How to know what to feed your horse
All About Feeding Your Horse! Beginners Series AD | This Esme
Timecodes:
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
moments like this
hello everybody this is me and today's
video i thought i would do another
episode in my beginners series you guys
have really been enjoying it which is
great so anyway today i thought i would
do an episode all about feeding because
there is quite a lot of information out
there so anyway i thought i would first
start talking about what i feed my
horses and why and also go over the
rules of feeding because there's quite a
lot of stuff that you need to know so
anyway as i'm by my feed room how about
i take you inside and show you what i
feed
all right guys welcome to the feed room
you've probably seen this quite a few
times before in my videos
so anyway this is very self-explanatory
is where we keep the food we also keep
the horses medications so
one of our donkeys willow has arthritis
so we have our arthritis medication we
also have mickey's cushing's medication
as well which is very important that
they get that um also in here behind you
guys we have um our wall of hailage
which you guys will see very soon so
anyway when it comes to the rules of
feeding um there are three sort of main
things that you need to do
number one access to clean water so at
all times your horse should have access
to clean water if it's in their stable
or out in the field
this is also really important when
you're feeding your horse as well if
it's their breakfast or their dinner
they always need to have water available
and also it's really important to check
your water troughs especially in the
winter they can get frozen and also in
the summer they get so dirty i don't
know if your horses do this but mind you
this thing where they'll eat a bit of
grass and they'll still have a bit of
grass in their mouth and they'll go for
a drink and then there's all this sort
of grass at the top of the water shop
which is just a bit nasty also caspar is
so fussy when it comes to water
especially in his stable sometimes i
think well i have to like feed him
bottled water for him to drink it so we
sometimes put apples in there to attempt
him to drink especially if it's a really
hot day so yeah water is very important
number two we have roughage so yes this
is the donkey's field um grass is a
really great source of roughage um if
you don't have much grass you can also
feed hay or haylage so as you can see
even though it's winter the donkeys
still have a little bit of grass unlike
the horses
now the horses as you can see their
field is just just a little bit more
muddier so they have a lot less grass
bye
joey so anyway
because they are bigger animals they do
like to tear up the field a little bit
more um so because they don't have much
grass we feed them haylage so we are
super lucky to have our hailage provided
by silvermore you can also feed hay as
well
i've found since we've fed haylage
mickey's respiratory problem has been so
much better just because hay tends to be
a little bit more dusty when haylage is
dust free which is great also because
our horses can get a little bit porky
quite easily and we also have the light
version which is very low in sugar which
is great as well haylage tends to have a
higher water content too
so that's also good especially in the
summer when it's pretty dry out there if
you have horses that don't like drinking
like casper too
so anyway roughage is really important
in your horse's diet um it should
definitely be more than 50 of your
horse's diet as well because horses are
trickle eaters or trickle feeders they
need to eat little but often because
their stomach is actually around the
size of a rugby ball so it's pretty
small so they always need to have
basically they always just need to be
eating which my horses are very happy
with
so yeah when they're in their stables
they always have forage available which
is the hailage so yeah that is a very
important part of their diet so because
i need to actually make a few hairless
nets now i thought i would give you a
little bit of a horsey hack and this is
this weird looking contraption here now
this is what i used to put my hailage
nets in because it is so much easier to
make the nets because i always find when
i'm putting putting it in you can never
find the hole to put it in so you're
just kind of like shoving the halogen
around the net so this make sure it's
nice and open i also don't have to worry
about having one hand holding the
halogen the other hand holding the
hailage so here is the haylage
i always find this stuff that smells so
good so anyway i just plop it in and
it's so much easier
also because my horses are absolute pigs
they eat their hay and their hailage so
quickly if i didn't put it in a net joey
i think he could probably just inhale a
whole hailage bag i don't even know how
they eat so quickly
so we have really small little holes
here we have really small um tightly
woven nets so this means that they eat
it a lot slower and sometimes even
mickey has a bit of haylage left in the
