Take these six steps to create a total nutritional package for your horse

A feeding program that efficiently and economically delivers optimum nutrition to every horse is a farm manager's ultimate goal. While achieving that goal starts with determining the nutritional needs of each horse, these needs must be juggled with the farm's budget, facilities, labor pool, and other resources to come up with a complete plan.

Some of these feeding-program elements are difficult to quantify objectively, but they must all be considered when developing a total nutritional program. A total feeding program involves:

• Calculating diets, on your own or with help;
• Choosing reliable suppliers;
• Determining the best place for feed storage;
• Designing an efficient feed delivery system;
• Developing an appropriate feeding schedule; and
• Anticipating changes to minimize their impact.

Calculating diets

Any feeding program begins with the horses. Depending on their ages and activity levels, different horses have very different nutrient needs. Calculating their individual diets takes some research into horse needs and the nutrients in individual feedstuffs (see "A nutritional library" on page 25), followed by a lot of calculations.

While many managers are capable of designing appropriate diets for their charges (Thoroughbred Times, September 9), some may not want to invest the necessary time or may want advice on specific nutritional issues. There is plenty of help available.

Equine nutritionists are specialists with advanced degrees who have made a career of conducting nutritional research, interpreting research for farm use, overseeing product development, and analyzing and customizing horse rations.

These experts provide their clients with cutting-edge nutritional research and often will design special diets for broodmares or youngsters to regulate growth, reformulate rations to balance nutrients, or conduct nutritional detective work to discover whether there is any dietary correlation with specific health problems.

They are able to tap into many different resources and can help farm managers interpret the results of feed and forage analyses. Ask colleagues for references or find an equine nutritionist through the Equine Nutrition and Physiology Society, whose international roster includes 250 nutritionists, exercise physiologists, and reproductive physiologists in the United States(see Resources, page 26).

Ask veterinarians

While veterinary school courses tend to give nutrition a cursory nod, practicing veterinarians have a wealth of practical field experience that farm managers can tap into. Their advice on the safety and efficacy of specific supplements or the supplement's applicability in resolving certain health problems can be particularly valuable. Your veterinarian also has access to professional journals and on-line resources that can be helpful in answering feeding questions. Veterinary schools with large equine departments can answer specialized questions. Find the nearest one by contacting the American Association of Equine Practitioners (see Resources).

Extension horse specialists, state horse specialists, and county extension agents are accessible resources paid for with your tax dollars. Find extension horse specialists by calling the animal science department at the closest state land-grant college. Find state horse specialists by calling your state department of agriculture.

Horse specialists, who typically hold a Ph.D. in animal science or a related field, can provide general nutritional guidance. More importantly, they can help you access other university resources, including engineers who can advise on automated feed-delivery systems or facilities design, soil specialists who can test pasture soils, and plant specialists who can help you select the best pasture grasses for your climate. Ask horse specialists for the names of laboratories where you can get feed and forages tested.

Use the telephone book to find local extension personnel. You may find them listed under state extension service, agricultural extension, county extension, or some other variant of those titles. They, too, can help with soil testing, pasture improvement, facilities, and other basic information.

Feed manufacturer's representatives and feed dealers channel nutrition-education materials and research information from feed manufacturers to consumers. Dealers and representatives can offer a good perspective on feeding, especially for farms that just want a solid, basic program and have no complex nutritional concerns to address.

Factor in their natural bias toward the products they are selling when weighing their advice. Most feed companies also have Ph.D. equine nutritionists on staff or under contract. Farm managers with specialized needs should not hesitate to ask for the advice of these professionals or even request a farm visit.

You can use testing laboratories to analyze samples of soil, water, forages, concentrates, and supplements to determine the actual nutrients in the feed program you design.

Testing is the only way to determine if the actual nutrient values in the feedstuffs are the same, higher, or lower than the values you used when designing the feed program. Forage testing can be particularly important because the nutrients in pasture and hay are often the biggest variables in the horse's diet.

The National Forage Testing Association's World Wide Web site (see Resources) lists more than 90 professional laboratories that have met specific quality standards. They also will fax you a list of laboratories that test hay and concentrates.

Access state soil laboratories through county extension agents or horse specialists. Many state universities with agriculture schools have free or subsidized soil and forage testing-a benefit that can help farm managers to control costs.

Choosing suppliers

Finding reliable suppliers of quality feeds and forages and establishing good, long-term relationships with them are essential to the success of any feeding program. Consistency is critical in feeding horses. You want a supplier who understands and dependably meets the quality standards you set.

A good hay middleman will be straightforward about prices, availability, and the origin of forages. Where the hay was grown can be particularly important if you are feeding alfalfa and are concerned about blister beetles. You may also want to buy hay from the same cutting, same farm, or the same area of the country to minimize fluctuations in nutrient content.

