Horse feed chart template: amounts and instructions

What a feed chart is for

As long as you feed yourself, the chart lives in your head. It goes wrong the day someone else feeds (the yard owner, the sharer, the neighbour during your holiday) and asks the question you can’t answer because you are in a meeting: “how much of that white powder was it again?”. A feed chart is the answer to that question, in advance.

The second purpose is you. Writing the ration down shows what you actually give: three supplements of which two do the same, a feed left over from the previous owner, a course that was really finished last week. That also shows you what you can drop.

What goes on it

• The horse’s name, and with several horses: one chart per horse.
• Per meal the time and what goes in: “7:30: 750 g maintenance pellets, 25 g magnesium”, or, better for anyone without scales: “one blue scoop, one level measuring spoon”. Measure it once and write down what it is.
• How you prepare it, where it matters: dampen, pellets first then the powder, soak ten minutes.
• Hay: how much a day and how divided (two nets, ad lib, soaked).
• Water: where, and what to check (trough clean, break ice in winter).
• What is temporary: a course, a trial, extra hay after the dentist, less hard feed while out at grass, each with the last day.
• What he must not have: no carrots (sugar-sensitive), no feed from the horse next door, no grass on the path.
• Who to call in doubt, and the date of the chart.

Changing things without trouble

1. One change at a time

   New feed and a new supplement and more hay in the same week: if something goes wrong you won’t know why. Change one thing, then watch for a week.

2. Switch feed over seven to fourteen days

   Mix the new feed into the old in steps: a quarter, half, three quarters. The gut flora has to change along.

3. New chart, new date

   If you change something, make a new chart and throw the old one away. Two versions side by side is where most mistakes come from.

4. Say it, and hang it up

   A message in the group disappears among twenty others. The chart by the feed bin stays.

How much, and how often

The base of every ration is forage: hay, grass, haylage. A horse is built to chew for many hours a day; the rule of thumb is one and a half to two per cent of its bodyweight a day, and never more than four to six hours without. Hard feed is the supplement (for work, for a thin horse, for a horse that doesn’t manage on hay alone) and comes in small portions, at most 2 kg (4–5 lb) at a time, over two or three meals.

What your horse needs exactly depends on weight, work, age and on what the hay already brings. That is a question for your vet or an independent nutritionist; with a hay analysis you really know what you are adding. This page says how to keep the chart, not what should be in it.

Frequently asked