increase concentrates or forage as body weight gain

Question
hello ma'am. i read an article about feeding a horse by its body weight and the formula is (body weight X 2.5)/100. in that 30% should be concentrates and 70% forage. so, my question is. if the body weight increases, should i increase concentrates or forage ratio?

Answer
Hello Caine,

Thank you for your question.  There is no minimum amount of grain that a horse needs to have in their diet, nor is there a set grain to forage ratio.  When formulating a ration for horses, there are some generalizations about how much a horse will eat in a day.  Generally, horses are estimated to consume anywhere from 1.5-3% of their body weight in dry matter daily, assuming an average energy density of the dry matter.  But really, a horse eats to meet its energy requirement, and the dry matter intake ranges are assuming average to high quality (in terms of energy density) feeds.  A horse doing no work would consumer 1.5% of its body weight in dry matter provided it is eating moderate quality feed.  However, the same horse would eat more dry matter daily if eating low energy feed, and more if eating high energy feeds. Horses light work eat approximately 2% body weight in dry matter, moderate work eat 2.5% and heavy work 3% assuming average energy density of the feed.

If you want to try and formulate a ration for your horse, you need to determine its body weight, workload and in turn its daily energy requirements.  Then you figure out what the energy density of your main forage is, calculate whether or not (given its estimated daily intake) it can eat enough of that forage in a day to meet the energy requirements and if not, then figure out how much grain to add to round out the energy requirements.

Keep in mind that as a horse gains weight, its energy requirements change as does its estimated daily dry matter intake.  You will want to readjust your ration as your horse gets closer to its bodyweight/BCS goals and not necessarily always keep the same ration in place.

Thanks, Corlena