He is already getting about 4 lbs of good alfalfa per day along with the orchard grass and pasture and Ultium. I prefer not to feed alfalfa much above that amount because of the skewed calcium/ phosphorus ratio. 5 lbs of Ultium is not a lot by any stretch of the imagination.
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My easy keeper stock horse mare needs a certain amount of oats currently 2 lbs a day or else she becomes sad, low energy, and dopey.
I feed alfalfa (hay or cubes) for the protein but it does not affect her energy level.
I am at a large self board barn with a good quality of care and all the horses are on a forage first diet. So are the horses at my friend’s boarding stable. I know many horses who get no grain or concentrates. Indeed I see horses that might benefit from a boost in protein, a ration balancer, etc.
These would all be horses in light or moderate work.
I feed a mash of whole oats alfalfa cubes beet pulp and supplements.
Op if you are interested in horse nutrition I suggest who enrol in the free coursera on equine nutrition that is apparently going to be offered again in September.
Edited to add: looked this up and it doesn’t seem to be running this year which is too bad.
Good scientific current best practices. Also recommend Julie Getty’s book feed your horse like a horse. Those 2 sources will set you straight on the basics and give you a knowledge base from which to consider exceptions.
It is a myth for most horses (there’s always exceptions) that alfalfa makes them hot. Usually there are other issues at hand.
My OTTBs eat straight alfalfa hay, they are not hot.
https://ecoequine.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/top-five-mistakes-made-when-feeding-a-horse/
It’s not possible to just feed more hay when they’re on free-choice. Adding alfalfa/hay pellets may help a horse who needs a smidgen of weight, but they’re no higher in calories than flaked hay so it’s really not a benefit. There’s only so much a horse can and/or will eat in a day.
When I have a horse losing weight (which is currently happening - I am hoping just due to lack of good hay this spring, we now finally have new, better hay), first thing I do is increase hay. But as others have said some horses are only going to eat so much hay in a day. My little Morgan mare, who also did not read the memo that Morgans are supposed to be easy keepers, will only eat so much forage in a day. If she gets good pasture during the day she turns her nose up at hay indoors. If she is on a less grassy field she will eat her hay when she comes in. I tried giving her some second cut, which I have for my post-2-dental-surgeries 21 yo CSH gelding, she lost her mind. She is on Safe N’ Easy, and also gets a small quantity of hay cubes.
My general approach is hay plus Gro N’ Win. If that doesn’t suffice I’ll add timothy/alfalfa hay cubes, and if that doesn’t do the trick only then do I add grain, except in the case of the 21 yo CSH gelding, who before he was retired and before we found this 2nd cut hay for him, needed Sport XT for energy as he lacked motivation.
I have a barn full of thoroughbreds. Three are hard keepers. The fourth is less hard–I call her “easy” but she’d still give someone like you a run, I think.
In MN, I had a BEAUTIFUL alfalfa. Fifth cut. Practically glowed. Protein was 23%, iirc. RFV was over 200. I fed that free choice. I STILL had to feed some grain to get them through the winter looking the way I wanted. Not a whole lot, but a bit, and a little oil for my hardest ones…and that’s with no work and full coats. Would have likely been quite a bit of grain had they been in work and clipped.
I don’t doubt that there are some horses out there that require zero grain and look great. There are also a whole lot of them out there that need concentrated calories.
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I was thinking about this thread while prepping dinner for the ponies before bringing them in. Do you think “we” just like feeding grain? Or are “we” too stupid to know there are other options? Or…why? Why do YOU think “we” feed grain, @mydogs?
Because I faaaaar prefer NOT feeding grain. Grain is EXPENSIVE. I have to go buy it, I have to store it, I have to have a place for the grain I’m feeding. I have to feed it multiple times a day. I have to soak it, because my “easy” mare is a bit of a choker. It’s a pain in the ass, truly.
