Short of forage? Don’t despair – Dengie’s here to help with its range of forage replacers

Keeping horses happy and healthy over the winter is hard when quality forage is difficult to find.

(Image credit: Matthew Bishop Photography)

If you are finding yourself short of forage for your horses, then Dengie has the ideal solution with its range of short chop or pelleted fibre feeds. These can be used as partial or full forage replacers to ensure every horse or pony’s ration is right for them.

Lack of grazing

As horse owners battle on through a wet British winter, the challenge of providing enough forage for our horses has been compounded by last summer’s drought, which affected grazing and availability of forage in many areas. Using a forage replacer is a useful alternative to hay or haylage and can make the forage you do have last longer. Using a couple of kgs (the typical weight of a section of a small bale of hay) each day is practical for most people and will provide between 20-25% of a 500kg horse’s minimum daily forage requirement, making a significant difference.

Sometimes your forage or grazing is just too good for your horse or pony, which is often the case with a good doer. Using a low calorie chopped fibre feed can help to reduce the overall calories provided by the forage. Dengie Meadow Lite with Herbs is a soft blend of grass and straw with tasty herbs and post-biotics to maintain digestive health. Naturally low in sugar at just 3% – a typical grass hay would be about 10% simple sugar – and starch at 0.5%, it can be fed ad-lib as a low-calorie forage replacer. Alternatively opt for Dengie Hi-Fi Lite, a straw and alfalfa blend with a light molasses coating. Owners can offer a large tub trug of either short chop feed to help keep the good doer chewing and occupied while stabled.

At the other end of the spectrum, poor grazing or late cut forages are likely to be less nutritious. For horses with increased nutritional requirements, such as young, old and those in work, it may well not be enough to maintain their condition. Using a higher calorie chopped fibre feed is a good alternative to provide extra calories without relying on cereal-based feeds. This can be particularly useful for those horses whose behaviour deteriorates when fed cereals. Dengie Meadow Grass with Herbs & Oil and Dengie Performance Fibre can be fed up to 1kg per 100kg of bodyweight per day as partial forage replacers.

A compromised ability to chew is not just a problem for older horses and ponies as diastemas (gaps between teeth which can become packed with feed and lead to decay) are increasingly being diagnosed in horses of all ages. If the horse can still manage a short chop then one that can be used as a complete forage replacer is a good starting point. Examples include Dengie Hi-Fi Senior which can be fed to horses of any age and combines grass and alfalfa. It should be fed on a weight for weight basis to replace hay. If the horse can no longer manage any chopped fibre then Dengie Pure Grass Pellets can be soaked and fed as a mash alongside other soaked feeds such as Dengie Alfa-Beet. As these feeds are fed soaked, they can also help to increase water intake so are great to use in cold weather when your horse may be more reluctant to drink.

Offering a bucket or two of chopped fibre alongside the usual forage ration is a great way to keep your horse interested and encourage foraging behaviour especially when stabled for longer periods. This is beneficial for all horses and ponies but may be particularly useful for those with limited appetites or fussy feeders where offering a variety of fibre sources may help to increase the overall intake.

Not all feeds can be used as a forage replacer for horses – they must be high fibre and low starch, as well as being nutritionally comparable to forage to be suitable
Feeding insufficient forage or forage replacer, and therefore fibre, increases the risk of digestive issues including colic and loose droppings. Make sure you weigh a forage replacer to ensure you are feeding enough
A minimum of 1.5% of bodyweight on a dry matter basis should be provided daily when totally replacing the usual forage ration. For a 500kg horse this is 7.5kg dry matter and given that many forage replacers are around 90% dry matter this equates as 8.3kg of forage replacer as fed (7.5/0.9)
Forage replacers for horses can’t be fed in a net and instead should be fed in a large wide bottomed bucket. Putting a football on top of the feed can help to slow the rate of intake and make the forage replacer feed last for longer. This encourages trickle feeding to help maintain digestive health
Like all dietary changes a forage replacer should be introduced gradually into the ration over a period of at least two to three weeks. Once a forage replacer has been gradually introduced it is appropriate to leave larger amounts, as you would a haynet.