Balancing your Horse’s Diet

The best way to balance your horse’s diet is to REMOVE the things that UNBALANCE it.

Lochie - happy and WELL at 25 years old

That’s what we did with Lochie when he arrived as a head-shaker/flicker in 2015.

Look at him, now aged 25 - he has had ZERO green grass for 10 years!

The yellow bucket is the amount of feed he gets daily and this is split into am & pm.

It fulfills his nutrient requirements to keep him healthy and WELL (not ‘just out of deficiency’). His metabolism isn’t under any stress at all.

When owners whose horses have developed various issues come to us for help, we inevitably recommend REMOVING items from the forage and feed.

The purpose being to LOWER Potassium and Nitrogen intake. This takes the stress OFF the horse’s metabolism.

Lowering potassium and nitrogen intake means...

• LESS green grass (100% grass free for serious issues) and MORE daily consumption of hay. Just cutting down grass intake without increasing hay is not fulfilling the horse’s daily requirement for fibre

• Eliminating all lucerne/alfalfa/clover (high in potassium & nitrogen, low in magnesium)

• Swapping high potassium soy-bean meal for flaxseed meal, reducing copra to just enough for taste

Ensure salt intake is close to 10g per 100kgs BW

Magnesium is the ‘go to’ calmer when horses become reactive and spooky.

Horses actually ingest enough magnesium even from lush green grass but potassium competes for absorption with magnesium and ‘wins’!

Hence lowering potassium intake has the same calming effect.

The amount of feed in Lochie's bucket.