Feeding Practices of Mares and Young Horses

Abstract

The feeding planning and formulation of feed ration of the growing horse during the indoor feeding season is always based on good quality forages. It is important to plan the diet’s forage-to-concentrate ratio, i.e. to optimize the forage intake from the health and welfare perspective of the horse. During summer, whole-day grazing is generally recommendable to promote the health and welfare of horses, and to support their natural behaviour. To know how the diet can be properly balanced with supplemental feeding, the nutrient content of feeds must be known. Thus, a forage analysis is crucial for the successful use of diets dominated by forage. It is also important that all fibre sources are high in their hygienic quality, influenced mainly by their storing. Also, if horses are fed in groups, their individual needs have to be considered applying individual feeding, especially if the group consists of horses of different sizes and breeds.

Keywords

Foraging; Grazing; Feeding planning

Published in

Title: Feeding and Management of Foals and Growing Horses
Publisher: Springer

SLU Authors

• Connysson, Malin

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • National Center for Education in Trotting, Wången

UKÄ Subject classification

Animal and Dairy Science

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35271-3_5
• ISBN: 978-3-031-35270-6
• eISBN: 978-3-031-35271-3

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/127245