As horse feed formulations become more advanced the race to provide a competitive edge keeps heating up. How many “best” feeds are there room for in a crowded market? The major brands design and produce feeds that deliver exceptional performance in nutrition making it difficult for smaller competitors to make a case for choosing them over the brand leaders. This leaves marketing departments with only Read more…
Here we are in May again and it’s the beginning of another hay season. Hay season has a special meaning to horse keepers. It is a time of anxiety and frustration since hay is typically the largest expense in the operating budget of the farm. Many variables set the quality, quantity and type of hay that is available to us as horse keepers. Weather is Read more…
This is a subject that is close to my heart since Flair fought bouts of laminitis and abscesses for 16 months from August 2016 to December 2017 so I had a crash course in equine nutrition for horses suffering from metabolic conditions. The bad news about EMS is that there are few reliable tests and very subtle warning signs that your horse may be suffering Read more…
There is no better core diet for horses than forage in all its forms. Pasture, grass hay, legume hay and forage replacements like beet pulp are an essential part of a healthy diet for our equine friends. Without a doubt the large majority, at least 80%, of what a horse eats should be forage. What type of forage and quantity will be subjects for future Read more…
Since I keep emphasizing the importance of forage in the equine diet I thought it was time to post a little something about it. I want to apologize for the length of this piece and I considered breaking it up into a couple of different posts but everything is interconnected. Before I entered the wonderful (??) world of horses I never gave much thought to Read more…
Are “fixed ingredients feeds” really fixed ingredients? If they are is it really the best choice? I’d like to remind everyone that in the world of horse feed there are very few regulations regarding statements of quality or efficacy so it is difficult to call out the claims of manufacturers. What is meant by “Fixed ingredients”? “Fixed Ingredients” is a marketing term that implies a Read more…
One of the most rewarding calls I receive is for senior horses. There is nothing that brings as much personal fulfilment as putting together a feeding program for a retired lesson horse that has spent the past 20 years carrying students. Think about the book that lesson horse could write or how many champion riders started on her back. Seniors deserve special treatment because most Read more…
People often ask me “What is the best horse feed?”. My answer is always, “That depends on the horse.” The good news is that there are many great feeds to choose from to feed our horses. The bad new is that there are so many choices choosing the right feed can be confusing. Making the wrong feed selection can deliver less than the expected results. Read more…
One of the things that makes commercial feeds so confusing is a lack of understanding of the three basic categories of feed offered. The biggest problem with commercial feed is that it is often improperly used because there is a basic lack of understanding on which feed does what. Before we jump into the different types of feeds let me remind everyone that the first, Read more…
Probiotics are one of the largest revenue segments in the horse industry worldwide. Walk into any feed or tack store and more shelf space is dedicated to probiotics than any other supplement. Horse owners are pouring daily doses of supplemental probiotics into their horses by topping their feed or buying feed fortified with probiotics but is it really helping? Let’s look at some facts and Read more…