Feeding field trial horses

[Wa Chukar Hunter]

Just curious if you all recommend/feed - straight hay - a complete feed - or both?

[ezzy333]

Any horse needs some grain and the complete feeds you can buy are really conveint to use. The more you work them the more grain they need.

Ezzy

[Brittguy]

I feed grain and hay.

[shags]

Mine get hay and pasture only, no grain.
I have two 30-somethings, and if they start to fall off later this winter, I'll look into the pelleted complete feeds.

[Karen]

Mine is on pasture and hay with a "pity portion" of grain twice a day. He doesn't NEED the grain at this point (he holds his weight without a problem and has energy to spare), but because he's on pasture board and out with several other horses, he does get a handful so he's not bullying the others out of their feed.

[lightonthebay]

Straight grass hay and pasture is ideal. Wild pasture is actually best but not many folks have that. Grain is a supplement for anticipated hard work (not hobby horse riding) or as mentioned above as a pity snack.
A horse is designed to have a belly full of roughage for good health. Concentrated feeds don't allow for that. Also don't forget two equally important necessaties -- water and salt at all times.

[wannabe]

Straight grass hay and pasture is ideal. Wild pasture is actually best but not many folks have that. Grain is a supplement for anticipated hard work (not hobby horse riding) or as mentioned above as a pity snack.
A horse is designed to have a belly full of roughage for good health. Concentrated feeds don't allow for that. Also don't forget two equally important necessities -- water and salt at all times.

I agree. The only time I grain my horses is 30-60 minutes before I saddle them for the day. If I am only going to ride them for an hour or so on the trail, they don't need any grain. If they are going to be ridden at a field trial (judging, scouting, handling, or gallery), I will give then 1-2 pounds of oats with a couple of scoops of electrolytes to encourage water consumption.

[RayGubernat]

When there is grass actively growing in the pastures, my horses get nothing but the grass. When I need to give them something additional, I use a pelleted stock feed. It is cheaper than horse feed and they do just fine on it. I do not use sweet feeds because 1) my horses get a little silly with sweet feed and 2) the pelleted feed is ground and mixed and they get a balanced ration that is(I believe) easier for them to digest, and there is less waste because they don't search through it for the choice morsels, like they did with the sweet feed.

For hay, I typically use grass mix or timothy. My horses favorite forage, when I can get it, is second cutting reed canary grass, ideally mixed with a little ladino clover. They eat it like candy. The one forage I will not feed is alfalfa, especially second cutting. It is far too hot for my horses and they get stupid with it. I do not work them hard enough to feed them stuff like that.

I the warm weather months there is a salt block with trace minerals freely available. in the winter months, I depend on the stock feed to provide the necesary micronutrients and minerals. I give them a small portion once a day, typically, just so I am sure they get the necessary minerals. In the bitter cold they get a full scoop, once a day and all the fresh hay they can eat.

If I am riding the horses hard, as in a multi-day trial, I put electrolytes in with their feed(especially when it is warm)and give them a full scoop morning and night and all the hay and water they care to consume.

Lately I have tried products with no corn or molasses. One is caled Safe and Easy and another is called Calm and Easy. If I haven't ridden the horses in a week or so, I do see a difference in their demeanor if I feed it to them the night before riding them. They are calmer and less likely to be dancing around when they are first tacked up. Once they are tired out(first day at a trial) they are fine(mellow and calm) with pretty much whatever I feed them, with the possible exception of second cutting alfalfa, as noted above.

RayG

[Wagonmaster]

It depends on the time of year, the temperature, and what you are doing with the horses.

The pro trainers all give their horses hay and a sweet feed of some kind. They have to. The horses are working constantly and they need the caloric intake that the sweet feed provides.

I live in Minnesota. My horses (2) live in a pasture of about 4 acres and we get plenty of moisture. I also do not use the horses nearly as much as a pro would. So during the summer they are just on pasture, no hay or grain. In the winter they need more calories. They are outdoor horses, not stabled at all. The first year they were here I could only get alfalfa hay, and the combination of the alfalfa hay and a sweet feed was too much. They got fat. I have cut back to feeding them only grass hay, a half bale per horse per day, and one scoop of plain oats per horse, plus all the water they want. They stay in much better shape.

[Buckeye_V]

Boy, I'll probably get flamed for this but I am going to post it anyways.....

I met with an equine nutritionist at a free clinic our local pleasure riding club has and I learned a lot. In fact, a lot of what I learned flies in the face of what a lot of people who ride thought they knew.

