So I made the decision to switch her feed to something more natural vs. feeding her more of this feed. Horse feed is a lot like dog food in the way that there are often a lot of fillers present. Things like corn meal, etc that don't really have any nutritional value. In my opinion, this feed is not the best feed for a horse to eat.After quite a bit of research and some opinions, I decided to go with alfalfa pellets instead of any type of grain. Alfalfa is a type of hay that is very high in protein. The pellets are basically a compressed version of the alfalfa hay and do not contain any types of grains or sugar of any sort and there is very little processing necessary.
The recommended amount to feed a horse that is trying to gain weight is about 1 pound per 100 pounds of horse. This would mean that Santana would need about 11 pounds per day. Once she is up to a good weight (she is almost there now), you can back the amount down to about 8-9 pounds per day.I also added ground flax seed to her diet. Many people eat this as well. Once ground, the flax seed is a light colored powder that is just sprinkled on the top of her pellets. She is getting about a cup of this per day currently. Once she is up to good weight, I will back this down to 1/2 cup per day. The flax seed adds "good" fat to her diet to help her gain/maintain weight. This also helps tremendously with her coat! She will be gleaming once she sheds her winter coat!
Also, since she is on a straight alfalfa diet, I need to add a multi-vitamin to her diet. A lot of processed feeds contain these vitamins and minerals in them as well as the fillers and sugars, etc. I chose a multi-vitamin that is specially formulated for alfalfa diets and horses that are in medium to heavy work.
I never knew a horse's diet could be so complicated! Back in the day, my horses were super easy keepers. I never really had to think a whole lot about what I was feeding them because they always stayed fat and happy.
