From: doconnor@potato.inews.intel.com (Dennis O'Connor)
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian
Subject: Re: horse keeping costs
Date: 15 Apr 92 03:52:34 GMT
	<DOCONNOR.92Apr12220755@pima.inews.intel.com>
	<1992Apr13.125652.18439@cs.cornell.edu>
Organization: /eng/eng25/doconnor/.organization
In-reply-to: marsh@cs.cornell.edu's message of 13 Apr 92 12:56:52 GMT

marsh@cs.cornell.edu (Dorothy Marsh) writes:


] In article <> doconnor@pima.inews.intel.com (Dennis O'Connor) writes:
] >
] >Acording to "The Horse", ISBN 0-7167-0491-9 (one of my wife's textbooks):
] >  Horses should receive a minimum of 1 to 1.5% of their body weight per day
] >  in roughage feeds (grass or legume hay) per day. Heavily worked horses,
] >  mares in foal or nursing, and young horses need more nutrtion, and this
] >  should be provided through grain, beteen 0.25% and 2.5% of body weight a
] >  day.
] >For a 1000 lb horse, this is 10-15 pounds of hay per day. 
]
] I've read things like this in books too, but think it's too little
] for most horses.  My 600-lb. donkey eats more hay than that.
] If Penny ate only 15 lbs of hay a day, she'd be skin and bones in
] no time.  During the winter when there is no pasture grass to
] eat, she can easily eat 35 pounds of grass hay a day and not gain weight.

The figures given are minimums, and relate to the minimum amount of
fiber a horse should eat daily, not the caloric intake. Most textbooks
recommend providing extra calories via concentrated feeds ( grains,
sweet feeds ). For a commercial operation, this minimizes the area
needed for storage,  reduces manure production, and may cost less
than supplying the same calories as hay.

The important point of minimu hay figures is that you must not
try to supply a horse's nutrtional needs strictly with grains
or other concentrated sources. You must feed bulk as well.

After that, given that you supply your horse with the neccesary nutrients,
and don't over-supply any of the toxic ones, feeding more hay to provide 
more calories is as good as feeding more grain to do so.

That said, the important thing is ALWAYS the health of the individual
horse, not a textbook prescription. Even textbooks say this. If your
600-lb donkey maintains a good weight and good health on just hay
( as many horses can ), by all means stick with that program.

] >	2. "hay belly", a permanent enlargement of the cecum caused
] >	   by consumption of large quantities of low-quality roughage.
] >	   Easthetically unpleasing, but harmless, I think.
] >
]
] I remember my vet telling me one time that the "hay belly" is usually caused
] by a protein deficiency (hay with VERY low protein).  I free feed
] hay and have never had a problem. My vets have several horses and they
] free feed hay too and don't have hay-belly problems.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear here. When I said "low-quality roughage", I
didn't mean good-quality hay. Good-quality hay is good-quality roughage.
Poor-quality hay ( such as hay totally bleached by the sun ) is what
I mean by "low-quality roughage". Such hay can be useful as a source
of fiber and bulk, but it has little other nutritional value, and should
not be an animals only feed.

So, we are in complete agreement here !


--
Dennis O'Connor			doconnor@sedona.intel.com