EP. 160 | TOP 5 WINTER FEEDING TIPS - Every Horse Owner Should Know

Probably the first thing on the top of minds for horse owners is feed more hay.

But understanding how the horse's physiology changes in the cold weather and managing the whole horse and not just the feed bucket is really important because when we look at a horse's diet, Peter and I might go through with an owner, we're not just telling you what to feed, we're actually asking other questions like, "Do you rug your horse? How much water does it drink normally? Is it in a herd? How much roughage or how's your pasture quality?" There's a lot of other factors than just recommending a fe- a hard feed that we have to consider because we wanna feed more efficiently and have a reason why that feed component is in the bucket in the first place.

Yeah.

It's about balance pretty much as we, uh, we, as we discussed previously.

So Brian, maybe the first one, I think it's probably the most important one is, as you briefly mentioned, provide plenty of forage, and that may be hay.

Obviously, some people still have a little bit of pasture left over.

You might be up in sort of North Queensland where you've probably got the same amount of pasture as what you had previously.

But for those people that don't, obviously, in the, in the southern states, hay's very important, especially good quality hay if you, if you can get access to it.

Because if you can imagine the, the fermentation of the hay in, in the hindgut, actually, that's what generates majority of the heat.

So if you can imagine in a horse's gut, it's like a furnace, um, and in that furnace, say you've got a fire.

So when you add the hay into that stomach, the...

It's like a fire that's, that's basically getting hotter and hotter, and inside that is, is how the horse obviously keeps, keeps heat, obviously helps maintain weight, and a few other aspects as well, obviously, you know, with fiber fermentation and the gut health aspect.

Yeah.

Pete's exactly right there.

It's like the central heating down in the southern, southern [laughs] states when we...

If we stay down there, y- the horse can turn on that central heating with the right amount of fiber in the form of forage being fermented in that hindgut.

That hindgut is home to trillions of microbes which really provides the horse with 60 to 70% of the horse's daily energy needs.

And if you think about your evening feed, if you're including hay in that feed and making sure they've got enough hay to last through the night, when they're fermenting that fiber, say at 6:00, 7:00 PM, when it gets to the hindgut, it could be 3:00 AM, 4:00 AM in the morning, that's when it's the coolest or the, the cool temperatures drop.

And if your horse is fermenting or using or creating that heat from within at that time because of the fermentation of fiber that you've given that evening before, you're really setting them up for a good metabolic rate and keeping them warm without artificially keeping them warm in their rugs.

Yeah.