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 16 of 18
Store feed in sealed rigid bins with lids, raised off the floor and set away from damp walls, with every delivery checked before it is stored and earlier stock used before newer bags so nothing sits long enough to go stale at the back. Check for vermin signs weekly, looking for droppings, gnawed corners, and spilled…
Bring horses onto spring grass slowly: begin with short grazing periods of an hour or so, always after hay has been fed so no horse goes out hungry, lengthen the grazing a step at a time across one to two weeks, and keep stabled or paddock time between sessions while the gut adjusts. Watch digestion throughout the…
Feed a pregnant goat much like the rest of the year for the early months, then raise energy and protein gradually in the last stretch, when the kids grow fastest and twins or triplets, which are common in goats, multiply the demand. Base the ration on good forage, add concentrate in small rising steps rather than one…
Feed for steady growth on a grower ration formulated for pigs as the base, never unspecified scraps, given as measured meals rather than free feeding: young growers usually eat roughly four to five percent of body weight across the day, tapering toward roughly three percent as the pig nears finishing weight, split…
An average laying hen eats 100–120 grams of layer feed a day, though breed, size, weather and how much she ranges all move the figure. Check the figure against her feeder each week: a hen leaving layer feed untouched is telling you the amount, the range or her health needs another look. For shared feeding duties,…
Offer calcium free-choice rather than mixing it through the shared feed: crushed oyster shell in a separate dish, always available, so each laying hen takes what she needs for shell formation and non-layers are never forced extra calcium. The layer feed stays the flock's base diet, balanced for the birds in lay, while…
Plan by the bale's character and each horse's needs together: haylage is higher in moisture, wrapped, low in dust and suited to dust-sensitive horses, but once a bale is opened it must be fed quickly, and any spoiled or moldy bale is discarded whole. Hay keeps open longer and suits many yards as the base forage, with…
Feed growing ducks for the niacin their growth demands: a feed made for waterfowl or ducks carries that niacin, while a chick-only feed does not, so the base feed choice does the main work. Build leafy greens into the daily picture, keep clean water beside every meal so ducks can swallow and clear their bills as they…
Feed the herd so a pushed-off alpaca always has somewhere else to go: provide more feeding stations than animals, spread wide apart, so no dominant alpaca can guard two at once. Use long low racks or scattered hay piles, watch one full feed to see who actually eats and who hovers at the edge, check condition by hand…
Break ice on every trough twice a day in freezing weather, morning and late afternoon, and clear the broken pieces out rather than leaving them to chill the water and refreeze into a thicker sheet. Keep the water itself worth drinking: scrub algae and slime from trough sides weekly, place troughs out of the wind where…
Score the cow on a scale of 1 to 5, by eye and by hand: 1 means spine and ribs sharp and obvious, 3 means ribs felt with light pressure and a smooth back, and 5 means everything buried and rounded. The healthy middle sits around 3 for most cows, though breed and lactation stage can shift what suits an individual…
Keep layer feed as the diet base and treat kitchen scraps as a small share only, offered as a treat on top of a complete feed rather than as a ration. Safe scraps are cooked plain vegetables, fruit pieces, and plain cooked grains or pasta in small amounts, chopped small, presented in a dish once layers have eaten…
Build the plan forage first: as grazing disappears, hay fed in the field replaces it, and forage stays in front of the horse through the coldest hours. Treat shelter and unfrozen water as pillars of the plan alongside forage, checking troughs daily and breaking ice whenever it forms. Check condition by hand under the…
Donkeys are built to thrive on sparse, fibrous forage, so a bucket mixed for a horse delivers far more energy than a donkey needs. The early clues are a crest that thickens and hardens along the neck, soft fat pads settling over the ribs and hips, and a donkey who ignores plain straw yet hurries to finish whatever the…
An easy-keeper pony needs long hours with forage in front of it and few calories arriving during those hours, so the work goes into slowing each mouthful down and spreading it across the day. Small-hole hay nets and slow feeders stretch a modest ration across the day, hay can be soaked as a general practice to reduce…
Yes, laying hens need extra calcium offered free-choice, because forming a shell every day draws heavily on what a hen takes in. Layer feed carries a useful baseline, but the top-up belongs in a separate dish of crushed oyster shell set beside the feed, never mixed through it, so each hen helps herself to what she…
Yes, goats with pasture usually still need hay available, because goats browse more than they graze and pasture alone rarely carries them all year. They prefer leaves, stems, and weeds above short grass, and hay becomes the fiber floor whenever pasture is dormant, sparse, or grazed down, and for animals with higher…
Copper is the reason. Goats need considerably more copper than sheep and develop deficiency on a sheep ration, while sheep store copper in the liver until it reaches toxic levels, so the copper level that keeps a goat healthy can slowly poison a sheep. That is why goat minerals and sheep minerals are formulated…
Safe goat treats include small pieces of apple with the seeds removed, carrot, banana, watermelon, pumpkin and a few raisins or black oil sunflower seeds, all offered in small amounts alongside the normal hay-based diet. Introduce one new treat at a time and keep the total modest, because a goat's rumen reacts badly…
Better eggs start with a layer feed as the hens' main diet — a feed made for laying hens, typically around 16% protein — offered freely. Alongside it, keep oyster shell in a separate, always-available dish, so hens take the extra calcium shells require when they need it, and keep grit in another dish if your hens eat…
Many goats need no grain at all. A healthy wether or a dry doe holding condition on good hay and browse usually does well on forage alone, because excess grain risks obesity and, in males, urinary stones. Goats that do need grain include does in late pregnancy, does producing milk, and youngsters still growing; they…
Judge forage by the goats, not the hay rack alone. A goat getting enough forage holds a steady body condition — ribs felt with light pressure under a thin covering, not sharp and not buried — and shows a full, rounded left flank after eating, because that side is where the rumen sits. Weigh hay in and note what is…
Yes, goats generally need a mineral supplement alongside forage and feed, because hay, pasture and browse rarely supply everything, especially copper, which goats need in amounts that sheep minerals do not provide. The reliable setup is loose minerals formulated for goats, offered free-choice in a dry feeder under…
Yes, free-range chickens still need proper feed every day. Grass, weeds, seeds and insects are valuable extras, but forage alone rarely supplies enough energy, protein or calcium for a laying hen, and what a range provides changes with the season, the weather and how many birds share it. Laying hens need a complete…
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