The right food and horse supplements will help your horse live much longer. The calories, vitamins and minerals given by your horse's diet are his life-support program. Along with supplying the energy and raw materials to maintain fundamental body functions, nutrients help support a healthy immune system that wards away illness. A horse fed well throughout his life and into his mature years will likely be healthier and live more than a chronically undernourished horse. The horse's dietary needs, regardless of his stage of life, rely largely with his lifestyle. Young, growing horses require larger amounts of vitamins, minerals, proteins and other nutrients than do middle-aged creatures, and lively athletes need more "energy" than recreational trail mounts.
Fortunately, you do not need to spend hours with health charts and a calculator to ensure that the horse's diet plan suits him. These days, you need only begin with a good-quality hay and, if needed, add any of the numerous commercially produced horse feeds. There are plenty of good feeds designed for horses in various stages of life and work that finding one which your horse does well on really should not be difficult. If you've got a horse who is holding his weight and has the proper level of energy, that's a good indication that you're on the right track nutritionally.
As the horse ages, his needs change. As the years pass, the equine digestive tract has increasing trouble digesting fiber--a work of dental wear and intestinal adjustments--and becomes much less effective in taking in certain nutrients such as phosphorus and making use of tissue-building protein. The fundamental rule for feeding horses is to feed little and frequently. The more meals you may split the day's feed directly into, the better for the horse. Keep to a consistent schedule. For practical reasons, many people feed two or three times a day.
More mature horses need more protein and fat inside their diet than their middle-aged counterparts. They will also do better if you could provide them with fibre in their diet that's very easily digestible, as an older horse's gut is usually less capable at digesting this material. Vegetable oil is a good add-on to an adult horse's diet regime. Horses digest it well and it is a great resource of energy. Horses need good quality hay, and this is very so for older creatures. Stay away from any that is stemmy and too aged. If their older teeth can't grind up stemmy hay well, it won't be digested well. This may well show in poorly broken down food in their droppings.
How's this "easily digestible fibre" identified? Generally speaking, feeds which feel softer for the hand will normally have a lot more digestible fibre. So a sweet-smelling hay that's soft and flexible to the grasp will be in a totally different league to coarse-feeling stemmy rubbish. Good hay will cost more, but it's a good investment, no matter the age of the horse. For animals which have trouble keeping weight on, good hay is unlikely to be enough by itself to keep up condition. If the horse demands more calories, unprocessed grain will normally not be the best resource.
Feed your senior horse correctly and use horse supplements. The fields of the planet's grain belts have never been the normal home of the horse. They're adapted to lower grade feed - and lots of it. Feeding too much grain runs a greater risk of laminitis, colic and stomach ulcers, caused by changes necessary for the horse's gut to absorb the food. Indeed, your horse demands calories. How you go about giving them for the animal is the important thing. The calories should not be at the cost of plenty of fibre (roughage). And, as discussed earlier, the important thing is that it is easily digestible.
Fortunately, you do not need to spend hours with health charts and a calculator to ensure that the horse's diet plan suits him. These days, you need only begin with a good-quality hay and, if needed, add any of the numerous commercially produced horse feeds. There are plenty of good feeds designed for horses in various stages of life and work that finding one which your horse does well on really should not be difficult. If you've got a horse who is holding his weight and has the proper level of energy, that's a good indication that you're on the right track nutritionally.
As the horse ages, his needs change. As the years pass, the equine digestive tract has increasing trouble digesting fiber--a work of dental wear and intestinal adjustments--and becomes much less effective in taking in certain nutrients such as phosphorus and making use of tissue-building protein. The fundamental rule for feeding horses is to feed little and frequently. The more meals you may split the day's feed directly into, the better for the horse. Keep to a consistent schedule. For practical reasons, many people feed two or three times a day.
More mature horses need more protein and fat inside their diet than their middle-aged counterparts. They will also do better if you could provide them with fibre in their diet that's very easily digestible, as an older horse's gut is usually less capable at digesting this material. Vegetable oil is a good add-on to an adult horse's diet regime. Horses digest it well and it is a great resource of energy. Horses need good quality hay, and this is very so for older creatures. Stay away from any that is stemmy and too aged. If their older teeth can't grind up stemmy hay well, it won't be digested well. This may well show in poorly broken down food in their droppings.
How's this "easily digestible fibre" identified? Generally speaking, feeds which feel softer for the hand will normally have a lot more digestible fibre. So a sweet-smelling hay that's soft and flexible to the grasp will be in a totally different league to coarse-feeling stemmy rubbish. Good hay will cost more, but it's a good investment, no matter the age of the horse. For animals which have trouble keeping weight on, good hay is unlikely to be enough by itself to keep up condition. If the horse demands more calories, unprocessed grain will normally not be the best resource.
Feed your senior horse correctly and use horse supplements. The fields of the planet's grain belts have never been the normal home of the horse. They're adapted to lower grade feed - and lots of it. Feeding too much grain runs a greater risk of laminitis, colic and stomach ulcers, caused by changes necessary for the horse's gut to absorb the food. Indeed, your horse demands calories. How you go about giving them for the animal is the important thing. The calories should not be at the cost of plenty of fibre (roughage). And, as discussed earlier, the important thing is that it is easily digestible.
About the Author:
Horse Supplement specialists have different advice and expert views about how you take proper care of your favorite equines when using the best horse supplements within their day-to-day diet program.
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