It would be SO much better, easier, cheaper, more convenient, etc etc etc to toss some hay, hang some nets and walk away. But despite my desire to do that, the horses would look like walking skeletons if I did–even with the really nice hay I have (grass hay, tough to find alfalfa here at all)–and the animal control people would take them away.
So I feed grain. I also feed alfalfa pellets, cause they’re cheaper than grain, and I like feeding alfalfa, but the horses wouldn’t be willing to eat a bucket of that straight up and it still wouldn’t be ENOUGH. Pellets are also just one more thing to go buy, store, and have a place for the stuff I’m feeding.
And I try to source really good alfalfa here, because it’s SO much easier–they still need some grain if I’m feeding alfalfa full time, but it’s less (cheaper, less shopping, less storage) and I can usually get away with graining them once a day (easier.) I think I have a supplier nailed down for my next hay purchase, but it’s kind of crazy, actually–the alfalfa is grown in Nevada. And trucked to NY. And then trucked to me in CT. Isn’t that wild that makes any fiscal sense what so ever? But apparently it does.
This thread is odd, especially the follow up questioning. There are a whole lot of really brilliant, well read, well researched people here (I’m not talking about myself :lol: lest you think I’m just preening!) who have weighed in on why grain is necessary. And you ask…have you tried alfalfa? Huh? Yeah, I think these people know about alfalfa 
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Can you elaborate on this? What is the current ratio? How much is too much according to the ratio?
Op you can probably find this basic scientific information on any reliable nutrition website.
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“We” is a general statement, it could have been “you”, but that is looking to deep into something that isn’t there.
I am the first to admit that my knowledge regarding feeding is very limited. In my years, my barn manager or trainer would dictate how much was fed or I would just follow what the previous owner did.
I don’t know why most people feed grain. Everyone has different reasons, which was the entire point of this post. Some people do it because that is what they were told to do, don’t know any better, or because that is just what they have always done.
I’ve done extensive research on dog food and ingredients. Before then, I was just feeding what seemed to be the
“norm”. It wasn’t until I looked at what ingredients are made out of, how to read the labels, researched all the companies, that I figured out that not all dog food was made the same. Which has led me to learning more about equine nutrition. The difference? There are even more areas of learning for horses than dog food (at least in my mind).
I, personally, work with my trainer & food supplier who helps me make decisions for my horse because I am aware that I don’t understand enough to judge for myself. I’ve made the first step to feeding a healthier, better quality feed. But, there is only so much one can learn through textbooks/websites, so my next step was to hear other people’s experiences and learning through them. Why are they doing something, what made them decide to feed what they are currently feeding, what didn’t work for them in the past & why, etc…
On the contrary I’d say a good book like the one by Julie Getty will make things in general much more clear and give you an overview of how the minerals interact, etc. I would suggest reading it cover to cover for an overview of current best practices. You can order it online. Really there are not many components to feeding a healthy horse. Challenges arise when a horse has multiple health problems of course.
COTH has a wealth of information but if you want a full overview of horse nutrition you won’t get it from a chat thread.
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I would also add that while grain fillers in dog food aren’t a great idea, grain in the form of seed heads on grass is a large part of the “natural” diet of horses, IE available in the wild. So grain fed in moderation is perfectly healthy and the old standbys of oats and flax turn out to be better than corn or barley. So overall feeding grain to horses is much better than feeding grain to dogs. I just say this because your comments on exploring dog nutrition made me wonder if you were thinking negatively about grain for horses too.
Oh gosh no. I don’t think negatively about grain for horses, especially the feed that I give my horse now. I really like what I am feeding him now, the owner did a lot of research into her feed, but it isn’t your typical Triple Crown or Purina feed either. While I am doing a lot of reading, I still like hearing other people’s experiences.
THIS is what you take away when a whole bunch of people answer your question with “because the horse needs it”?
This is the wrong venue if you’re looking for wacky, off the wall reasons for feeding grain. People here are well educated and up on their nutrition stuff. If you were to ask what your purple walkerloosa with shivers and ocd and hypp could eat, someone here would have a textbook correct answer with frightening alacrity.
