MizzRibbon

My best friend has 7 gorgeous horses. She and her husband are in a big disagreement of how often they should feed those horses grain during the Summer. He thinks once a day is sufficient and she thinks it should always be twice a day year around. What do you all think? Should grain feed be cut back in the Summertime?

katie

I had not thought about the fact that their eating habits might change with the seasons. This is something I would like to know too. It would be bad to over or under feed your horse and not know better.

clip-clop

Its not just about the number of times or the time of year. Horses always do better with many small feedings based on the way they digest, it helps to prevent colic as well. Depending on how much pasture grass and hay they get in the summer and their work load and caloric needs they may need more grain or less, and twice a day feedings are probably the minimum suggested amount, one in the morning and one in the evening with grazing/hay all day.

And you'd know if you were under or overfeeding your horse based on their flesh condition.

MizzRibbon

These horses are not work horses at all. They used to be show horses and some of them were barrel horses, but now that my friends have gotten older they no longer do this. They are ridden a few times a month and basically kept as pets. They have plenty of land to graze all day and I'm assuming that's why my friends husband feels it's only necessary to feed them grain in the evenings. Although to look at them, they look like they are doing very well and are as healthy as always.

RidingWild

Some of my horses are work horses while others are more like pets, as well as for leisure riding.
The work horses eat a lot more then the pet ones so I feed the work horses more then once per day. The best person to ask is always the vet

alexis

My aunt and uncles horse is only for a pet and can do grain once a day, but the amount is spilt in half so its really two times a day in the smaller feeding's as someone else mentioned. This is in the summer time only though too.

MorganManiac

Gram always did this and so have I. The vet knows how often and how much I feed them and has never said anything either way. I would think he would have if I was doing something wrong so I think twice is a good amount.

Katie14

I work my horse 6 days a week. She's a 9 year old mare oldenburg. i do hunters. i give her 2 flakes of timothy (three times a day) and at scoop of grain every single day. she's pretty fit.