A question I've always wondered about...

[azbazz]

This must sound really stupid, but I am a non-horse owner so I'll hope you understand my dumbness. :) Anyway, the question I want to ask is, how often is a horse fed in a day? I've always wanted to know but I've never found out.

[cvb]

the simple answer is it depends. Horse's in nature tend to spend a lot of time eating (but not 24 hours, despite what some horses might tell you !).

Us humans tend to try and find a way to get as close to this as possible, whilst maintaining some timetable and reality (people working etc).

Where my horse lives in Sweden they get 4 feeds a day. Breakfast is horsehage and hard feed, lunch is hay out in the field, dinner and supper are horsehage and hard feed. My horse also gets some carrots with supper :)

Its quite useful to be able to give a late night feed (e.g. hay) if your horse is stabled over night, as they are have quite a few hours to cope with not eating otherwise.

If they are out in the summer, they may not get hard feed at all - especially if they are good doers. We tend to still give a token feed to our ponies just to make it easier to give any medicine etc.

[Casper]

In nature they eat 22 hours a day and rotate 2 hours of sleep.

[galadriel]

I feed grain twice a day; I have freely available roughage hay (no real protein) in the pasture during daytime turnout, and I give hay for them to munch at night if they're inside.

It depends :)

[KarinUS]

The horse that will be mine on Monday- if it passes vet check- currently gets fed grain three times a day. He's turned out during the day, but there's no grass in his pasture.
When he moves to my boarding place, he will get fed only twice a day grain, but he has 20 acres of grass pasture all day plus free choice round bales.
From you question I think you were wondering about the active grain feeding and I'd think the most common frequency for that is 2 to 3 times a day.
:)

[Julew]

I feed mixed chaff with carrots etc twice to three times a day plus hay late at night.
when there is feed in the paddocks I cut the hand feeding down to two token feeds which we use as a time to be sociable. In winter when it is cold etc I feed more in quantity.
In summer when the feed is all gone (and this year has been awful) I just feed hay. However you get an eye for your horses condition and know wheter he is gaining or losing weight etc. At least you can if he is around all the time I'm sure it is harder if you agist. So my feeding routine varies as you can see. I work on the basis that horse graze almost continuosly and therefore several smaller feeds ar probably better than one big one. Not everyone has this luxury though. What do others think?

[Mehitabel]

how many feeds of hard feed the horse gets also depends on how much you're feeding it. the stomach of a 16hh horse is about the size of a rugby ball, and with the amount of saliva they produce, it means that the stomach will be full if you feed about half a bucket full. so, if your horse is getting a bucketful of feed a day, you'll need to split it into at least 2 feeds. if it's getting 1 1/2 bucketfuls, it'll need at least 3 feeds. and so on. because the horse's gut is designed to be eating all the time, it's better for the horse to give more small feeds than fewer big feeds. if you feed more than the stomach can take at once, the overflow feed will pass straight into the intestines. it won't have been broken down by the stomach juices, so the horse can't get any nutrition out of it, and it will pass straight through "feeding the muck heap" as the lady who taught me for my exams used to say. it can also give the horse colic if you feed too much at once.

[Wally]

Ours live out all the time, they eat as they want. If they work we feed them a bucket feed, once a day after they have finished work. But you couldn't treat a thin skinned thoroughbred this way. Hairy natives need much more fibre and very little in the way of grain.

[Nickie]

Bren gets 2 feeds unless we go on a hack and then he gets 3.

The usual Breakfast and Dinner feeds are : 1 large scoop of chaff, half scoop mix, half scoop soaked sugar beet.

Breakfast gets 1 section of hay - dinner 2-3 sections.

If I have to do a lunch feed - its one big scoop chaff and half scoop mix - watered down. With a section of hay.

Its funny - he gets loads of 'hard feed' really by standards but feed him any less and he won't budge. You have to feed him rocket fuel to get him to move! :D

N