Requirements & ration planning
What does my horse need and how is it calculated?
Body condition, weight and workload determine requirements. How energy, protein and mineral requirements are made up.
Calculating your horse's weight: weight tape, calculator and limits of measurement
Heart girth and body length let you approximately calculate the weight of an adult horse. What matters are fixed measuring points, careful technique and an honest look at the limits of the formula.
6 min readRead
Overweight horses: assessing the ration and forage
Document body condition and feed intake in a traceable way, check additional energy sources and have feeding changes supported by a specialist.
5 min readRead
Feed for muscle building in horses: check the whole ration
How to look at training goal, body condition, energy and usable amino acids together before you add a muscle-building feed.
6 min readRead
Horse not gaining weight: check ration and feed intake
What information you can gather on weight, forage and actual intake, and when the causes need to be investigated by your vet.
6 min readRead
Does every horse need complementary feed?
No – the basis is always forage, water and salt. Complementary feed only where there is a justified need, not on the principle of “the more, the better”. The better question is not “Which supplement?” but “What does the whole ration look like?”
7 min readRead
Body condition score and weight
Body condition is not judged by kilograms alone. The Henneke scale (1–9) is widely used in practice; nutrient requirements scale with metabolic body weight.
5 min readRead
Calculating horse nutrient requirements: the formulas
Why requirements scale with metabolic body weight, how energy, protein and mineral requirements are made up – and why the key constants have to come from tables, not from gut feeling.
8 min readRead
Feeding advice or ration calculation – what do you need when?
A ration calculation checks a whole ration against reference values – but it does not examine a horse. When that is enough, when detailed feeding advice is needed, and how to recognise good advice.
6 min readRead
Ration calculation for horses: explained step by step
What you need for a ration calculation, how requirement and intake are compared and how to recognise a useful result and a good ration calculator.
7 min readRead
Mineral feed for older horses: what changes with age
Why “senior” on the label is not a requirement level, what really changes in old horses (chewing, body condition, PPID) and how to check the ration for an older horse.
6 min readRead
Feeding good doers and poor doers correctly
What good doer and poor doer mean, why classifying a horse needs energy intake, requirement and body condition together, and how to adjust the ration in either direction.
6 min readRead
Sources
The content is based on the references listed below. It does not replace individual veterinary or feeding advice.
Show list of sources (3)
- GfE (2014) – Empfehlungen zur Energie- und Nährstoffversorgung von PferdenSpecialist reference in German-speaking countries (GfE, German Society of Nutrition Physiology), Committee for Requirement Standards
- NRC – Nutrient Requirements of Horses, 6th ed.International reference for the nutrient requirements of horses (National Research Council)
- Henneke DR, Potter GD, Kreider JL, Yeates BF (1983): Relationship between condition score, physical measurements and body fat percentage in mares. Equine Veterinary Journal 15(4):371–372Original publication on the body condition score; bibliographically checked. Its application and limits are additionally supported by horse-specific specialist reviews.