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    How to Feed Your Horse: An Owner's Guide to Calculating Your Horse's Diet
    How to Feed Your Horse: An Owner's Guide to Calculating Your Horse's Diet
    How to Feed Your Horse: An Owner's Guide to Calculating Your Horse's Diet
    Ebook164 pages1 hour

    How to Feed Your Horse: An Owner's Guide to Calculating Your Horse's Diet

    By CJ Lledo

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    About this ebook

    Feeding your horse is possibly the most confusing, frustrating and talked about subject associated with ownership. While making sense of all the different feeds, vitamins, additives, and figuring out how much, how often or how to keep your horse from loosing condition in a challenge of its own making.

    How To Feed Your Horse clarifies the murky waters surrounding feeding horses, taking into consideration all the various interchangeable circumstances that need to be addressed in order to correctly calculate and manage your horses diet, using what is available to you.

    With topics such as:
    ·Food and How it Affects Your Horse’s Temperament,
    ·Feeding’s Building Blocks,
    ·The Seven Golden Rules of Feeding,
    ·Feeding, Myths, Legends and Hearsay,
    ·Digestibility of Feeds,
    ·Quantity vs. Quality,
    ·Useful Vitamins, Additives and Herbs,
    ·Common Feeding Problems, and
    ·Calculating Your Horse’s Diet,
    Make up only part of the book that provides a holistic approach to feeding horses.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCJ Lledo
    Release dateJan 7, 2016
    ISBN9781310589164
    How to Feed Your Horse: An Owner's Guide to Calculating Your Horse's Diet
    Author

    CJ Lledo

    Having respectively worn the caps of groom, instructor, trainer, stud and stable manager: CJ started her career with horses at age nine, cleaning tack in lieu for pony rides. By age twelve, she worked as a part time groom for a riding school on weekends and holidays, and was fired from a dealing yard at age seventeen for advising clients not to buy a problem horse. She then worked herself into the position of assistant manager of a Quarter Horse stud by age nineteen: And at age twenty-four, was short-listed by some of the top studs: finally accepting the position of stud manager on the biggest Friesian horse stud in the southern hemisphere: where she managed just shy of two hundred Friesians. It was during this time that her ability to profile horses became paramount.With family life: the need to cut back on hours saw her focus more on instruction and training rather than management. Where she has since laid the foundation for numerous youngsters, both human and equine, to succeed in whatever facet of the sport they selected: and although not competitively minded, she has held numerous local, regional and national titles

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      Book preview

      How to Feed Your Horse - CJ Lledo

      HOW TO FEED

      YOUR HORSE

      By

      C.J. Lledo

      Disclaimer and Copyright

      This publication was compiled to provide accurate and authoritative information regarding the feeding of your horse.

      No responsibility or liability is assumed by the author for any injury, damage or financial loss sustained to persons or property from the use of this information, personal or otherwise, either directly or indirectly. While every effort has been made to ensure reliability and accuracy of the information within, all liability, negligence or otherwise, from any use, misuse or abuse of any methods, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein, is the sole responsibility of the reader.

      All information is presented for informational purposes only and presented as is without warranty or guarantee of any kind. Any results you may obtain are completely your responsibility and no guarantee is provided as to the results you will achieve. The author cannot be held responsible for your results, as she does not know you, your work ethic or your individual circumstances.

      Any trademarks and brands referred to in this book are for illustrative purposes only, and remain the property of their respective owners and are not affiliated with this publication in any way.

      The contents herein are not intended to replace the advice provided to you by a professional practitioner or veterinarian.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written consent from the author.

      Copyright © C.J. Lledo 2014

      Illustrations © C.J. Lledo 2014

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for purchasing this ebook.

      Although you are the owner of this copy, the copyright thereof remains with the author.

      This ebook is licensed for your own personal enjoyment only.

      If you are reading this book and you did not purchase it,

      please visit smashwords.com to purchase your own copy.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Preface

      Section One: Feeding, What You Need To Know

      Food and How it Affects Your Horse’s Temperament

      The Digestive System

      Colic at a Glance

      All Feeds Are Equal

      All Feeds May Be Equal but Not All Rations Are

      Feeding’s Building Blocks

      The Three Pillars of Feeding

      Deworming

      The Seven Golden Rules of Feeding

      Feeding Myths, Legends and Hearsay

      Condition Scoring Your Horse

      Section Two: Your Horse’s Diet

      How Much is Right for Your Horse

      The Breed and History of Your Horse

      Condition of your Horse

      Temperament of your horse

      Age of Your Horse

      Sex of Your Horse

      Overall Welfare of your horse

      Illness and Convalesce

      Conformation Issues

      Injuries

      The Horse’s Bone Structure

      Time of the year

      Your Horse’s Workload

      Digestible Energy or Mega Joules

      The Rider’s Ability

      The Intended Purpose of the Horse

      What is Available?