If you’re looking for interesting, you have to go somewhere else. My neighbor feeds grain only when it’s cold, because he heard grain makes them “hot.” Nevermind that people were talking about temperament and not temperature!
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I’d also add that grain is a general term for concentrates and in general use it can refer to actual single grain like oats, to a mixed grain product like sweet feed, or to any number of extruded or pelleted feeds that contain little or no grain, but may contain beet pulp, alfalfa meal, soy beans or husks, or vegetable oil. These last are in fact the most technologically sophisticated as they can provide calories and nutrients without a lot of non structural carbs.
The danger and drawback to grains is nsc which are digested in the small intestine. Horses cannot handle unlimited amounts of nsc in sugar or starch form.
That said, I’ve fed hay with 25 % nsc which is much higher than many of the more sophisticated modern concentrates based on alfalfa or beep.
Really the quality and test scores of your hay are more significant than the relatively small amount of grain or concentrates you feed.
BTW the 25 % nsc hay was low protein coarse first cut that folks thought of as low nutrition pony hay. Yes the pony (not mine!) foundered on it eventually. I stopped feeding it after I got the test results. I suspect it’s been implicated in a few founder cases since and I’m so glad I stopped using it.
So my big nutrition question isn’t so much, why do people continue to feed small amounts of concentrates? But rather, why don’t people test their hay?
And the myth I’d like to bust most is the idea that low protein cheap coarse first cut is also necessarily low sugar and low calories and can be fed free choice.
What, exactly, is wrong with Triple Crown or Purina? And what is it that you like so much about the grain you feed now?
My horse is one that cannot be totally sustained with only hay. Right now, when the horses are eating our first cut, he eats 4lbs of grain and 1/2lb of RB per day, in addition to plenty of hay. Once we have our 2nd cut/the supplemental 2nd cut, he maintains on 2lbs of grain and 1lb of RB per day.
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Most good horsemen that I know have been feeding roughage based diets for decades. It’s not something new. It’s usually the performance horse who need to be supplemented with a concentrate in addition to having free choice hay. Their nutritional demands are too great for hay alone.
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What are you feeding that so much better then TC??? Triple Crown senior is only 11% NSC and a very good feed as are some of other triple crown feeds. Sorry but i highly doubt the owner has more research ,into feed then the big companies do.
My horses get alfalfa hay and it isn’t enough. So alfalfa isn’t the be all end all solution for horses that need more calories. I feed TC senior 6 lbs a day for horse who doesn’t keep weight on with just hay or pasture. Horse can’t eat enough hay or pasture to meet his caloric needs to keep weight on.
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I wonder if that “not your typical TC or Purina” feed is something like Thrive, Total Equine, or Crypto Aero
Not all horses will eat more hay.
Not all people can find, or afford, hay of higher enough quality to provide all the calories and nutrition the horse needs
In the US at least, being able to grow hay of high enough quality to provide all a horse needs for optimal health (not just not-sick health) is difficult to impossible because of soil nutrient depletions
ETA:
For those that have horses that need the grain for energy/weight, assuming you had access to high quality hay & your horse ate all/most of the hay provided, how would your horse react to being provided more alfalfa hay or pellets?
Mine all eat alfalfa pellets in some amount. Everyone gets at least 1/2 for the easy keeping times, and in the past I have added a couple pounds for those needing more weight. They are fine with it. They’d be fine with more than just a couple pounds.
There are many valid and invalid reasons to add or increase a concentrated feed source instead of “simply” feeding more or better hay.
Sometimes it’s a choice between stalling with hay, or being turned out on poor quality pasture but lots of movement, where the horse prefers to nibble lots of sweet little grass nubs instead of eating more/enough higher quality hay, so the only real option is concentrates, as that’s far better than stalling more to force more hay intake.
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“The danger and drawback to grains is nsc which are digested in the small intestine. Horses cannot handle unlimited amounts of nsc in sugar or starch form.”
