sweet feed ratio

Question
hello ma'am, how much % of sweet feed can i add in the feed tub of the horse? can you please mention top 5 sweet feed for horses?

Answer
Hello Rohit,

Thank you for your question.  The rule of thumb is that a horse should never consume more than 50% of it's total daily dry matter intake in grain daily.  That would mean that a 1000 pound inactive horse should eat a maximum of 8 pounds of grain and additives daily and a 1000 pound horse in heavy work should eat a maximum of 16 pounds of grain daily.  When that grain is made up of large quantities of starch, it is important to split the total amount fed daily into many feedings to ensure that the starch is digested  properly.  So the inactive horse should eat at least 2 meals of grain a day (each of 4 pounds) while the horse in heavy work should eat at least 4 meals of grain a day (each of 4 pounds of grain, maximum).  The protein content of the sweet feed will have little impact on the amount that should be fed per feeding.

I hesitate to make recommendations of the "top 5" sweet feeds available for horses as I'm certain you have selections in your country that I will not have heard of.  What I would suggest instead is that you choose a sweet feed that includes little to no corn or barley (or if corn/barley are used that they are either steam flaked or extruded) and that is based more on oats for it's cereal grain source.

Regards, Corlena