Hygiene Of Feeding And Watering Horses

2023 Author: Molly Page | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 12:33

Hygienic monitoring of feed quality is a significant contribution to the prevention of gastrointestinal diseases in horses.

It is important to remember that grain with high moisture content undergoes warming and becomes a favorable environment for the growth of botulism bacteria, which produce a strong poison that often affects horses, and therefore the grain moisture content should not exceed 16%.

Grain that emits a musty and putrid smell should not be allowed to feed. Visually, the poor quality of forage, in particular oats and barley, can be judged by the loss of gloss and darkening of its surface, as well as by the presence of dark spots at the ends of the grains. The grain intended for feeding should not have a large amount of harmful impurities (cockle, intoxicating chaff, smut, ergot). According to zoohygienic rules, grain should not contain more than 0.2% smut, 1 cockle and 2% chaff. Contamination of grain feed with earth and sand is also unacceptable.

Failure to comply with the above requirements for the quality of the fed grain can cause massive poisoning in horses, gastrointestinal disorders and colic. Such diseases can sometimes lead to the death of animals.

In the composition of the grain ration, it is allowed to introduce corn (up to half of the total amount of grain), the quality of which is subject to certain requirements. Good quality corn should be dry and clean, moisture content not exceeding 17%. To maintain alertness and prevent obesity in horses, no more than 1/3 of corn should be added to their diet.

Horses are often given bran and oil cakes as feed. Good bran should not have stubborn or moldy lumps; their permissible moisture content is 12%. The best cake for feeding horses is considered to be flaxseed and sunflower. Their good quality is characterized by the absence of mustiness, bitterness and mold. The moisture content for all types of cake is not more than 10-11%. The maximum daily supply of oilcakes: linseed - 3 kg, sunflower - 2, cotton - 0.5 kg.

Related article Feeding Horses

The best concentrated horse feeds are oats and barley. In foreign practice, a feed mixture of 12 parts of corn, 4 parts of oats and 1 part of cake is widely used, as well as other types of compound feed.

Root crops (carrots and beets) are very useful food for horses, which are recommended to be fed thoroughly cleaned of dirt and finely chopped. The daily rate of root crops should not exceed 10 kg.

An important part of the horse's diet is roughage (hay and spring straw). The good quality of hay is characterized by the following features: green color, aromatic odor, moisture content 15-17%, the content of poisonous herbs does not exceed 1%, the absence of rust fungi.

The best straw for feeding horses is considered to be oat straw, which has not lost its fresh smell, with a moisture content of 14-16%. Straw should not be used if it is rotten, musty, moldy, icy, too dusty, rusty or powdery mildew.