Grass replacements and alternatives

This summer's prolonged hot, dry weather has left many paddocks looking more like parched deserts than grazing.

As grass growth slows or stops altogether, yards may need to think carefully about maintaining fibre intake and ensuring horses continue to receive a balanced diet.

When grazing becomes sparse, horses can quickly find themselves short of the fibre they need to support digestive health.

While introducing hay or haylage is usually the first step, there are also a range of fibre-based feeds that can help supplement the diet if pasture is limited.

Your choice will depend on the horse’s calorie requirements, how much of the forage ration you want to replace and on the chewing capabilities of the horse in question. 

Choosing the right grass replacement

• For horses who need to control starch and sugar intake, check the labels and look for unmolassed products. Be wary of some dried grass products as, unless they are late-harvested, they may be naturally higher in sugar.
• Low calorie straw-based chaffs are ideal for good-doers, while Speedi-Beet is also useful as a small amount (dry weight) soaks up to a large volume.
• Choose higher calorie alfalfa-based options and those with added oil for poorer-doers, and offer a variety, especially for those who are poor eaters of long forage (hay/haylage).
• Most “fibre feeds” and forage replacers are not fortified with vitamins and minerals and designed to be fed safely alongside the horse’s current bucket feed without causing an imbalance in mineral intake.
• Soaked or easily water-softened products can be beneficial to increase water intake, which may help counteract some of the risks of gut function compromise in the older and/or dentally-challenged horse.
• If the horse can manage a suitable chaff, always feed one as it will occupy the horse for longer than a soaked feed or cube.

Where possible, providing a combination of two or three fibre alternatives adds variety, particularly for those horse who spend more time in their stable.

What to Feed

How to Feed

The aim is to encourage consumption while helping to occupy the horse, as eating long fibre would do.

Horses have a psychological need to chew and saliva, produced when chewing, helps to buffer acid in the stomach – if they are left for long periods of time without the opportunity to chew, this can affect behaviour and have a negative effect on gastric health and gut function.

• Feed forage replacers separately from the horse’s concentrate ration, as a ‘hay net in a bucket’.
• As with all dietary changes, introduce new fibre sources gradually, over 7 to 10 days.
• If a horse is likely to consume them in one go, divide the fibre alternatives offered over as many meals as possible.
• Alternatively, give forage replacers in bigger buckets to graze on during the day/night in the stable/field.
• Chaffs can be fed in separate buckets or mixed with soaked Fibre-Beet or Speedi-Beet.
• Remember to weigh/measure all soaked feeds when dry, before soaking.

Splitting the fibre replacement offered into a number of buckets spread around the stable or paddock will encourage natural foraging behaviour, slow down eating and occupy the horse for longer.

For advice on feeding forage replacers, especially to horses with clinical issues, like PPID or poor dentition, contact Baileys Horse Feeds

Tel: 01371 850247 (option 2)

Email: nutrition@baileyshorsefeeds.co.uk 

Facebook: @BaileysHorseFeeds