WTA
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Sep 23, 2007, 10:23 AM
Post #27 of 27
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This time of year my horses are on pasture 24 hours a day. I've got two giant bermuda pastures they are being rotated in right now and starting in November they will be on two pastures planted in whea, rye and triticali.
My thoroughbred is a hard keeper in that she is hard to keep weight on in the active summer months. I don't know why as she works less than any other horse here. We were feeding her about 3 to 4 flakes of hay twice a day along with patriot performance horse feed at 5 pounds a day according to the instructions. Still she got a little ribby in the hot summer. It wasn't worms.
What I really can't figure out about the horses is that my hardest working and most hyper horse gets fat too easy. Almost overnight. He's an American warmblood and I'm always going on 20 mile rides, working cattle and chasing coyotes off the property with him. He breaks a sweat in anticipation just seeing me come with the saddle. He just loves to go! After only 5 minutes of riding he's usually got a solid stream of sweat pouring off his belly. None of the other horses are this active ever and this one is the one that I have to watch closely for getting overweight. It's a pain in my tail, literally, having to exercise him so much. I wish thoroughbreds were this easy to keep weight on though.
Now she's filled back out perfectly and not getting anything but the grass in the pasture. She's nice and shiny again and looking great. GO figure. I think next year I'm not going to bother with feed at all either. I'm just going to rotate them around the pastures somehow with our baling schedule.
Baling hay is the only reason I take them off in the summer but I'll figure it out. I think the horses are always at their best when on a good lush pasture.
Red-Roof-Ranch
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