4,777 answers about horses & farm animals
Horses and farm animals run on routine — feeding schedules, hoof and health care, safe fencing and calm handling, in all weather. This page gathers the horse and farm animal library of KinsLe Answers in one place, organized by topic from daily care to travel and senior animals. Every answer is original, written by KinsLe, and tied to a real KinsLe feature.
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409 answers in Feeding & Nutrition — page 12 of 18
Work backwards from each horse's daily forage need: with pasture gone, most horses eat hay at roughly two percent of their body weight a day, so a 1,000-pound horse gets through about 20 pounds daily. Multiply that by the number of days your grazing is truly finished, then add a cushion for waste, weathered outer…
A milk rota lets kids get the best of both worlds — their dam's milk and company, plus measured bottle feeds that keep them tame and growing evenly: milk some of the dam's milk off, or use a suitable kid milk replacer, and offer bottles at set times while the kids stay with their mother the rest of the day. Weigh the…
Strip grazing controls weight by giving the horse a small fresh strip of pasture at a time rather than the whole field: set up a movable electric fence line, advance it a short distance daily so the horse eats the strip down evenly, and keep a back fence moving behind so the eaten ground rests instead of being…
Hens lay in response to day length, so winter laying is mostly a lighting job backed by feed: give the flock a consistent stretch of light — around fourteen hours — using a timer that tops up the morning rather than trapping hens off the roost at night, and keep the layer ration steady with extra energy on the coldest…
Chicken feed keeps best in sealed, rodent-proof metal bins stored off the floor in a cool, dry shed: decant bags into the bins the day they arrive, shut the lids every time, and use the oldest feed first so nothing sits long enough to go stale or mouldy. Damp is the enemy twice over — it spoils feed and grows moulds…
In the last stretch of pregnancy a ewe is growing most of her lambs' birth weight while her rumen space shrinks, so feeding shifts toward more energy and protein in smaller, more digestible meals: good hay as the base, with concentrates introduced gradually and split across the day rather than dumped in one feed. Ewes…
Herd feeding stays peaceful when every horse can eat without defending a pile: put out at least one more hay pile or feed station than there are horses, spread them well apart across the field, and feed the lowest-ranking horses first or furthest from the gate. Hard feed is where fights really start, so bucket feeds…
During the moult a hen is rebuilding her entire wardrobe out of protein, so feed her for construction: move her onto a higher-protein ration, offer protein-rich extras, and do not be alarmed when laying stops — eggs and feathers compete for the same protein, and feathers win. Keep calcium available but stop pushing…
Meat birds and layers are fed for opposite jobs, so their rations run on different fuel: growers get a higher-protein feed, offered generously around the clock so they build muscle fast, while layers get a calcium-rich ration in measured amounts that supports shell-making without piling on fat. Keeping the two flocks…
Rescue hens arrive having laid hard on a commercial ration, often feather-bare and short on muscle, so feed them for recovery rather than for eggs: a good layer feed offered little and often at first, extra protein while feathers regrow, and constant clean water with a few days of close watching at the feeder. Do not…
Ducks do not need a pond to be fed well, but they do need water deep enough to dip their whole head — they rinse their eyes and nostrils as they eat, and they wash dry food down with constant sips. Feed a proper waterfowl ration rather than chick crumbs long-term, keep the head-dipping water beside the feeder and…
A donkey is built for sparse desert grazing, so he thrives on a plain, high-fibre diet that would leave a horse underfed: mostly straw or mature hay, strictly limited grass, and no rich feeds or sugary treats. Feed a horse's ration to a donkey and the surplus energy goes straight to fat pads and, in time, to laminitis…
In a heatwave, feeding chickens is mostly about timing, water and lighter meals: offer the main ration early in the morning and again in the cooler evening, keep cool water topped up all day, and swap heavy scratch grains for watery treats like melon or cucumber that hydrate as they feed. Hens eat less when they are…
Quidding — dropping neat wads of half-chewed hay — tells you an older horse's teeth can no longer grind forage properly, so the answer is to feed him forage he does not have to grind. Start with a vet dental examination, then build meals from soaked feeds: a senior feed with forage built in, soaked hay cubes or…
A wether and a breeding doe may share a fence, but they should not share a ration. The wether's only job is staying sound on maintenance: grass hay, loose minerals, salt and water, with no grain at all — rich, grain-heavy diets unbalance his calcium and phosphorus and put a male goat at real risk of urinary stones.…
A milking goat turns forage into milk, so her ration starts with hay and browse rather than the grain bucket: good hay freely — alfalfa suits milkers well for its protein and calcium — with her grain offered on the milk stand, sized to what she produces and changed only gradually. Keep loose goat minerals and abundant…
Feeding a laminitis-prone pony on restricted grazing means giving him a full belly and a busy day without the sugar that rich grass delivers. Weigh his hay rather than guessing, soak it in fresh water and drain it to wash out some of its sugars, and use a grazing muzzle with short turnout windows — or a dry lot or…
A lactating mare is doing the heaviest nutritional work of her life in the first months of nursing, and her ration has to grow with the foal's demands. Keep forage at the center — more of it, and better quality — and add a concentrate feed gradually, split across several smaller meals rather than one large one.…
Feed a horse after hard work in the order his body can handle: cool him first, then water, then hay, and grain last of all. Walk him until his breathing settles and his chest feels cool, offering small drinks as he cools and free access to water once he is settled. Give hay while he finishes recovering, and hold any…
Creep-feeding means giving the foal his own feed in a space the mare cannot reach, so he learns to eat solids while still nursing. Build or buy a creep area with rails or an opening sized for the foal, set it where the pair already relax, and offer a foal-formulated feed in small, fresh amounts, increasing gradually…
You cannot judge an alpaca's condition by looking at it — a full fleece can hide a thin animal completely, so scoring is done by hand. Run your palm along the spine at the loin and over the ribs midway down the body, pressing through the fleece to feel how much cover sits over the bone, and grade what you feel on the…
Ducks and chickens can eat from the same bag in many flocks, but only if you close one gap: ducks need noticeably more niacin than chickens, and standard chicken rations are built for chickens. An all-flock or waterfowl ration suits both, and adding niacin-rich extras for the ducks covers birds on layer feed, though…
Forage is the foundation of a horse's diet because the whole digestive system is built around a near-constant trickle of fibre: a small stomach, continual acid production, and a hindgut full of microbes that ferment hay and grass into the horse's main energy supply. Long chewing time also produces the saliva that…
Free-range chickens genuinely benefit from winter supplementation because the range stops providing: insects vanish, greens die back, and short cold days leave less foraging time while birds burn more energy staying warm. The supplements that earn their place are modest — a small late-afternoon scatter of cracked…
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