoof," which was created to help educate the community on, mainly, the proper care and feeding of horses. Some of the information might be outdated (unfortunately, we don't have the original publish dates) so please leave a comment if you happen to notice something that is.
This is a reproduction of an article written by Bud Wrona as it was published for the local Redmond (WA) paper, in a column titled "Off the Hoof," which was created to help educate the community on, mainly, the proper care and feeding of horses. Some of the information might be outdated (unfortunately, we don't have the original publish dates) so please leave a comment if you happen to notice something that is.
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