The cornerstone of your horse's diet, after water, MUST be forage. Horses are designed as forage feeders. They require a minimum of 1 ½ to 2% of their bodyweight daily for a healthy digestive tract and a happy horse.

Forages come in several different forms:
BALED: rectangular, compressed and 4x5 round
CHOPPED: Dengie, Lucerne Farms Timothy Plus Alfalfa, Lucerne Farms Alfalfa Plus, Spillers/Seminole Showing Chaff and Lucerne Farms Totally Timothy
CUBED: Seminole Alfalfa Cubes
PELLETED: Seminole Alfalfa Pellets

There are several popular types of forages available in and around the South.
Alfalfa, Timothy-Alfalfa, Orchard-Alfalfa, Timothy, Coastal Bermuda and Perennial Peanut.
It would take another complete article to give the pros and cons of each type of hay, but for more information, refer to a pervious article, titled Winter Munchies in the Winter 2002 issue of ec magazine.

In feeding forages, no matter the type chosen, we need to consider the importance of the hindgut portion of the equine digestive system. If the horse's entire digestive tract were stretched out from end to end, it would measure over 100 feet in length! Horses have a cecum and a large colon, and in unison, form a portion of the hindgut, which functions as a fermentation vat, where billions of microbes and protozoa produce enzymes that break down and help to digest the cellulose, or plant fibers. The hindgut is considered the "work horse" of the equine digestive tract due to this continual work load it must endure.

Listed below is a guideline on the amount of forage required based on the horse's activity level and bodyweight.

Weanlings: 0.5-1.0% of body weight
Yearlings: 1.0-1.5% of body weight
Performance/high activity horses: 0.8-2.0% of body weight
Mature, low activity: 2.5-2% of body weight
Lactating mares: 1.0-2.0% of body weight

The key to this guideline is knowing your horse's body weight. The most accurate way to determine a horse's body weight is to use a weight scale. Horse weighing services are provided courtesy of Seminole Feed at many horse shows and events around the Southeast. When a weight scale is not available, visual evaluation and weight tapes will need to be employed, although they can be highly inaccurate. Eyeballing the weight, even by a professional horseman, can be off by as much as 150 lbs!

To properly provide an adequate volume of forage, you must also weigh your hay. Don't guess at what a flake weighs - put it on a scale and verify. Knowing what your horse weighs and what the hay weighs will help you feed enough forage, which will ultimately help you prevent many equine health problems that are due to lack of forage .