I am considering switching my horses out to a more straightforward feeding program…they get very little concentrate anyway, with the majority of their feed being soaked beet pulp and forage cubes. Those of you that don’t feed concentrates, what do you feed? I’ve read ad-nauseum about the different ways of feeding nothing to all sorts of foods (dried cabbage, etc.) that are not pre-made, ‘horse feed’ in a texture or pellet.
What’s your ‘non commercially produced’ feeding regime? Please include age and workload of the horses. I am interested in how sustainable this sort of feeding program would be for a higher level horse in a large workload?
There are many threads on this. Horses do fine on forage. If the horse is getting hay not grass, you need to supplement vitamins and minerals.
You can feed a vitamin mineral supplement in a small amount of beet pulp mash or the recommended weight of a ration balancer.
If the horse needs more calories for energy or weight you can fees more beet pulp or oats or rice bran in the mash.
You may find Julie Getty’s book Feed Your Horse Like a Horse useful. It’s current best practices in nutrition.
Note of course that everything I’ve suggested is “commercially produced” unless you grow your own oats.
Feeding cabbage and other cruciferous veg is not a good idea as they can cause gas and gas colic.
The specifics all require more information on your horse, including the age, weight, and amount of what feedstuffs they are getting now.
Cabbage might have a place for a horse with some digestive issues, but more often than not it’s a hassle, and not a cheap one when talking about the scale of horses.
A non-commercially produced protocol still requires nutritional supplementation, and that is separate from the caloric requirements of the given horse. 2 1000lb horses the same age and in the same work will have the same nutrient needs, but one might need only whatever additional nutrients that balance out his diet (let’s say a good v/m supplement and a handful of beet pulp to mix it), while the other might require and additional 10,000 calories to maintain weight.
If you’re feeding 1-2lb total of the beep and the hay cubes, then 1lb of a ration balancer would be economical and simple, with a lot more nutrition
But if you’re feeding 1/2c beep and 1/2lb hay cubes and a v/m supplement, you’re only going to complicate things if you move to avoid ALL commercial products.
for an upper level, hard working horse, you’re not going to meet his nutritional needs with a v/m supplement, not even if his hay is super duper quality. You’ll still be very deficient in vitamin E (and that goes for any horse on a hay-only diet, regardless of work load).
You’re also not likely to meet his protein and amino acid needs unless his hay is really high quality, he’s eating enough (meaning not a super easy keeper with restricted hay intake), and/or you’re adding enough alfalfa hay to his grass hay.
If you want simple and uncomplicated, and want to be sure you’re meeting nutritional needs, you need commercial - ration balancer for example.
If you are adamant about avoiding commercial feedstuffs, then things get complicated.
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IMO you can considerably simplify your feeding by just going to good quality forage in bale or cube form ( I like alfalfa or an alfalfa mix, YMMV) AND a ration balancer or commercially prepared mix. That’s it. Shouldn’t need anything else, no extra this or that supplements since this should touch all the bases. Keeps costs lower and average, healthy horse in light work should do just fine on it…and the vast majority of horses today are in light work.
My show Hunter just got that, alfalfa mix bales and a couple pounds of TC Sr, barn simplified to 3 choices and Sr worked very well for most in the barn. And it was available. That one probably got to the moderate work level. Not a lot of supplements or any most years.
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Attempting to mix whole grains into a nutritionally balanced mix is a thousand times for complicated than feeding 1-2 lbs of a ration balancer to an otherwise hay fed horse.
attempting to mix a combination of whole grains into a nutritionally balanced mix that will also meet the caloric needs of a horse in heavy work (fat, protein, NSC) is even more challenging. A complete feed that provides all the nutritional needs while also providing calories is much simpler
whole ingredients =/= simple. It sounds simple- just feed oats! But you end up missing a lot of the nutrition components that you need to keep your horse at an optimum* level of health.
note that I am saying optimum heath, not alive. Obviously plenty of horses go without even looking at a ration balancer their whole lives and survive. But it’s hardly ideal.
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I’ve got one with an alfalfa allergy. Competing in dressage at FEI Small Tour level. He lives on a 1/2 qt. of crimped Oats, a vitamin/mineral supplement, and an amino acid supplement with no issues. He also gets unlimited hay/grass.
