How to Look After a Horse

Horses are very majestic creatures that embody elegance and refinement. Surprisingly, in spite of this, they do not require fancy stalls to sleep in and expensive everything in order to maintain their beauty and eloquence. There are others who do not think that horses require any specific amount of attention, wrongly believing that as horses they do not require much attention from their owners and that they can be dropped in a field and simply be happy. That is completely false. Horses do not require massively expensive amounts of attention, but they also do not require little to no attention either! In fact, there are basic needs that define proper requirements for any horse.

Those basic needs include plenty of pasture to roam around in that is free of holes and rusty debris, secure fencing surrounding the pasture that can be made of any material just as long as it is built properly with no loose ends, an overabundance of grass for grazing and if not that a significant amount of hay, a limitless amount of fresh water and minerals and salt, shade should be provided in the summer months, while shelter should be provided in the wet, winter months.

In addition to this, dry areas for horses must be provided in order to give them a place to lie down in should also be on your checklist of basic needs, as well as daily checkups to insure that the horse does not have any illnesses or injuries. The lastly most important basic need would have to be the availability of friendship. Horses are very friendly creatures and do not tend to seek isolation or the want to be alone. Therefore, the company of another horse, or other animals like ponies, sheep, or goats could prove to fulfil their social needs. Even having your company from time to time can aid with fulfilling that horse's social need.

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As stated above, two of the most basic needs of a horse is feeding and watering. If feeding through a pasture, it is important to realize that horses need a lot of grass to meet their nutritional needs. Pasture can be considered an unreliable source of nutrition for your horses because it is never truly known how healthy the grass is and if it meets the nutritional needs of the horse. Also, because horses are selective about where they graze, there is no telling where they will choose to eat from. A more dependable way to give them nutrients is through hay. Hay is the number one food choice for domesticated horses. Bales of hay should be of good quality, green, and free of dust and mould. Although hay should remain the major part of the horse's diet, the horse cannot live nutritiously on hay alone. Therefore, concentrates should also be placed in a horse's diet. Concentrates come in the form of grain, sweet feed, and various manufactured feed.

Horses also need plenty of water. It is estimated that a horse can consume five to ten gallons of water in one day; therefore water is an extremely integral piece to the horse's diet. Clean water should always be in a horse's reach; however, water intake should be watched and a little more limited if the horse happens to be very hot. In the cool down process of a very hot horse, small drinks of water should be allotted every so often. Mineralized salt blocks are also important to their diet. Horses consume them both regularly and eagerly.