Horse feeding question??

Question

If I have a horse that is in light work does he need grain or can he live and be healthy eating only grass and hay and how much hay would the average horse need per day Thanks

(oh and no I do not have a horse and I am not looking to get one any time soon I am just wondering so don't bite my head off!!)

Answer 1

Grain provides nutrition for a working horse that grass does not. A horse needs one to three flakes of hay a day if it is grazing as well. Hay comes in bales of about 10-14 flakes. If it is only grazing on weekends and not at night, then twice or three times the amount of hay will suffice.
There are different kinds of grain that provide different nutritients. There are oats, which aren't the most nutritious, there is bran, which is very rich and will give a horse lots of energy (like clover hay in comparison to hay that does not have clover or is not clover rich), and there is a grain mix that has corn and other grains in it.

Light working horses should eat a couple flakes of hay a day and a grain bowl full of two grain scoops (these are kind of like big spoons ... probably about 2-3 cups in each scooop) a day. Once a week or in the winter when they need to stay warmer you can give them bran in the form of mash. Plain oats might be a treat for a horse but I've never seen horses eat it in real life.

In short, plain grass is not enough for a working horse. They need some form of grain on a regular basis to fill in the nutritional gap that a diet of grass leaves.

Answer 2

How much concentrate or grain you feed your horse will depend on your goal. Do you want your horse to gain weight, it is carrying or nursing a foal or working very hard and needs extra energy? Then you need to read the label on the feed bag. It will probably tell you to feed a certain percentage per body weight. This percentage will guarantee that the horse is getting the recommended nutrition. However, depending on the horse’s condition or workload some people will adjust that amount.
The proper way to measure concentrates is by weight so an old kitchen scale is handy. You’ll probably use an old coffee can or other container to scoop your feed. Weigh the feed in the scoop and note how much feed is in the container. That way you won’t have to weigh the feed each time. Also, be aware that all feed does not weigh the same.
Your coffee can of oats will be much lighter than a pelleted concentrate.
There are no absolute standards for feeding a horse. Monitoring your horse’s condition and energy levels is the only way to tell if your horse needs more or less concentrates or hay. If your horse is too energetic, you’ll want to decrease the amount of energy producing feed. If your horse is loosing weight or tires easily in work and is eating free choice quality hay or pasture you’ll need to increase the horse’s feed concentrates.

The bulk of your horse’s diet should be either hay or grass. If you are going to add grain or concentrates to your horse’s diet you can replace up to 40% of its fodder with the concentrate. In some special cases horses are fed only 1% of their body weight in hay. But feeding high concentrate to fodder ratios can cause boredom (fence chewing, weaving, cribbing), colic, or other problems.

Answer 3

Depending on the horse, yes.
Many,many horse can live just fine with no grain. Most horse get to much grain.

Its actually better for your horse to feed him just hay (and water and salt) unless he truly does need grain. The more hay and the less grain a horse eats, the less likely it is to colic. (And as you know, colic is VERY bad)
Most people who just feed hay give it free choice, and the horses eat about 1/2- 1 bale a day each. Grass or timothy is usually best, alfalfa has too much protein.

Answer 4

You should feed the horse grain because of the nutrients in it that a horse can not get from grass or hay alone. Depending on the horse's size, he/she may eat anywhere from 6-10 flakes of hay, or about 1/2 bale. Be careful of grass, especially in the spring, when there's a better chance of the horse cholicing.

Answer 5

Well, a horse in light work needs a medium to low energy feed, 1 kg of grain would be suitable, you can use either barley or oats, (oats heats more) or use half of each. Hay is ok, but they can't survive on just hay and grass. You will probably need to add a mineral supliment or a mineral lick.

I feed my horse 2kg scoops of oats or (1 oats 1 barley)
5 kg white chaff
6 kg green (lucurn chaff) when the grass is greener, i reduce the lucurn to half
and 2kg of a suppliment (i use a performance horse mix)
and a teaspoon of garlic.

White chaff is a bul food, and is non-heating and non-offensive, lucern is high in protein and too much can cause the runs, as can green lush grass.

A basic grassy hay with stalks is a good roughage, just feed as you see fit, and if he becomes fresh, reduce the oats and barley and replace with a cool fuel feed, copra or a mix suited for light work.

Answer 6

Horses in general are on the "stupid" side. They will eat until they die. Usually from grains not from grasses. The grains turn to gasses in their stomachs and cause them to bloat (enlarge their intestines.) They can eat as much hay as you want to give them, but can easily survive on about a third of a bale a day.
Not that they "need" anything else but like us they will be more healthy if given other food supplements too.

Answer 7

Yes a horse can be healthy eating grass and hay. The average horse eats just over one quarter of a square bale, if you feed them round bales the will usually just stand there and eat. Careful because if there is alot of clover in the grass they can get Founder.

Answer 8

It depends on your horses metabolism. I had a draft x mare that only ate 2 handfuls of grain a day (so she thought she was getting something at feeding time), and ate about 8 flakes of hay a day. My TB, on the other hand, ate 3lbs oats 3xday, and 1lb rice bran 3xday, along with free choice timothy and alfalfa (he ate about 1/2-3/4 bale per day).

Answer 9

mabye you should give the horse a little bit of grain, but you can try living it off of grass and hay if it is good quality hay and there is plenty of grass

Answer 10

We always give our horses grain - even the pasture pal. They each get a couple handfulls a day. And we feed each one 2 flakes off a 150 lbs bale twice a day. They are happy, healthy, and in very good shape.