04/04/2026
Really useful post from a independent equine nutritionist 😊
Friday focus…feeding horses at pasture!
A follow on from transitioning to grass turnout and management changes! U.K. grass and hay / haylage will NOT give your horse or pony all the nutrients they need at ANY time of the year! So whilst your horse or pony may not need a bucket feed, they will still need a vitamin and mineral supplement or balancer, fed in the right amounts!!! As I said last week, cutting down the balancer or just giving half the recommended amount of a vitamin and mineral supplement just because they are on good grass, is a waste of time. You need to feed the full amounts of whatever you feed, all year round.
What can change however is what you use around these; if you have been bulking out feeds with either mashes and chaffs (or both!) for the winter, you can reduce these if a token feed is all that is needed.
If you have been feeding the full amount of a balanced compound mix or cube to a poorer doer over the winter, you may get away with feeding 1/2 the rate with a balancer to top up the nutrient levels. So if the feeding rate is 3kgs for a 500kg horse, you may be able to reduce this to 1.5kgs with 250g of balancer to make up the shortfall in nutrients (for a 500kg horse). Or if your poor doer does really well on grass, you may even be able to get away with balancer during the summer!
Whatever your horses needs and no matter how good the grass is, please do continue to give them the nutrients they need over the summer months; forages are typically low in selenium, copper and zinc and hay/haylage are additionally low in vitamins A and E.
For those that never feed in the summer and think that is ok and, that this post is a waste of time, please just scroll on and don’t bothering commenting! I am sure your horse or pony has been ok on grass only, but they will be lacking some of the nutrients they need without supplementation; that is a fact! I am hoping that some of you who do not usually feed in the summer, will rethink about doing so as enough of us say about why we should!
Please remember, that I am completely independent and I write these posts to help get factual, science-based information out there, so this helps you make informed choices about your horses feed and feed management in the hope that it helps some of you think differently about some feed practices. The aim of my posts is only to help you, help your horse, it’s as simple as that!
Have a lovely Easter weekend all!
