Discussion Post - March
Due April 10th at 11:59 PM
Topic for this month: Horse Nutrition & Feeding Decisions 🐴🍽️
Proper nutrition plays a major role in a horse’s overall health, performance, and longevity. What you feed directly impacts everything from body condition and topline to behavior and energy levels.
This month, instead of going out and finding your own resources, you’ll be listening to a podcast that breaks down how to actually make feeding decisions for your horse in a practical, real-world way.
🎧 Podcast Link:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/platinum-performance-podcast/id1535855327?i=1000729328607
Our Assignment (250+ words):
After listening to the podcast, reflect on the following:
What is one key takeaway you learned from this episode?
What do you agree with from the podcast, and why?
What do you disagree with or question, and why? (It’s okay to not agree with everything, form your own opinions!)
How does this relate to your horse’s current feeding program?
Is there anything you would change or pay closer attention to moving forward?
Nutrition is a big passion of mine and I am always wanted to learn more on how I can do better for my horses. A big takeaway i learned from teh episode was just how much nutrition can impact your horses heath and how it can help or worsen certain medical problems. Many people when they have a health issue with there horse need to take a big look into what they are acually feeding and WHY they are feeding that. One thing I agree with in the podcast is increasing grain and concentrate increases colic risk. I think feeding horses high amounts of concentrated proccessed feed is first of all unnessasasrty and a risk to their health. They are meant to graze throughout the day have have forage in there stomach at all times not large amounts of grain that they can not process well. Though grain can be very helpfull for some horses. Most horses are just fine without grain and concentrates, they need long stem forage and vitamins and minerals. One question I still have is what type of long stem forage is best for horses? I understand that horses should have long stem forage should be avaliable at all times but I still dont fully understand the different types of grass hay and legumes and why we feed what type of hay, This podcast relates to my horses burrent feeding program as I take careful consideration of what Luna eats. currently she is on 24/7 pasture, 1 flake of alfalfa hay and grass hay when needed, a balancer and alfalfa pellets, and salt/electrolytes. I feel Lunas feeding program follows what they were talking about in the podcast as she does not eat overlly processed grains and she is getting all her vitamins and minerals, and she grazes all day. Moving forward I would like to focus more on hay quality, thankfully we have a good hay suppler but I have not taken into consideration testing the hay or looking at nurtient analasys.