Feed for Need – Condition
| The sunshine has arrived (for now!) although there is some spring grass emerging, many horse owners are struggling with their horse’s condition, having had an long cold, wet winter has impacted the grass growth. Many areas are still seeing temperatures as low as freezing and frosts overnight. Ensuring your horse has access to appropriate levels of appropriate forage is one of Keyflow’s priorities. On average a horse or pony requires 2% of their body weight in forage per day. So for an average 500kg horse that is 10kg of forage per day! This will vary depending on individual requirements. This forage can be made up of hay/ haylage/ grass/ chaff/pre ground or soaked mash fibre. Ensuring our horses have an efficient and effective gut to allow them to digest the fibre is vital – using Pink Mash to provide additional fibre and Protexin probiotics and prebiotics can do just that! A happy, healthy gut microbiome is vital for effective digestion of the fibre we are feeding! If you are struggling with a lack of grass or shortage of hay/haylage please contact us so we can suggest some ways to help. Pink Mash, along with other ‘bagged fibre sources’ such as unmolassed sugar beet and grass nuts can also be used and counted as a forage source and as a partial hay replacement. For horses who we are wishing to improve their condition- providing ad-lib forage is ideal, it also supports the natural behaviour of the horse. Making sure your horse is receiving a balanced diet with access to his or her daily essential nutrients such as vitamins and minerals is just as crucial to a horse needing to lose or gain condition. Using a balancer or a complete feed is a great way of ensuring this. Complete feeds such as Keyflow Stay Cool provide additional calories due to the higher feeding rate than that of a balancer. Get in touch with our friendly Keyflow Nutritional Advice team if you want to give your horse’s diet a new season assessment! If your horse is receiving a balanced diet with a great level of fibre but still needs condition, we can look to adding in calorie dense options to ‘top up’ the diet. Keyflow Key-Plus is a steam extruded stabilised rice bran with just 10.9% starch – easily digested and palatable for fussy feeders. Just one or 2 cups per day can make a significant difference in your horses condition! Key-3 oil is also a great option for additional calories! Click HERE to read more about Key-Plus and request a FREE sample! |
The Keyflow Advice and Support Teamkeyflowfeeds.com01672 519000advice@keyflowfeeds.com |
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