Pets

5 Diet Tips Your Pet Horse Will Thank You For Knowing About

Shelter and diet are two of the most important things you need to get right if you want your horse to have a good life. Today we’re going to discuss a few diet tips you should hopefully already know about, but some people won’t and it will help you out a lot.

Unlimited clean water is essential

Horses drink a huge amount of water. You just need to look at the size of them to know they’ll be able to drink a lot more than you consume on a daily basis. It also happens to be the most important nutrient they need to keep them at optimum health. If you can supply a steady stream of fresh water it will make your life much easier. Just remember to clean out their water buckets or troughs regularly as you don’t want anything to get inside that will contaminate the water.

Increase forage intake

Forage is a great and cheap way to keep your horse energized and it should attribute to most of their dietary needs. It will also help to keep their gastrointestinal tract fill at all times which will do wonders for the inside of their body and it will stop them from becoming bored easily. Hopefully mature horses can eat at least 1% of their body weight in forage each day, but this can easily increase to 2.5% depending on the circumstances. You can’t do much with grass, but try to keep hay off the ground.

Diet Pet Horse

Cereal grains are not a great substitute

When you can’t supply your horse with enough forage it’s easy to supply them with lots of grains like oats and corn. Although you can include these in your horse’s diet you don’t want them to consume too much as they’re not ideal since they’re nutrient-deficient. It’s just like you trying to live on a diet only consisting of porridge oats non-stop. You can always try to introduce fats into their diet, but if your horse doesn’t move around much this isn’t too big of a priority.

Vitamins and minerals

There is no getting around the fact vitamins and minerals are important whether you have two legs of four. If your horse isn’t getting enough of either in their diet it could cause health complications as we take micronutrients for granted and don’t realize how important they are until problems arise. If hay was sitting it wet conditions before your horse started eating it the majority of the nutrients could be lost, so don’t be afraid to supplement them into the diet to stay on the safe side.

Vitamins and minerals

Look after their teeth

If your horse is suffering from problems with their teeth it’s going to be hard for them to consume the food them need on a daily basis. Even if they do manage to eat as much food as necessary they will be in pain the entire time. As your horse chews on their food their teeth will be worn down and sharp points will eventually form since their upper and lower teeth aren’t in perfect alignment. Make sure you get those sharp points filed down while they’re in their horse stable to keep them happy and pain-free.

Author Bio: Warren Brown is a freelance blogger and an ace creative write with many years of experience writing for top blogs. Warren has written on a myriad of topics and has written several posts for us.