Feeding horses and donkeys, step by step
Interactive lesson: feeding horses and donkeys — feed-room rules, how much hay and what kind, grazing without laminitis, oats only for work, water, salt and body condition.
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The whole lesson as text
1. How horses and donkeys eat
Little, often, and always hay.
- Hay first — Hay first, grain after. A handful of hay before oats settles the stomach.
- Little and often — Three or more feeds a day, and hay at night. A horse should never go more than 4–6 hours without something to chew, and a small-mesh haynet slows eating.
- Same time — Feed at the same time every day. The horse gets used to it; irregular feeding causes stress and crib-biting.
- Water always — A horse without water stops eating and gets impaction colic.
Why: A horse has a small stomach and a long gut, and in the wild it eats for 14 to 16 hours a day. Colic and laminitis are the commonest reasons horses die or become unusable, and they nearly always start at the feed bucket.
- Whole grains and long fibres in the droppings mean a tooth problem.
- Every change of feed takes 10–14 days: don't change the hay, the oats or the grazing suddenly.
2. How much hay
Hay is the foundation of the ration; grain is an extra.
- Horse: 1.5–2 % — A 500 kg (1,100 lb) horse at rest gets 8–10 kg of good, late-cut meadow hay a day. Working, 10–12 kg, plus oats.
- Donkey: less — A 180 kg donkey gets 3–4 kg a day, up to a third of it as barley or oat straw. Good horse feed makes it fat.
- Weigh the slices — Weigh 5–10 slices (flakes) or small bales and remember the average. A slice is roughly 1.5–2.5 kg, and a hanging luggage scale is enough.
- Reserve — Always allow a 10–15 % reserve. Hay gets wasted, and winter can drag on into May.
Why: A horse needs roughly 1.5–2 % of its body weight in hay a day, a donkey 1.3–1.8 %. Never less than 1 % of body weight. In cold and wind, and for an old or thin animal, you need more.
- “Half a bale” is not a measure: two bales from the same stack can differ by a third.
- For a 180-day winter a horse at rest needs roughly 1,500–1,800 kg of hay, a donkey roughly 700 kg.
3. What kind of hay · Locked
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4. Grazing and the changeover to grass · Locked
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5. Oats only for work · Locked
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6. Water, salt and condition · Locked
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