Tips

Practical experience gathered from ration calculation. Everything that sits between the table and the yard.

Changing over

Allow two to three weeks
The gut flora needs time. Swap in no more than a third of the new amount per week, not all of it at once.
First the amount, then the composition
Never change both at the same time. Otherwise you will not know what your horse reacted to.
Weigh, don’t guess
A set of hanging scales from the DIY shop costs very little and fixes the most common source of error there is: “a portion of hay”.
Measure again every two weeks
Weight tape or scales, always at the same time of day and on the same day of the week. Single readings fluctuate, the trend does not.

Chewing time beats the amount of feed
A horse feels full largely through the time spent chewing. Small-mesh haynets double the eating time for the same amount.
Offer several feeding stations
1.5 feeding stations per horse. Too few stations create stress, and the higher-ranking horses then eat well beyond their requirement.
Put out chew logs
Willow, hazel or fruit-tree branches provide crude fibre and enrichment with almost no energy, and they save the stable fittings.
No long gaps overnight
More than four hours without forage clearly raises the risk of gastric ulcers. Better to spread the daily ration out differently.

A hay analysis is worth it
Energy and protein content vary by more than 30 % between two batches. An analysis costs little and replaces all the guesswork.
New batch, new calculation
Every hay delivery is a new feed. After a change, keep a particularly close eye on weight and droppings.
Soaking hay lowers sugar, not energy
An hour of soaking washes out sugar and potassium, but minerals too. The crude fibre stays, the energy drops only slightly.
A later cut instead of less hay
Later-cut, stemmier hay has more crude fibre and less energy. That is the more elegant route than a smaller portion.

Don’t take the weight off too fast
More than about 1 % of body weight per week can trigger hyperlipaemia, especially in ponies and in donkeys.
Teeth first
If a horse is losing weight despite an adequate ration, the state of its teeth is the first suspect, not the amount of feed.
With laminitis, never risk the grass on a hunch
Fructan rises sharply after cold nights followed by sun. At those times a bare turnout area is safer than the grass field.
Salt available at all times
Sodium is the one nutrient that forage practically never covers. A lick belongs in every stable and in every turnout area.