morning which is brilliant because it
shows that the whole night he has had
roughage um for him to have but yeah it
does it goes to show that
these really do slow down how quickly
they eat
there we go
third and lastly we have substrate so
this is the food that i give the horses
in the morning in their buckets um so as
i said before roughage should be the
main part of your diet so this is
actually a very small percentage of what
they eat in a day
so all of my horses are on bailey's i'm
very lucky to be a sponsored rider for
them last year you might have seen the
video where katie from bailey's came out
i'll leave a little i card if you want
to go and watch that after this one and
she came out and she weighed all of the
horses she did an assessment on their
body score condition and what they're
like what work they're in because all
horses need to be fed different feeds no
horse is the same so
for example when you feed you need to
feed according to age for example joey
is a very young horse so he's on the
performance balancer because he needs
something with a bit more protein in to
help build up his muscles and mickey is
a older horse so he's just on a local
balancer he doesn't need extra protein
he
is a bit of a good doer so he's on a
very low calorie diet you also need to
feed according to work so for example
joey is in full work he's ridden almost
every single day i think he only has one
day off a week um compared to mickey
who's retired and isn't in work joey's
gonna need a little bit more energy
compared to mickey
also you need to feed according to breed
as well
so for example casper is a native he is
a very good doer he can just smell food
and he'll put weight on i don't know how
he does it but he has always been pretty
chunky so casper is also on the locale
balancer as well so it's a very low
calorie feed but make sure he still gets
all the vitamins minerals and proteins
that he needs and obviously you're going
to need to feed according to size as
well so joey is a 16 hand horse he is
gonna need quite a bit more food
compared to mickey who's a 13 13-hand
pony so baileys have put them on a very
strict diet that they've all been doing
really well on
so i feel according to these little cups
this is how i measure out all their food
so i make sure they have the same food
every single day it's very accurate
rather than using a scoop which is good
um so anyway i'm now going to show you
the horse's feeding routine and what i
feed them every single morning so casper
has two and a half cups of bailey's
locale balancer
so i'm just going to pop that in
the second one
and then for the half what i like to do
is i put half in here
and then
the other half
goes in mickey's because mickey has one
and a half cups of local balancer so
he's got the half in there already then
we've got the one
now on to joey
[Applause]
so joey has three cups of performance
balancer so i'm just gonna put that in
[Music]
there we go
and lastly for the horses i like to give
them a little bit of roughage to go with
that as well so i like to give them the
light chaff um so this just bulks out
their dinner a little bit more but it's
also low in calorie um so caspar has two
handfuls of this
i have to be careful not to spill it
everywhere a bit messy when it comes to
making feeds just give that a little bit
of a mix around
and then mickey has one big handful and
this is great especially for mickey who
likes to wolf down his food because the
chaff being a rough edge it just makes
him chew a little bit more so he's less
likely to choke and actually chew his
food properly
rather than hoover it down and then joey
gets around three handfuls
because he is a little bit on the bigger
side
and last number three
and this isn't strictly feeding but um
it's very important that mickey gets his
medication every day so he has half a
tablet of perglide for his cushing so i
just put that in his food um this is
great because i give the horses their
breakfast at the same time every single
day because it is really important to um
feed at the same time because horses are
animals of habit they like things to be
done at the same time every day i know
mine if i'm a little bit late to
breakfast they do get a little bit
hungry they're not very happy they like
to have their breakfast on time i think
they'd be happy to have their breakfast
a little bit earlier if i'm honest but
um no they get fit at the same time
which is really good um mickey also
he is not fussy at all i'm so lucky that
i don't think he even notices that we've
been giving him medication because every
single day he likes to lick his bucket
out completely there is no food left in
the bowl it's also really nice to give
your horse something succulent each day
so here i have a bag of carrots we
actually don't have too much left
usually this bag is completely full and
has so many in we buy the ones that you
can get at most like horse feed stores
or shops because um they always are a
little bit funny looking or misshapen um
which the horses don't mind so i just
like to put a carrot in each of their
