The Nutritional Needs of Horses and Ponies
Horses and ponies require a careful balance of nutrients to remain fit and healthy throughout their lives, from protein and fibre to vitamins and minerals.
However, a diet solely dependent on forages, such as grass from grazing, hay, and haylage, tends not to meet these vitamin and mineral requirements in full, and it is necessary to look for other ways to ensure the horse’s diet is balanced.
In this article, we look at fibre-based concentrate feeds and how they may be a suitable option for your horse.
Not only does this type of concentrate feed increase fibre, which is a key component of the horse’s diet but it also includes a broad-spectrum vitamin and mineral supplement for their daily requirements.
Mollichaff Complete Feeds
When concentrate feeds are fed at the recommended amounts, along with a good quality forage this will help to provide a healthy balanced diet.
Mollichaff’s complete range has the added benefit that it is fibre-based and formulated with a unique combination of ingredients and fully fortified.
This means we have already mixed everything for you, saving you time and there is no need to purchase several different bags of feed and supplements. Which in turn, will reduce the feeding costs and save storage space.
Mollichaff complete feeds also promote a more natural diet for your horse by feeding a fibre-based ration which has digestive, psychological, and physiological benefits for horses.
The Mollichaff range includes four complete high fibre feeds, suitable for horses, ponies, and donkeys with varied requirements.
Mollichaff HoofKind Complete is specially formulated for good doers and laminitis-prone horses and ponies with controlled levels of high-quality protein and restricted calories.
It’s low in starch and sugar and contains no cereals, whilst providing a balanced blend of oat straw, alfalfa, fibre pellets, soya oil, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, antioxidants, and includes a higher level of biotin to support hoof quality and growth.
Mollichaff Calmer Complete is a complete feed designed to reduce anxiety and help support a calm, focused response in excitable or nervous horses and ponies. It’s low in sugar and starch and contains a combination of added magnesium, camomile, lemon balm, and mint which are known for their calming and soothing qualities.
Mollichaff Condition Complete is a blend of alfalfa, dried grass, oat straw, fibre pellets, barley, soya flakes, soya oil, and mint. It also includes a probiotic (Yea-sacc®), a prebiotic, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, making it suitable for horses and ponies that need to gain weight or those that are in harder work and struggle to maintain their condition.
Mollichaff Donkey is a highly palatable complete feed specifically designed to cater to the unique nutritional needs of donkeys and mules. It can be used as a total forage replacer or alongside good quality forage at recommended levels, requiring no further supplementation.
Does your horse need a calorie-controlled diet with no additional concentrate feeds – just forage?
If your horse does not need the extra calories from a concentrate feed, a balancer or vitamin and mineral supplement can provide essential micronutrients needed for optimum health, to balance the deficiencies in forage alone.
They are perfect for mixing with a low-calorie chaff such as Mollichaff Light Molasses Free and Mollichaff DailyFibre.
If you’d like to discuss which of our complete feeds is most suitable for your horse or pony, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our expert team – We’re always happy to help.
Alternatively, if you’d like to get a free sample in the post to try before you buy a whole bag, you can get one here.
Click these links if you would like to read more about equine nutrition, or horse feeding advice.