      Digestibility of Feed

      Common Hays Nutritional Chart

      Common Feedstuffs Nutritional Chart

      Quantity vs. Quality

      Feed Labels, What They Are Telling You

      Stable Routine

      Pulling it All Together

      Section Three Feeding Hints and Hiccups

      Common Feeding Problems

      My Horse is Losing Weight – Steadily

      My Horse Keeps on Spitting out Food

      My Horse’s Coat is Dull

      My Horse Has a Long Coat with Lots of Scurf

      My Horse Drinks Water Directly After Eating

      My Horse Does Not Like Changes to His Food or Water

      I’m Having Trouble Putting Weight on My Horse

      My Horse is Driving Me Crazy

      My Horse Is Not Eating – At All

      My Horse’s Breath Stinks

      I Think My Horse Might be Diabetic

      Useful Vitamins and Feed Additives

      Useful Herbs for Horse Owners

      How To Safely Put Your Horse on a Diet

      How to Safely Increase Your Horse’s Food

      Conclusion

      Preface

      I remember back when I started assisting at yards, the feed labels on Complete Feed bags only listed the protein, calcium, phosphate, fat, fiber and if I remember correctly the energy content of the feed within the bag. Yes, this was back in the days when we used to make linseed jelly to put bloom on show horses. With winter feeds often involving bran mashes, boiled barley and gruel – some even had mustard, Epsom salts or bicarbonate of soda in them – all in an attempt to keep condition on the horses.

      Today we are bombarded with mountains of information regarding our horses’ feed and nutritional requirements that it is not surprising that owners feel overwhelmed – and I’m not just talking of novice owners. In many ways, I consider myself lucky to have learnt the principals of feeding when complete horse feeds were less commercialized.

      Today’s feed labels list anything from micronutrients to protein and fiber to sodium. Yet, even with this information overload, the most common subject I discuss with owners, clients and managers remains feeding – closely followed by training and first aid, in that order.

      Although the subject of feeding is well researched, with numerous in-depth books written on it and the horse’s digestive system, its when you open these books and read them that you come to realize that the authors, more often than not, talks over the heads of their readers. Meaning, they expect the reader to already have some familiarity with the subject. This is a problem with many equine books and is so often highlighted when my students come back to me to joyously proclaim that they finally understand what the book was telling them – this after I had explained it (an exercise or principle) to them. Those light bulb moments are my greatest joy because knowing that my students not only understand what they have read, but feel empowered and capable of accurately applying what they have learnt to various situations, is immensely gratifying.

      Truth is, as well written and researched as these books are they rarely explain to you how to go about calculating your own horse’s feed requirements and feeding program in accordance to what you have available, or how to make adjustments when what’s available changes. I often think that the authors become so involved in the science of feeding, they forget that not all horse owners can afford to establish lush pastures, or that their properties may just be large enough by law to allow for a horse or pony. You may not even have sufficient space for a decent schooling area – never mind a pasture where you can plant grazing. Moreover, as nice as it is to know that a particular foodstuff could put weight on your horse or provide more expendable energy, it still leaves you with the question whether it will be suitable for your horse, its workload or temperament.

      These types of questions and situations breeds doubt in an owner’s mind. You wonder whether you have selected the right feed brand, the right ration, the right multivitamin and whether you’re feeding the correct amount of feed, while still being bombarded by fellow equestriennes about particular feed brands they are feeding – often proclaiming it to be the best. Sound familiar? Yes, I also know several owners whom are better brand ambassadors than the feed manufacture’s sales and marketing teams, combined.

      Add to this the fact that many owners have heard of colic long before they have even bought their horse, it is easy to understand their doubt. All this information often only serves to further frustrate a novice owner or manager, who still has no idea as to how much of what their horse/s should be getting. While many will tell you that your horse’s size and breed determines how much you should be feeding, it still does not clarify the murky waters; because added to that is your horse’s workload, facility limitations and the welfare aspect of feeding.

      In this book, I attempt to cover all the aspects and complications that arise with keeping and feeding a number of horses together on a small property. Along with all the variables to calculating your horses feed and the reasons why every horse’s diet must be calculated individually and, most importantly, how to do this.

      Of course the fundamental calculation of a horse’s diet remains the same, even when you have larger pastures.

      While I realize that some of the topics within this book may be tedious to those already familiar with those particular aspects of feeding, I however urge you to read through the first section of the book, which explores all of the aspects of feeing you need to know.

      The second section of the book covers calculating your horse’s diet, taking into consideration all of the variables, while the third section is aptly titled hints and hiccups and covers various problems and their causes.

      Section One

      Feeding: What You Need to Know

      Food and How it Affects Your Horse’s Personality

      Today’s horses are locked in famine mode. A very bold but also very true statement. While we as humans have done everything in our power to ensure that our horses’ nutritional needs are met, our horses fundamentally remain in famine mode. You don’t believe me?

      When was the last time you saw a pony at a show chomping at green grass like it was starving (while being pig fat) with the little rider tugging on the lead rein to no avail?

      Have you ever seen a horse go at a haynet as if it is angry at it?

      These are not "bad

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