1. I will never feed sweet feed again. Pelleted feed with a guaranteed analysis will be in my feed bins. Easier to digest, less to feed and easier to keep. Too much starch is one of the leading causes of horse tie-ups and sweet feeds are loaded with starches.
2. They will always be getting free access to minerals and salt. Together with the new feed their hooves and coats have seen a HUGE improvement.
3. They will be fed before and after riding at a field trial. They need those calories. The horse's stomach is about the sized of a basketball and is designed to eat MANY small meals throughout the day. They are grazers not gorgers.
4. They get a "pity" grain portion twice a day during the grass-growing season and when the grass isn't rowing they go back to "grain" and hay.

My horses have been on this plan for 6 months now, and the difference is very noticeable.

[SFK]

Justin,

You may get bashed but I have converted over to almosted exactally what you are doing. Patch was having a tough time keeping weight on with sweet feeds. Switch to a pelleted with higher fat content and he looks great now. Same with the grazing in the summer. Little bit in the morning and evening but not much. Mostly nice green grass.

[Blue Dawn Kennel]

Our horses get straight grass mostly through the summer with enough grain to keep them coming in for me to catch the colts I'm riding. During the spring fall trial season they mainly get brome hay and after we start riding them @ trials and they behave do they get some grain (especially if big trials). But if their being jerks off of just their brome hay @ the trials they get NO GRAIN and you can ask anyone that have seen our horses they are always healthy and have lots of ambition. Their wormed monthly with liquid ivermectin and giving their shots yearly along with coggins being pulled. So no I don't believe they need to be grained all the time, good quality grass and hay gets them along just fine. During the winter our horses are still out on the same pasture but we also put out big round bales of brome or prairie grass hay and supplement all natural range cubes to them off and on. (their also good treats). JMO You'll also be able to see in your horses physical appearance and weight whether or not you need to add something or not to their diet. If your horses are dry lotted I recommend good quality hay (as much as they eat and clean up) and some straight steamed oats (won't get them hot like some sweet feeds) but will put some weight on them and still give them something other than hay/grass.

[ezzy333]

Our horses were fed a little oats and most all of the hay they could eat if we had grass hay but were limited if there was a lot of alfalfa in it. Then during the periods when they were working we added some corn and increased the oats. And they were always in good shape. They were pastured at times when we weren't working them.

The difference is many of these were working hard all day sometimes for 6 days a week. By that I mean working pulling equipment and not just used to ride a little. The riding horses were fed the same way but just a lot less. Don't recall ever having a problem with any of them as far as maintaining weight or condition. Of course we didn't have all of the feeds that are available today but our horses worked a lot harder than running around a field trial course. The draft horses were in the fields most days and the riding horses were working cattle some days and loafing when they weren't. It was easy to get too much weight on the riding horses if they weren't worked everyday so the grain woud be cut back to almost nothing during the winter.

I think the sweet feeds have become popular because theyare handy but I still think oats are the best feed to supplement the roughage they need.

Ezzy

[CherrystoneWeims]

I met with an equine nutritionist at a free clinic our local pleasure riding club has and I learned a lot. In fact, a lot of what I learned flies in the face of what a lot of people who ride thought they knew.

1. I will never feed sweet feed again. Pelleted feed with a guaranteed analysis will be in my feed bins. Easier to digest, less to feed and easier to keep. Too much starch is one of the leading causes of horse tie-ups and sweet feeds are loaded with starches.
2. They will always be getting free access to minerals and salt. Together with the new feed their hooves and coats have seen a HUGE improvement.
3. They will be fed before and after riding at a field trial. They need those calories. The horse's stomach is about the sized of a basketball and is designed to eat MANY small meals throughout the day. They are grazers not gorgers.
4. They get a "pity" grain portion twice a day during the grass-growing season and when the grass isn't rowing they go back to "grain" and hay.

My horses have been on this plan for 6 months now, and the difference is very noticeable.

This is pretty much the way that we kept our horses when I was competing in combined training. Sometimes when we had a very strenuous competition with a long tough cross-country we would give some sweet feed for a little extra energy. We always fed pellets as it is a more complete feed and there is no guessing as to how much of what to add in.

[DesertRoseKennel]

Here in AZ on drylot we have tried several regimens. What we are doing now seems to work the best. We feed either alfalfa hay or an alfalfa/grass mix depending on what we can find that is good quality without being too high in protein. To that we add one of the big red feed scoops of Perfectly Senior Summer which is a pelleted feet similar in composition to Strategy, but also includes glucosamine/chondroitin and several other supplements. They do really well on this. Doesn't make them hot and eliminates the need for supplements for everyone except my son's 19 yr old team roping horse. They also of course have free access to mineralized salt. When they are working particularly hard - for example at the GSPCA nationals in Eureka where they go hard all day many days in a row, we simply bump up the qty of the pelleted feed.
Jean