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I’m one who has switched to hay or pasture only, plus TM + sel salt blocks. Our hay is very nice, alfalfa grass mix, or grass only for a couple who don’t handle the high protein well. Whether or not it works for every horse in every situation, I can’t say. It works for all mine. I don’t show extensively, don’t go away for weeks at a time or months on a show circuit, but I do travel with competitive horses, hunter/jumpers. Though they don’t get any bagged feeds of any sort at home, I do bring a bag or so with us when we are away from home. Partly because I don’t bring the salt block on these trips, AND because they think they need something nice, because they work so hard for me, and I like to give them something nice. So we bring some extruded high fat kibble that has every nutrition in it that a horse could need, and sometimes some oats and beet pulp. I bring an old soup can with me to measure this stuff out, because they don’t get much, just enough to satisfy their emotional needs.
There is no doubt that quality forage is the best feed for horses, the healthiest for them. Good hay may have some seed in it, this is the amount of “grain” that a horse would naturally get during foraging. If your hay is not good quality, you may need to supplement it with whatever is lacking. But, horses were made to eat forage, grass and hay, if it has adequate nutrient and mineral components, it’s your best bet IMO. KISS.
If you are racing your horses, this is not the level of physical activity that horses evolved to put out. Racehorses need more calories, more nutrition than any riding horse does. High level 3 day event horses, long distance endurance horses also get closer to the requirements of a racehorse. But for tootling around in the 3 foot hunter or jumper division, this is not a high level of physical exertion. In the 4’ and 5’ divisions, maybe bit more in terms of physical demands. Depends on the horse, and how much he burns off with stress in competition.
Seems to me that there is really only one rule, and that is that no one rule suits all the same.
Your high level horse in a large workload probably has significant nutritional demands. What are you trying to accomplish by changing his feed program? Is he lacking something or not doing well somehow?
If you are feeding soaked beet pulp and forage cubes (what kind and how much?) you probably need a concentrate to bump up the overall calories, protein, fat and micronutrients so that your horse can excel at what he does. The quality commercially produced feeds are designed by people with significant education in equine nutrition who live and breathe this stuff, and want to put a quality product out there that is beneficial to the health and welfare of the horse. Equine nutrition is complex and IMHO, best left in the hands of professionals.
Concentrates are usually designed to complement feeding large amounts of pasture/hay, as in 1-2% of the horse’s body weight. So the diet starts with 10-20 pounds of pasture/hay a day. The concentrate adds calories, protein, fat and micronutrients to complement the hay/pasture and bring the diet up to where it needs to be according to your specific horse and what he does.
“Natural” and “Clean” and “Commercial” and “Pre-Made” are all buzz words used to elicit an emotional response and get a person to buy or not buy a product based on the emotional response. Your beet pulp is absolutley “pre-made” as are your forage cubes. It’s not like commercial feed products are made from twinkies and ho-hos. You can read the list of ingredients and usually talk to a representative to find a product that best suits your needs.
I also like to keep it simple. I feed hay, a top quality concentrate, ground flax and msm.
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I’m concerned by the folks saying complete feeds are the solution. “They’re easy!” “They provide all necessary nutrition!”
Yes. Along with a lot of other stuff. Fillers you wouldn’t feed if you dug in a bit more. After having too many weird incidents with the horses at the farm over the course of many years with the main feed brands, my prior BM dug into the feed.
We switched to beet pulp, alfalfa pellets, crimped oats, ground flax, and a vitamin mineral supplement, 4 years ago. (They’ve always had quality free choice hay.) The quantities and proportions vary by horse. But the results we’ve seen in a variety of horses are unmatched. Horses that always looked thin and thrifty on commercial grains simply blossomed, suddenly maintaining a healthy weight easily and their coats looking absolutely brilliant. Never mind the lessened (as in NONE) incidence of the dreaded C word. The volume of feed also ends up being about half of what we would have to feed these same horses of commercial grain to just kinda maintain their weight. Their manes, tails, and hooves now grow better and stronger. We no longer had horses who were “hot” from their feed.
Now, it’s certainly not simple. But you can do it. My prior BM spent a lot of time working with a nutritionist (not one affiliated with a grain company) to figure out the best option for the group of horses she cares for, based on what is available in our region.
