Feeding Your Older Horse And Horse Supplements
by Mark Givens
The right food and horse supplements will help your horse live much longer. The calories, vitamins and minerals given by your horse's diet are his life-support program. Along with supplying the energy and raw materials to maintain fundamental body functions, nutrients help support a healthy immune system that wards away illness. A horse fed well throughout his life and into his mature years will likely be healthier and live more than a chronically undernourished horse. The horse's dietary needs, regardless of his stage of life, rely largely with his lifestyle. Young, growing horses require larger amounts of vitamins, minerals, proteins and other nutrients than do middle-aged creatures, and lively athletes need more "energy" than recreational trail mounts.
Fortunately, you do not need to spend hours with health charts and a calculator to ensure that the horse's diet plan suits him. These days, you need only begin with a good-quality hay and, if needed, add any of the numerous commercially produced horse feeds. There are plenty of good feeds designed for horses in various stages of life and work that finding one which your horse does well on really should not be difficult. If you've got a horse who is holding his weight and has the proper level of energy, that's a good indication that you're on the right track nutritionally.
As the horse ages, his needs change. As the years pass, the equine digestive tract has increasing trouble digesting fiber--a work of dental wear and intestinal adjustments--and becomes much less effective in taking in certain nutrients such as phosphorus and making use of tissue-building protein. The fundamental rule for feeding horses is to feed little and frequently. The more meals you may split the day's feed directly into, the better for the horse. Keep to a consistent schedule. For practical reasons, many people feed two or three times a day.
More mature horses require more protein and fat inside their diet as compared to their middle-aged brethren. They'll also fare better if you could give them fibre within their diet that is very easily digestible, as an old horse's stomach is usually less capable at digesting this substance. Vegetable oil is a great add-on to an older horse's diet. Horses digest it well and it's a wonderful source of energy. Horses require good quality hay, and this is very so for senior animals. Stay away from any that's stemmy and too aged. If their older teeth can't grind up stemmy hay properly, it will not be digested properly. This may well show in badly digested food within their droppings.
How's this "easily digestible fibre" identified? Generally speaking, feeds which feel softer for the hand will normally have a lot more digestible fibre. So a sweet-smelling hay that's soft and flexible to the grasp will be in a totally different league to coarse-feeling stemmy rubbish. Good hay will cost more, but it's a good investment, no matter the age of the horse. For animals which have trouble keeping weight on, good hay is unlikely to be enough by itself to keep up condition. If the horse demands more calories, unprocessed grain will normally not be the best resource.
Give food to your senior horse properly and use horse supplements. The fields of the planet's grain belts have never been the natural habitat of the horse. They are designed to lower grade feed - and plenty of it. Feeding too much grain runs a greater chance of laminitis, colic and stomach ulcers, caused by adjustments needed in the horse's stomach to digest the food. Yes, your horse demands calories. The way you go about giving them for the animal is the critical thing. The calories must not be at the expense of lots of fibre (roughage). And, as discussed earlier, the main thing is that it's effortlessly digestible.
<a href="http://www.royalchampion.com/">Horse Supplement</a> specialists have different advice and professional opinions about how you take good care of your favorite equines using the supreme <a href="http://www.facebook.com/RoyalChampion">horse supplements</a> within their day-to-day diet regime.
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New Unique Article!
Title: Feeding Your Older Horse And Horse Supplements
Author: Mark Givens
Email: leah@contradictiondesign.com
Keywords: pets,animals,family,home,hobbies,sports,health
Word Count: 636
Category: Hobbies
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