Feeding Horses as a Herd
Do you have multiple horses? Or keep your horse with others? Bringing every horse in at mealtime can be incredibly time-consuming, and sometimes not even possible.
When feeding as a herd, it’s important to lay down the law to ensure that everyone get’s their share of the food. And let’s face it – we all have that one horse that just takes forever to finish his feed! So here are my tried and tested tips that I used to feed my herd of 7.
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Feed The Imaginary Horse
When feeding five horses, it’s usually best to put out six or seven piles of hay, this allows for any potential rotations, and decreases the chance of fights.
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Tie Up To Feed
If your horses stand quietly, consider tying them to feed, ensure that there is a good distance between each horse and that they’re supervised at all times.
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Electric fenced pens
When feeding grain, it can be incredibly handy to teach your horse to eat from one feed bowl every time. If you have an especially rambunctious herd, the easiest way to start this would be using some electric tape and fence posts to create individual pens.
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Ready, Steady, Eat!
Teaching your horse to wait for a command before they eat is a great way to ensure safety when feeding a herd. To do this, you’ll want to start in the stable, standing in the way of the food until your horse is standing quietly – Then use your feed time word i.e. “Batman” and move out of the way of the feed.
Want more tips and tricks? Sign up to our FREE Ground Manners course for more tips to help with feed time!