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Equine Feeding Tips

Some feeding tips for your horse. A mature pleasure horse should be feed 1.5 to 2 pounds of good-quality grass hay, such as fescue, prairie, brome or orchard grass, per 100 pounds of body weight. Therefore, 1,200-pound horse should eat 21 to 24 pounds of grass hay daily. If legume hay such as alfalfa is fed, feed 1.5 to 1.6 pounds per 100 pounds. So a 1,200-pound horse should be fed 18 to 21 pounds of good-quality legume hay per day. If a horse is not ridden often, hay may be the only feed needed. However, feeding 1-2 pounds of grain daily allows the horse owner to inspect the horse, and it also makes the horse easier to catch. Normally, a pleasure horse in good body condition that is getting good-quality hay or pasture needs little grain. A maximum of 4 - 6 pounds of grain fed daily along with hay or pasture is sufficient. A thin horse, ridden a lot, needs more grain, 6 to 8 pounds per day, until it improves in body condition.