Alright, welcome back, and continuing on this discussion on nutrition, and
I forgot to mention this in the, in the other lectures.
If you really want to get more into nutrition, I
highly recommend Doctor Jo-Anne Murray's equine nutrition course through Coursera.
It's a wonderful five week course that delvs in,
more deeper into equine nutrition and their digestive anatomy.
So, if you really want to learn more I, I highly recommend you
sign up and there should be another offering here in the near future.
Now, in this discussion we're going to kind of talk about what makes up the
diet of the horse, and, and, and really the components of the feed stuffs.
So just as a review, it's always good to
review you know, how much we feed the horse.
Again, like I've said throughout, we're,
we're going to constantly remind you on this,
that we base how much we feed on the weight of the animal.
And that's anywhere from 2 and a half to 3% per day.
And we really base our diets off forage and then go from there.
So, we'll kind of talk about each component
and the first one obviously is, is the forage.
And this can be in the form of pasture or hay.
And in the next lecture, we're going to
really jump into, get deeper into pasture management.
But pasture can be the only source of forage for these animals.
And it's actually, you know, excellent source of forage.
Now the other, next component is some sort of concentrate or gr, or grain.
Now, again, especially for these horses on these maintenance
diets, you don't always have to provide grain or concentrate.
Don't think you have to.
And the reason we do provide this in the diet
is because we're asking these animals to do things that they
normally don't do, you know, they're going to go riding, they're going to
go jumping, they're going to go dancing, dressage, those types of things.
And those, those increase the caloric requirements and the protein requirements
and other nutrients, so that's why we introduce grain in concentrate.
Now, I will say this and this will get into some health management, too.
It may be worth while to, to, even on a
horse on a maintenance diet, that should be purely forage.
Maybe a good idea to give them a little bit of
grain twice a day, you know, or at least once a day.
But, you know, if you could, twice a day, to have them come up
and you can inspect them daily, and see them daily, and interact with them daily.
So, it's a good management ta, tip or tool to use.