While there may be times when you want overmature hay to meet a specific horse's needs, most often you will be looking for prebloom or midbloom hay with good leaf content that has been properly harvested and dried to about 15% moisture. You want hay that is consistently free of dust, mold, weeds, or any animal debris.

If you are feeding whole grains, look for plump, dust-free, debris-free kernels. Kernels should be of uniform size and color with few broken, shriveled, or discolored kernels. Look for heavy kernels that have no more than 12% moisture to minimize mold.

Corn should be tested for fusarium molds. Look for uniform quality from delivery to delivery.

If you buy premixed commercial feeds, you will want fresh feed delivered. Check mixing dates on the bags. Ask your feed representative to help you translate the date code, which tells you when the feed was manufactured.

Remember that the guaranteed analysis listed on the bag or its attached feed tag only notes the levels of particular nutrients and not ingredients. Depending on the manufacturer's policy, specific ingredients can actually vary from batch to batch because some manufacturers change the mix to take advantage of market prices. Ask if the manufacturer's formula is fixed, meaning the company does not change the ingredients. Horses do not like change in their diets.

Choose products that remain relatively consistent over time from quality manufacturers. If a sweet feed is wet and soupy one time and the next batch is dry and brittle, find another feed source. Reject pellets that are overly hard, crumbly, or smell scorched. The amount of feed debris (fines), color, smell, and weight of the grain should be consistent from bag to bag or batch to batch.

Farm managers who use large quantities of feed or who have very specific requirements may work directly with a mill to get a custom grain mix. Again, look for consistency from batch to batch. Adding molasses or other items to a mix should not be an invitation to use lower-quality ingredients.

Find out if the mill mixes feed for other species such as cattle, poultry, or swine. If so, ask whether they add medications or other substances such as ionophores to their nonhorse feeds and how they clean their equipment before switching to horse feed. Some additives such as monensin used in cattle feeds can be toxic to horses if even small amounts remain in the mixing machinery.

If pasture provides a significant portion of the forage your horses receive, you are your own supplier. You need to develop a seeding, fertilizing, mowing, and rotation program that maximizes the nutrition your animals receive.

Pasture is a highly variable nutrient source. Pasture nutrient content varies depending on the grasses growing there, the available soil nutrients, rainfall, and the season of the year.

Feed dealers and university personnel can help with advice on the best grasses and legumes to use for new or existing pastures based on your regional climate and soil type. A regular soil-testing program can help maximize pasture output while minimizing fertilization costs, and it may point out a need for specific supplements such as selenium in some parts of the country.

Storing feed

Store feeds with an eye toward both waste prevention and efficient feed delivery. A well-planned storage system saves both money and aggravation.

Feed-storage areas should be dry, well ventilated, and as pest-proof as you can make them. Develop a system for storing hay and bagged feeds that allows you to easily rotate stock so that older stock is used before new deliveries. Hay held for more than one full season loses a high percentage of its nutritional value, particularly vitamins.

Cracking or crimping grains exposes them to air and increases the potential for rancidity and nutrient loss. Exposing liquid oils to air and heat increases their oxidation rate and potential for rancidity. Feeds containing molasses are subject to mold, especially during warm weather.

During the summer months, maintain no more than a month- or six-week supply of oils or grain mixes containing molasses or oil. Maximum storage time in the winter months is three to four months.

Ideally, feed-storage areas should be not only easily accessible to delivery trucks but also as close to barns and pastures as possible to minimize labor at feed time. Fire-safety considerations or zoning regulations may dictate whether hay supplies can be stored in or away from main barns.

Avoid storing hay or bagged grain directly on the ground, on concrete floors, or against metal or masonry walls where it can absorb moisture, resulting in mold and spoilage. Store hay or bags on metal or wooden pallets or even on a layer of straw bales to insulate them from moisture and to provide ventilation.

Where storage space is at a premium, complete feeds, pellets, hay cubes, compressed bales, and other convenience feed forms may be a solution. While a ton of long-stem hay takes up 200 to 330 cubic feet of space, a ton of cubed hay takes up about 60 to 70 cubic feet.

Dispensing feed

The delivery system you use to get feed to your horses should allow you to manage portions, monitor intake, and use farm labor efficiently. How easy these goals are to achieve depends a great deal on whether you are feeding horses individually in stalls or pens, or as a group in paddocks or pastures.

Individual feeding allows you to manage portions carefully and monitor each horse's intake. These can be critical issues when you are trying to manage a horse's weight or the horse requires medications or special supplements.

Individual feeding, however, is usually more labor intensive than group feeding. Hay and concentrates must be distributed throughout the barn several times daily. Feed tubs, hay racks, and waterers must be cleaned regularly to prevent the growth of mold, bacteria, and algae.

Automatic feeding systems have a high initial cost, but they are an alternative for farms that want to reduce their labor pool. Automatic waterers can save some labor, but they still need periodic cleaning, maintenance, and they do not allow farm managers to monitor water intake.

