Part One: "How much do you feed your horses?"

We often get asked how much our horses eat/drink. Even horsey people are sometimes surprised at the answers.

Here is the answer for our Percherons (our Norwegian, much to his little tubby dismay, get's MUCH less):

1) We drool over hay trucks on the highway like this.
GOOD HAY: 30-45 lbs daily per horse
12-13% protein, super clean, barn-stored Bermuda (Coastal or Tipton 85) grass hay - more in winter, less in summer; year-round, more for our highest-metabolism burner than our lowest one. Which are the best types of hay varies across the country. We can get very good Coastal here.

2) Is water a food? Yes!!!
CLEAN WATER: Between 10 and 35 gallons daily
The amount consumed depends on temperature/exercise and we watch each horse's individual consumption like a hawk. We top off 45 gallon containers of fresh water at home twice daily if necessary. They are emptied and scrubbed every 1-3 days as no dirt or algae is allowed in their water. We carry a 50 gallon drum of fresh water in our trailer, keep fresh water on our carriages for them at work, plus know all the faucets in downtown Austin!

3) BALANCED FEED: 9-13 lbs/day each (1 1/4 - 2 LARGE scoops twice daily) based on individual needs.
We feed a 14% protein, alfalpha-based, vitamin/mineral balanced pelleted equine feed. Our highest metabolism horse gets an additional 2 lbs/day (split in half) of 12% sweet feed mixed in to encourage him to finish the quantity of pelleted feed he needs.

[You have to be careful not to overfeed in a single feeding. We've fostered horses that were fed 3/times/day to get the number of calories in without risk of colic/laminitis.]

4) SUPPLIMENTS: Mineral salt blocks + other suppliments.
One of our Percherons receives hoof suppliments. Gradual (no more than 1/8 cup/day increase) vegetable oil is our preferred safe method of increasing calories in super cold winters (- risk of colic/laminitus from grain). Our Norwegian recieves joint suppliments.

So there you have it. Horses by the ton like to eat and drink by the ton! We like to keep ours healthy and happy so we are busy servers!