I guess my TBs never read this chapter. They’ve been on grain, hay, grass their whole lives. All are doing just fine. Have been around plenty have lived well past their late 20s to early 30s. Infirmities of old age were their biggest issues.
I don’t put a lot stock into the “theories” of new-age nutrition for horses. At least not for TBs which is pretty much the only breed I have worked with.
It is well studied and documented that TBs have a much higher metabolism. Anybody that thinks the majority of them can do well on just hay alone regardless has never worked with, bred, raised, trained a lot of TBs. Even TB pasture pets on good grass alone can and do end up very ribby with rafter hips. They would be skin and bones on hay alone in the winter, Even if they ate 40 lbs a day. Hay is not grass, it does not have nearly the nutritional content they need to carry decent weight through the winter.
My pasture pets, around 15 of various ages need around 4-6 lbs of 10% fat, grain per day even when on good grass. 8+ lbs in the winter, 20-25 lbs of hay. And I mean pure grain, not the “filler” types found in most commercial feeds these days regardless of brand. We get our grain feed from a family owned mill and mixed to my needs. Oats, some cracked corn, vegetable based fat pellets and basic mineral supplements.
When a person manages 40 to 60+ on a daily bases at times. They have “numbers” to base their opinions on. Mine maybe subjective but I have done a LOT of personal “research”.
I am sure that there are breeds that can and do just fine on hay and pasture grass. As long as they are basically just being “pasture pets”, living a “natural” life. I don’t know from experience working with other breeds but I don’t think any would maintain good weight and work energy living on hay alone if they are being asked for anything more than being a lazy trail rider, hack around the property type. This is a TOTAL subjective opinion because I have never worked with those kind of horses.
There is no bases in FACT that horses get hot, temperament hot from being feed grain, grass or hay with subjective high sugar content. I have read plenty of “studies” that end with being inconclusive.
I know what I know from working with lots of TBs for various disciplines for many years. To each their own, I rarely comment on “feed threads”. Mainly roll my eyes and move on.
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I didn’t see who original wrote this, so this is directed at them, not you 
Of course they can’t handle unlimited amounts of NSCs. But feeding moderate amounts of even moderately high NSC feeds doesn’t cause real problems for most horses, even if they aren’t in hard work. Exceptions of course are those more sensitive to higher sugar meals, and those with metabolic issues.
NSCs are by default limited. Some diets are just higher than others, and how the horse reacts depends on many other factors. But absolutely, even the healthiest horse is very likely to become laminitic, if not also colic, from a sudden, huge influx of NSCs from “raiding the feed bin”. Even feral horses who suddenly find themselves on lush grass will often founder.
I am sure that there are breeds that can and do just fine on hay and pasture grass. As long as they are basically just being “pasture pets”, living a “natural” life. I don’t know from experience working with other breeds but I don’t think any would maintain good weight and work energy living on hay alone if they are being asked for anything more than being a lazy trail rider, hack around the property type. This is a TOTAL subjective opinion because I have never worked with those kind of horses.
There are many WBs who are in moderate to hard work who are on good weight purely because of the work, as opposed to needing additional concentrated calories to maintain weight while in that work. Pony breeds and Baroque breeds are similar. When I can keep my WB in work, which is moderately hard working Hunter work, so not talking upper level Eventing or similar, that’s when I can remove his muzzle for more hours of the day, more days of the season, to allow him more grass, and still have him come down to a more appropriate weight. He’s not an anomaly
There is no bases in FACT that horses get hot, temperament hot from being feed grain, grass or hay with subjective high sugar content. I have read plenty of “studies” that end with being inconclusive.
It just affects them differently. A meal of Coco Puffs with a Poptart and fruit juice will send me into a Sugar Shake situation, others won’t bat an eye.
I’ve seen too many situations where people have done their own testing with removing, and adding back certain types of food and seen the changes in their horses’ temperaments to not believe there is validity in that. But I also think sometimes a given situation is a self-fulfilling prophecy because of the person’s expectation and subsequent behavior to induce the change they “know” will happen.
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