Feeding cubed hay or complete feeds is another way to reduce labor costs. When one land-grant university switched its 300 horses from traditional baled hay to hay cubes, twice daily feedings that took two people nearly all day only required three hours of one person's time-a 500% savings in labor.

Explore feed storage and delivery options with your feed dealer. Most dealers will offer the option of delivering bagged feed in 40- to 50-pound sacks or bulk feed that can be loaded mechanically into one-ton to four-ton feed bins. Bulk bins can make buying more economical and save on labor, but they must be periodically cleaned and checked to make sure they are not leaking or collecting condensation.

Do not let bulk bins or tanks serve as an excuse to buy excess feed and store it too long. New canvas or plastic totes that hold 500 to 1,000 pounds of feed are a relatively new option available through some dealers. These are returnable and recyclable. Smaller plastic or rubber bins on wheels that can be rolled right down the barn aisle or hitched to small tractors hold 250 to 500 pounds of feed. Again, dealers recycle the empties.

When pastures or paddocks are close to feed storage, group feeding can require less labor than individually portioning and distributing feed. However, monitoring intake in group-feeding situations is impossible. While this may not be important in groups of mature horses, it is a more critical issue for young animals.

Creep feeding, for example, is more successful in individual feeding situations. Special provisions may need to be made for timid or overly aggressive horses and for those with weight problems.

Feeding schedules

Emphasize the physical and mental needs of your horses, and balance those considerations against your available labor. Horses in stalls or dry paddocks should be fed at least twice a day at 12-hour intervals.

Horses are by nature grazing animals with digestive tracts designed to take in many small meals throughout the day. Large grain meals in particular can cause digestive stress. Feeding frequent small meals is one of the most important steps you can take to minimize colic, ulcers, and behavior problems.

Forcing horses to fast before competition can lead to stomach ulcers. Timing the last grain meal so it occurs four to six hours before competition and allowing access to a small amount of hay may be kinder to the horse's digestive tract while still producing the same performance results.

Making changes

The bacteria in the horse's gut need time to adjust to changes. Those changes may include:

• Any change in forage, concentrates, or supplements;
• Medications;
• Changes in feeding schedule;
• Changes in training routine; or
• Other stresses, whether physical or psychological.

Gradually making any changes reduces the likelihood of digestive upsets. Abrupt weaning, sudden changes in feed when a yearling moves through a sale, or changes in hay and concentrate sources when moving from track to track can affect a horse's well-being.

The thoughtful manager will plan ahead so that previous feeds can accompany the horse and changes can be made gradually.

While manipulating the horse's feeding program cannot resolve all of the stresses the horse's digestive tract must cope with, keeping the feeding program as consistent as possible can help to buffer them.

Budgeting and cost analysis

The total cost of a feeding program is obviously more than just the cost of the feedstuffs. Analyze the cost of your feeding program in terms of the farm's overall budget. The total picture includes not only the purchase price of feeds but also the cost of farm facilities and equipment devoted to feeding or pasture, labor costs, and veterinary bills. If you are raising youngsters, factor in their growth rates, veterinary bills, and chances for success in the sales ring. If you are training racehorses, factor in their ability to train and win on the program.

Keep track of the yearly incidence of veterinary problems such as colic, founder, physitis, osteochondrosis dissecans, or other health problems that can be directly or indirectly related to your feeding and nutrition program.

Changing what you feed can have a positive effect on those costs. For example, raising the vitamin E level in your feeding program can increase immunity and reduce the incidence of bacterial infections or respiratory problems. Changing how you feed also can reduce the incidence of colic or ulcers.

You need to push the numbers around to see what works for your situation. For example, supplements can be costly on a per-day basis, and they take additional labor to feed. Rather than guessing what your horses need, adding regular forage testing to your program can eliminate unnecessary supplements, pinpoint appropriate ones, and save you money.

A computer program that allows you to compare alternative diets can help you design a feeding program that needs fewer or even no supplements to provide balanced nutrition. Computer database software can help you track many components of your overall feeding program over time so that you can compare and analyze options.

Scales are an important tool for managing feeding program costs. On farms raising ten or more foals each year, an electronic weight scale that registers weight accurately to within a pound can pay for itself in a year due to savings in both feed and veterinary costs.

Choose a system with an eye toward minimizing injuries or damage to equipment. For example, livestock scales with portable readout devices that allow remote weight readings such as those produced by Tru-Test Ltd. may be worth their additional cost on farms that must weigh frisky youngsters.

Regularly using hanging feed scales and grain scoops with built-in scales to assure accurate feeding of the right amount of hay and grain saves money over time.

A feed-storage system that wastes 10% less hay as you feed goes right to your bottom line. Relocating a feed room so that feeding takes 25% less time also is a true savings.

When you have a balanced diet for your horses and a balanced budget for your farm, you've found the proper balance for your feeding program.