Ensure your horse receives an adequate diet, especially in spring when pastures may be high in water and low in fiber. Provide 10 to 15 pounds of dry hay daily until the pasture matures. For easy-keeping horses, consider using a ration balancer like Purina® Enrich Plus®, fed at 1 to 2 pounds daily, to provide essential nutrients without extra calories, complementing a pasture-based diet.

Do you weigh your horses grain?

The most common practice in many equine stables to serve up grain or supplements is using scoops. Often times the “scoop” is an old coffee can or other similar devices.

When feeding a grain or supplement, giving the proper amount to your horse is important. Feed tags will typically say how many pounds of feed the horse will need for their bodyweight and life stage or work level. Now, there are some scoops available that might have pounds marked on the side, but remember that these scoops still do not indicate the weight of the feed as accurately as your typical kitchen scale will.

Another thing to keep in mind is that different types of feed can have the same volume measure but different weight measures. Therefore, if the feed is not weighted out, and a scoop or good old fashion coffee can is used, the correct amount of feed may not be given to your horse.