TIME BUDGETING

Horses in the wild spend approximately the following amounts of time in certain activities:

60% Eating
20% Standing (incuding resting)
10% Lying down
10% Locomotion and Socialising.

Our ideal, in managing horses well, should be to try to follow the "guidelines" provided by this natural schedule of equine "time budgeting" as closely as we can.

We all know how crucial food is if we want to keep horses happy!

The horse is designed to live of his natural diet of succulent green grass.
Because the stomache of the horse is very small, it can only store a very small amount of food at any given time. The result of this is that the horse in the wild would spend much of his time grazing.
He takes in only little amounts of food over long periods of time to obtain enough energy.
Because the natural diet of the horse is fresh vegetation, it's digestive tract is adapted to digest and extract nutrients from high- fibre food.

So when we're feeding horses, we must be aware of their natural feeding habits and behaviour patterns.

The horse's digestive system is adapted to a system of feeding Little and Often.

For healthy functioning of the digestive tract, the horse requires plenty of Fibre in his diet.

Fresh Green Forage provides many of the essential Vitamins and Minerals that the horse needs to stay fit.

Eating Slowly Aids Digestion, so, time spent eating a quantity of hay can be prolonged by feeding it in a haynet.

Concentrate meals should not be "bolted" either. The addition of chop or chaff to feeds can help to slow down hungry horses once their heads are in the manger.