now salt??

Question
QUESTION: Hello,

I am trying to balance my rations again this year but I do not remember where I was able to find the moisture content or dry matter of my feeds. I am feeding Brooks feed and Pestell's beet pulp. Do I contact the feed mills or am I able to find the information somewhere else?

Thank  you.

ANSWER: Hi Ali,

Thank you for your question.  It's nice to see that you're balancing your rations...you've clearly been taught well!

Commercial feeds are routinely 89-90% DM and beet pulp is 88%DM.  Their DM is very consistent so you shouldn't have to check with the company every time.

Thanks, Corlena

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello again,

I have fed loose salt for a few years now but have never bothered to put it in my ration calculation. Should I include it? And if so what is the information on plain, loose, mixing salt?

Thank you

Answer
Hi Ali,

Thank you for your question.  I would say that it's not really necessary to add your loose salt into your ration calculations...for 2 reasons.  Firstly, we normally like to keep track of how much dry matter a horse is eating in its ration as there is an expectation that a horse can only eat so much in one day.  However, that assumption is based on the actuality that the horse eats to fulfill an energy requirement and that feedstuffs are of an average energy density.  Since salt brings absolutely no energy to the ration, it does not really need to be accounted for in daily dry matter intake.  Secondly, and further to the first point, salt is completely water soluble and will dissolve in water without creating any additional volume in the digestive tract...assuming that it really doesn't create any dry matter or gut fill.

I hope that helps.

Regards, Corlena