Everyone has questions about the type and quantity of feed to provide for their own particular horse. In this book, Ruth Bishop, Horse & Hound columnist and Spillers Horse Feeds nutritionist, explores all the options and offers down-to-earth advice on what to feed.
This is one of the easiest to understand reference books on feed that I’ve come across and is essential reading for all horse owners.
In the introduction the author refers to the phrase “No Hoof, no Horse” which clearly indicates that if you don’t look after the feet, you have an unusable horse, and laments that there isn’t a similar phrase for feeding. But I would like to point out that the two are already linked closely as in recent years we have become more aware of how feed can affect the horse’s feet.
Most feed books don’t have enough information on grass, which is the staple diet for most horses in Australia especially, so its nice to see over a dozen pages devoted to the feeding of grass and hay with some useful tables to gauge how much of these a horse should be given at different times of the year.
Another important aspect covered is the care of teeth and how you feed affecting their health which in turn affects the whole horse’s health.
Not only is the whole spectrum of horse feeds looked at individually, from forages to mixes, to supplements and even treats, there is a chapter on Feeding Principles to help you make the right choices.
Other chapters address feeding to specific requirements such as the older horse, the breeding horse, the orphaned foal, to put on or lose weight. Then Diet related ailments are covered with good basic info on colic, laminitis, ulcers, allergies, choke and even behaviours.
Feeding Myths address sugar in a horse’s diet, Feeding bran and performance boosters while the last chapter helps us understand in lay-mans terms the nutrition fundamentals of water, energy, carbohydrates, oils and fats, minerals and vitamins.
In All, this is a wonderful, easy to understand book on feeding, recently published in 2003 and 2005 for the paperback edition and is published by David & Charles in the UK and available from www.amazon.com for approx. $25.
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