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I beg to differ.
I am feeding whole oats to my 3rd set of geldings & all have thrived.
Forage is orchard grass hay - fed by weight 3X daily - & the only supplements are BOSS & a probiotic.
All in excellent health as verified by my vet on his bi-annual visits.
Shiny coats, good weight, able to do what I need in the way of light work.
This program has worked over the past 13yrs for:
27yo TB - retired A/A Hunter, lower level Dressage (schooling 3rd) & Eventing (showed Novice, schooled Training)
15yo TWH - lower level Dressage & trailriding/horsecamping
20yo WB - former GP Jumper, schooling Dressage < this horse did require a supplement - Nutrena Empower Boost fed 3 cups/day - to get through Midwest Winter w/o coming out ribby.
17yo Hackney Pony - mainly a pasture ornament, but we do some ground-driving
Coming-4yo mini - drives - both shows & on trails, can do a 6mi drive, but no more for now until he’s finished growing.
I feed similar. My guess is one of the big benefits is that you can keep the vitamin mineral supplement stable while you alter the other components for weight or energy.
I think a lot of people feed less than the daily suggested amount of most manufacturers feeds because the horse doesn’t need the calories in 5 lbs of feed. So then even if the feed is fortified the horse isn’t getting enough nutrients.
I’m not sure extruded horse feeds have “fillers.” The ones I’ve checked out may have soy meal, soy hull, grain middlings, alfalfa meal, bran, but these are all reasonable things to include to get the stated nutrition profile.
And not all feeds are fortified to the extent of a vitamin mineral supplement.
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That’s all well and good, and certainly a viable way to feed.
IMHO it does not fit the OP’s desire to find a “more straightforward feeding program”.
Even your program doesn’t necessarily meet all the nutritional needs, especially for a hard working horse. Most v/m supplements are such small servings they can’t contain appreciable amounts of all the vitamins and minerals. Very few will have enough vitamin E for any but ponies and smaller horses, if that. Most will not have enough copper and zinc to make a better ratio with what is very commonly high-iron forages.
I’d question what feeds your horses were on that they looked so bad - doesn’t sound like quality feeds, or they were simply not a match for those horses. That doesn’t mean commercial feeds are poor choices. The range is from excellent to pretty craptastic. Many, many horses, ranging from little to lots of work, consume commercial feed, and not even necessarily in large amounts, and look and perform exceptionally well.
In the end, if it’s working, it’s working. Many people feed like you do. It’s not simple though, and adds complication to what the OP is already feeding.
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I feed similarly as well. One horse only ever gets a v/m, and then just something to mix that with, along with some extras - cu, zn, E, flax during the Winter. The other 3 get a ration balancer (currently) with alfalfa pellets at either 1/2c just to keep it in the diet, up to 1-2lb in Winter if they need a bit more. Consistent base of nutrition, added calories as needed.
I think a lot of people feed less than the daily suggested amount of most manufacturers feeds because the horse doesn’t need the calories in 5 lbs of feed.
Agreed, and they could and should be stepping down to a Lite feed or a ration balancer IMHO
I’m not sure extruded horse feeds have “fillers.” The ones I’ve checked out may have soy meal, soy hull, grain middlings, alfalfa meal, bran, but these are all reasonable things to include to get the stated nutrition profile.
I agree, “fillers” gets tossed around a lot to include things that horses wouldn’t encounter in the wild, such as wheat middlings, or DDGs. Getting caught up on terms, and ignoring the nutritional benefits, is throwing the baby out with the bath water. And then…those people add oats 
Where in the wild did horses evolve eating more than a few seedheads of grasses, much less oats, much less the oats that are cultivated today? And beet pulp? :lol: Just because an ingredient isn’t something you’d just add as part of your own mix - I’ve never heard of anyone buying wheat middlings to add to alfalfa pellets and oats, for example - doesn’t make it a filler.
Filler implies no value other than to take up volume. But all these “fillers” have nutritional value. Protein, fat, etc.
And not all feeds are fortified to the extent of a vitamin mineral supplement.
Other way around 
Most v/ms are in the 1-2oz serving range. You just can’t pack a lot of nutrients into that. You have to look at the serving size for the total nutrient content, rather than just the % of a nutrient.