buckets to go with their food i cannot
find the hole to the bottom
where are the carrots here we go
so mickey can have a carrot and casper
can have a carrot
also it's really important when you buy
your food to keep it somewhere safe so i
like to put mine in feed bins i think
the metal bins are probably the best you
can get out there that's next on my list
for my feeder and i'd love some metal
bins but anyway you need to make sure
that your food goes in a nice cool and
dry place and also somewhere that you're
not going to get pests that's going to
want to eat your food because you don't
want to be opening up your feed bin and
there being a rat in there and i can
tell you
in the past that happened to me with one
of my old feed bins and it gave me a bit
of a shock so anyway i actually need to
refill my feed bins now so i'm just
going to get that out
[Music]
so another little hallsy hack i have is
to make sure when you're going to be
putting the feed in your feed bin to
actually remove the cup from the bottom
if not this is going to get buried and
you're probably not going to see it for
a good couple of weeks so anyway now
it's time to put the performance balance
in because that is the one i am
refilling um so i love how bailey's bags
are actually made of paper so this is
really good for the environment these
can be recycled so i'm just opening this
up now you basically just unroll it it's
very easy to do you don't actually need
a knife or scissors or anything like
that
and then just open it up
there we go and then the waterfall of
feed comes out
if for whatever reason you decide to
change your horse's feed for example
joey is quite a young horse now and
maybe a few years down the line i'll
need to feed him something a little bit
different it's important that you do it
gradually especially as horses have
really sensitive gut bacteria so over
around two weeks need to slowly increase
the amount of new feed while you
decrease the amount of old feed lastly
once your horses have eaten it's really
important to wash up your buckets it's
also important before you feed to use
clean utensils for example i have all of
my buckets color-coded which i know it
looks pretty you know having a green one
for joey a purple one for caspar but
it's actually really useful especially
because mickey has medication so make
sure that i'm using the same bucket for
the same horse and also by washing out
the buckets it just makes everything
nice and clean especially if you do have
a picky eater sometimes if you have any
food that's sort of left in the bucket
it can go a bit sour and it can really
put your horse off their food so anyway
time to get cleaning
[Music]
[Music]
so
[Music]
another rule of feeding is to make sure
that you never feed straight before or
straight after working or exercising
your horse for example if i've been
doing some jumping with casper he's
going to be pretty pumped up and all the
blood is going to be in his muscles if i
give him a bucket of food all of that
blood's going to be in the muscles and
not around the stomach so that would not
be good and can actually lead to colic
so make sure that you never feed
straight before or straight after
exercising a horse okay guys i thought
i'd do a quick little recap on
everything we've talked about today so i
thought i'd go through again the rules
of feeding so you need to make sure you
feed little bit often that you feed
plenty of roughage that you feed
according to work
age size and temperature slash time of
year slash if they're in a stable out in
the field
you also need to make sure that there is
plenty of water for your horse they
always have access to water when they're
being fed you also need to make sure
that you have clean utensils so your
buckets are nice and clean and washed
out every time you've fed and you also
need to make sure that your feed is kept
in a cool dry place you don't want it to
go off or go mouldy you also need to
make sure that you always feed at the
same time because horses are creatures
of habit you need to make sure you never
feed straight before or straight after
work especially if your horse is puffing
you need to make sure that you change
feed gradually if you do decide to
change their diet and lastly a little
fun one is to feed something succulent
because you know horses do love carrots
and apples so anyway guys i really hope
you enjoyed today's video and maybe you
learned a thing or two
especially for the beginner series if
you're new to all things halsey um i'll
leave some links below to bailey's if
you want to check it out and if you'd
like to see their feeding guide
so anyway guys thank you so much for
watching today's video if you're new or
have not done this already please like
and subscribe because it really does
help me out and i really do appreciate
it and i'll see you all next time bye
[Music]
you
Related queries:
how to feed your horse rdr2
how to feed your horse in minecraft
how to feed your horse rdr2 pc
how to feed your horse
how to feed your horse botw
how to feed your horse rdr2 xbox
what should you feed your horse daily
