We often use or hear feed terms and don’t always understand exactly what they mean or relate to. ‘Forage’ is one such term that has been growing in popularity since the many owners have become more concerned with their horse’s digestion and possible gut discomfort.
A horse’s digestive tract is designed to have small amounts of feed ‘trickling’ through it at all times. This is where the phrase ‘trickle feed’ originates. By feeding forage, we can ensure this happens. This in turn supports digestive health, a general sense of wellbeing and helps prevent boredom.
When owners think of forage, they tend to think of hay or grass, but forage feedstuffs can also include:
Sugar beet pulp
Alfalfa cubes
Grass hay cubes
Chopped bagged hay or straw (sometimes known as chop or chaff)
The great thing about feeding forage is that it will keep a horse occupied for far longer than a cereal feed. By nature, horses spend about 75% of their day chewing and have a psychological need to chew. It is important to acknowledge this as in some cases unoccupied horses can start to show behaviours such as weaving, crib biting or general aggravation to humans and other horses.
How much forage should you feed?
In simple terms, horses need a minimum of 1% of their body weight in hay or grass each day. However, this is a minimum and a figure of around 1.5 to 2% is advisable for horses in work. So for a 500kg horse you would look towards feeding 10kg of forage a day.
An ideal situation is to feed hay (or let the horse graze) ad lib. However, with good doers and overweight horses, this isn’t always practical and restricted grazing, soaked or older (but not dusty or mouldy) hay can be a suitable alternative low calorie forage.
As a weight reference it is useful to buy or borrow a hanging scale and get used to weighing or understanding just how heavy your haynets or feed scoops are. This way it’s easy to get to grips with the amount of hay or forage you are feeding. It is then easy to monitor and adjust as spring grass begins to flourish or winter grass begins to drop off. If it’s possible, also consider feeding little and often or via small holed haynets so greedier horses ‘pace’ themselves and don’t gobble down their rations quickly.
What are the health benefits of feeding forage?
Feeding long fibre forage based feeds that your horse has to chew will stimulate his saliva production. A lack of saliva is associated with choke but can also lead to other gut complications.
If a horse is also being fed cereal, then adding fibre to his feed or feeding hay first will stimulate saliva which, in turn, can act as a buffer to the acidity caused by feeding cereal. Excess acid can lead to gastric ulcers, so feeding forage is an affordable way to support your horse’s health. Feeding a small amount of forage before exercise also follows the same theory and is now a widely accepted way to protect an over acidic gut.
Forage is also great for veterans or grass kept ponies and horses as the fermentation of forage in the large intestine produces a lot of heat, and this helps to maintain correct body temperature, particularly in winter. It is like an internal radiator!
Lastly, many forage based feeds are affordable and usually cheaper than cereal feeds. They can be purchased in bulk and used for many different types of horses on a yard, so there is little waste and feeding routines are easier to manage.
In sum, feeding forage supports health and nutrition, well-being and your pocket!