For example, TC Sr is up to 1.4% calcium. Mega-Cell is up to 6.5%.
But a 5lb serving of TC Sr gives almost 32gm calcium, while the 1oz serving of the Mega-Cell provides only 3.68gm.
It’s also important to separate nutrition from calories. It’s not hard to supply enough calories to horses using whole, natural ingredients. You can feed 10lb oats on top of quality hay and keep a horse “fat and shiny”.
But in that example, you are adding a high-phosphorous grain on top of a grass that usually doesn’t have enough calcium already, so further imbalances the amounts. No hay provides enough vitamin E, and it’s not coming from grains either (not in any amounts that make any difference). Maybe the imbalances aren’t enough to make a difference with a given horse, but make a difference for others.
Providing nutrition at a level that makes for optimal health gets complicated and usually not cost-efficient trying to DIY with single ingredients. Getting calories in is easy.
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Most people are not feeding complete feeds, they are feeding a quality concentrate designed to work with a forage based (hay/pasture) diet. And many of the concentrates are roughage based themselves, so what you refer to as “fillers” are actually quality ingredients designed to provide fiber along with basic nutrients.
The goal is to give them everything they need and nothing that they don’t. I’d rather hand the job of balancing the diet over to people who are on the cutting edge of equine nutrition and research and development, rather than trying to constantly keep up with all the latest info and rework the diet.
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There are plenty of feed recipes that make mixing your own feed affordable and quite easy. Fertrell Minerals has them on their website ( as 1 example) and when you add their minerals you are not sacrificing nutrition in any way.
I personally would rather my horse eat whole grains over soy hulls and wheat middlings. The best part is that you know exactly what your horse is consuming.
There are many ways to have a healthy horse. You just have to find what works best for yours.
Soy hulls and wheat middlings are much lower NSC than whole grains.
Out of entire menu of whole grains, the only ones I think are really appropriate for horses are oats in modest quantities as needed, and flax as a supplement.
I would feed my horse a good low nsc feed based on soyhull and alfalfa meal before I would go back to feeding whole co rn and barley in a sweet feed, or wheat ( never fed that). Indeed I use a soyhull/alfalfa meal extruded for clicker training precisely because it is low NSC and has some protein.
I find mixing my own feeds economical given local costs and it lets me vary calories while keeping the supplement levels the same. I like knowing what goes into the horse, but now that I know how to read a feed label and know what a fixed formula feed is, I think the question is formula not whether you are buying it premade or not.
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I suspect the comment about “complete feeds” was in reference to the nutritional aspect. Technically, “complete” means the fiber content is high enough that the feed, which is fortified, could be used as the majority or sole ration for the horse unable to eat any or enough forage.
I suspect the comment really should have been about fortified, not “complete”.
I wholeheartedly agree that many of the perceive fillers are there for the purpose of (also) increasing the fiber content of a feed - beet pulp, for example.
You don’t know any more, or less, about what the horse is eating when it’s soy hulls and wheat mids, than whole grains. All of them have some variance. Soy hulls and wheat midds by default come with a higher protein and lower NSC than do any cereal grains
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I feed a handful of soaked Timothy pellets, salt, and California Trace Plus (4 oz daily). If I need more calories than that I add a bit of Coolstance but it’s generally not needed. Since making this change both horses look better and hoof and hair quality is considerably improved.
If you have the expertise then a DIY feeding program is just fine.
Ditto if you don’t do your own recipe but find one that meets the needs of your horse.
But if you don’t have that expertise, then what? The reality is that you’re then making your horse an education project for youself. What happens to the horse while you learn the ropes of equine nutrition? I ask this question as I’ve seen multiple people injure multiple horses by following somebody else’s advice that probably didn’t know what they were doing and lacked the expertise to understand they were doing harm.
Like everything else in the world commercial feeds run the gamut from excellent to total crap. The excellent ones cost more, and sometimes a lot more, than the crap. If you buy your feed based upon the price tag, as opposed to the nutrient and ingredients tag, your result may not be positive.
The standard is that you feed to need. Know what your horse needs and provide it. Whether that happens using an appropriate commercial feed or a DIY recipe is irrelevant.
G.
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I feed hay used to feed grain but stopped feeding it. Hay only diet with white salt block available.
