Bluegrass News
1. Should I feed something along with hay?
Yes, whilst hay can provide adequate calories for your horse there will be a shortfall of key nutrients including protein, vitamins and minerals, this can be made up with adding a daily allowance of Stamm 30 balancer to meet their requirements. Aim to feed a minimum of 1.5% (dry weight) of body weight per day in hay, and ensure your horse always has access to freshwater. Ideally, we want to provide ad-lib hay but in some cases of weight management, this may not be possible.
2. How do I increase stamina and energy levels?
After considering health and exercise conditioning programmes, the diet may provide the answer to helping achieve their full potential. This will entail optimising energy sources to compliment your horse’s workload by either providing quick-release energy sources through high-quality cereals or by incorporating high fat density sources to optimise slow-release energy stores. Products such as Bluegrass Hi-Performance Mix or Bluegrass Cool N Condition Cubes are examples of these two options.
3. How much do I feed my horse?
There are lots of factors that will impact how much you feed, such as body weight, condition score, age, workload, or pregnancy status. As a basic rule, it is recommended to feed a minimum of 1.5% of bodyweight dry matter per day based on a 500kg horse. A concentrate feed can then be added to the diet to meet additional energy, proteins, vitamins and mineral needs.
Example- 500kg horse to be fed 2% of bodyweight dry matter per day = 10kg of hay per day
Click here to fill out a diet request form to receive a free tailored diet plan for your horse
4. When can I feed before exercise?
This depends on the type of feed and intensity of exercise. It is recommended not to feed a contrate meal less than 3 hours prior to exercise. It is good practice to feed a fibre source such as chaff, hay or something like Bluegrass Turmash, 20-30 minutes before exercise to promote saliva production acting as a natural buffer to the acidic conditions of the stomach.
5. Does protein give my horse energy?
Protein is an essential component in your horses’ diet, especially for growth, development and performance. Protein is made up of amino acids which are divided into essential (must be provided in the diet) and non-essential (synthesised by the horse).
In performance or breeding feed products you often find higher protein levels to accommodate the extra requirements, however, this is often coupled with extra energy requirements and so higher cereal and fat content is also found.
Protein provides little energy to our horse but is mistaken as the main cause, due to the higher energy content associated with higher protein feeds.
6. Are your horse feed bags recyclable?
Most Bluegrass products are packaged in low-density polyethene 100% recyclable plastic.
Paper feed bags can contain coatings to protect against the oils and moisture from the feed making them non-recyclable. However, many of the Bluegrass paper bags are recyclable and don’t contain this coating. Contact your local recycling centre for more information on appropriately disposing of your feed bags
7. Is there a benefit to getting my forage analysed?
Yes, it’s a quick and easy way to find out the nutritional quality of your forage and in doing so find out if you are under or over supplementing your horse’s diet. Our nutritional consultants are on hand to advise you on the most suitable diet for your horse based on the forage analysis.
8. Why is my horse chewing wood?
Wood chewing is something we might see more common during winter months when turnout, exercise and roughage is restricted. Horses are designed to chew continuously throughout the day on high fibre diets, when this is restricted, they may source fibre through chewing wood. It can also be a behaviour developed from boredom. Offering regular turnout, social interaction with other horses, slow feeders for forage and fencing off or painting fences with protected coatings can help to reduce wood chewing.
9. Do I need to add salt to my horses’ diet?
Salt (sodium Chloride) is an important element to your horses’ diet with NRC guidelines suggesting 25g per day for a horse at rest. Increased exercise levels and hotter temperatures will impact the amount of salt required.
A free choice salt block should always be available, or you can add salt such as table salt to your horses feed. Forage and hard feed may not meet their daily requirements and often horses may source sodium from other sources such as soil or fencing.
10. My Pony is overweight and on a restricted forage, do I still need to give it hard feed?
When feeding an overweight pony it is important to ensure their diet is still balanced, forage often lacks some key nutrients and this is more prominent when feeding lower-quality forage. Providing a low-calorie balancer such as Bluegrass Stamm 30, will help to provide the key protein, vitamins and minerals without the risk of weight gain.
11. What should I feed if my mare isn’t producing enough milk?
During lactation, a mare will produce around 2-4% of their body weight in milk per day. If they are on an appropriate stud feed and good quality forage to meet the increased protein, energy and nutrient requirements from lactation, it could be that your mare does not naturally produce a lot of milk. To avoid disruption to the foal's growth, you can start to introduce Bluegrass XL-ENT foal pellets.
12. How much does a Bluegrass feed scoop hold?
This varies within our product range, some cubes & mixes are heavier than others. If you are unsure contact our nutritional helpline.
Most Cubes are between 1.2-1.3kg/scoop. (Apart from Race Horse Cubes & Fastrak Cubes, they are 1.5kg/scoop)
Mixes are between 1kg- 1.2kg/scoop
