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How much should you feed?

Your horse’s workload will have a bearing on the type of feed you choose and the proportion of forage to concentrates. 

The tables below give recommended feeding amounts for concentrates (mixes or cubes), alongside forage according to your horse’s workload.

Be careful not to over-estimate your horse’s workload – we have given guidelines for workload beside each level to help you choose.

    One to three hours per week, made up of 40% walk,      50% trot and 10% canter. 

    Three to five hours per week, made up of 30% walk, 55% trot, 10% canter and 5% pole work or low jumping.

    Four to five hours per week, made up of 20% walk, 50% trot, 15% canter and 15% galloping and jumping.

If these amounts provide too many calories (your horse gains weight or has too much energy, drop to a feed with a lower Digestible Energy (DE) content or cut back the amount fed and top up with a balancer to reduce calories while keeping the diet balanced.

The image below, shows a rough guide on varying calorie levels of a horse's diet, while keeping nutrient levels fully balanced. (Based on a 500kg horse).

  • Digestible Energy is the estimated energy (calorie) content of the feed and is quoted on an “as fed” basis in Mega Joules per kilogram (MJ/kg). 
  • Feed by weight NOT volume.  Weigh the volume of feed that your particular scoop will hold. 
  • Our packaging, brochure and product pages on this website all tell you what a Stubbs scoop-full, of a particular feed, weighs.
  • Divide the total daily amount into as many feeds, per day, as you possibly can.  Keep meal sizes small for optimum digestion and to avoid overloading the horse’s system.  As a guide, we recommend no more than 0.5kg of mix/cubes/balancer per 100kg bodyweight, per meal.  Do not exceed a total of 1½ - 2 kg (3½ -4 lbs) per feed for a horse and 1¼ - 1½ kg (3 - 3½ lbs), for a pony (including additional chaff or sugar beet pulp, if fed).
  • The feeding guidelines we offer are calculated to provide a fully balanced diet, when fed alongside forage.  They are there to help you and your horse get the best out of the feed.  If you don’t feel you can follow them, get in touch with us, to double check, so we can help you provide the optimum diet for your horse.  You can call our friendly Nutrition team on 01371 850 247 (option 2), email nutrition@baileyshorsefeeds.co.uk or use our Feed Finder now for an instant recommendation.
  • The quantities we recommend are based on ensuring sufficient levels of vitamins, minerals and quality protein are delivered per day, alongside forage.  If you are feeding less than the recommended quantities, so your horse does not get too fat or too difficult to handle, you would be best to try a lower energy/calorie feed instead, or simply top up with a balancer, to achieve a balanced diet while still controlling calories.
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