Buying a horse is a big investment of time and money, you need to consider the following before purchasing one.
- Is your property/agistment facility close to home so that you can attend to your horse daily - preferably twice daily?
- Do you have enough pasture (or access to pasture) and enough money to feed a horse if the pasture becomes inadequate?
- Can you afford to purchase tack and gear for a horse?
- Can you afford regular farrier expenses, dentist fees, veterinary fees, worming products?
- Do you have enough time to adequately care for a horse.
So you’ve decided you want to purchase a horse/pony.
Where will I keep it?
- Horses require large amounts of space, so research your options.
- Do you have your own property?
- Does it have adequate space? At least 1-2 acres per horse.
- Does it have adequate fencing to keep a horse safe?
- Does it have adequate shelter so it can escape the weather?
- Maybe you’re looking at a boarding facility? Boarding facilities offer a variety of options
- Full Care: the horse will have a pasture and stable with staff seeing to all of it’s needs.
- Pasture Care: the horse will have a pasture and staff will see to it’s daily needs.
- Pasture Only: the horse will have a shared or private pasture/paddock with you attending to it daily (preferably twice daily) and taking care of all of it’s needs.
- Remember horses are designed to be moving and grazing all day, constant movement is crucial to good circulation and health.
How will I feed it?
- Inadequate food and water can lead to a number of negative health conditions like malnutrition and dehydration.
- On average, horses need to eat 1.5 to 2% of their body weight per day. This means that a horse that weighs 500kg will need around 7.5 to 10kg. Most of this should come from forage like grass and hay.
- It is important that your horse has a well-balanced healthy diet that meets the needs of their lifestyle and physical characteristics. Some food sources that can play a role in sustaining your horses needs are...
- Grass: In the wild a horse’s diet largely consists of grass and other forage. A horse is designed to be able to eat and digest grass easily and be able to extract nutrients and sugars that grass produces. Free and easy access to grass enables horses to graze for hours at a time.
- Hay: If adequate grass supply is not available to your horse, you can feed hay. Hay is grass that has been dried, baled and stored and still provides much of the natural sugars and nutrients that grass does.
- Grain: Grain can be used to provide your horse’s diet with extra sugars and nutrients that can help your horse hold it’s weight or produce more energy if it’s ridden often. However, grain should not be the main aspect of your horse’s diet as it has extra sugars unnatural to your horse that can lead to obesity and hoof problems.
- Supplements: Supplements are minerals, vitamins and nutrients that you can add to your horse’s diet to help improve their health and balance their body systems. IF your horse seems to be lacking in one area of it’s health, you should research how certain supplements may be able to help them.
- Water: This is essential for your horse’s circulation, digestion, body temperature regulation and energy production. A single horse needs anywhere from 20-50 litres of water a day. Clean fresh water is vital to your horses’ survival. Horses an dehydrate quickly if water is too hot to drink, dirty or unavailable. Horses that aren’t getting enough water are at a greater risk of colic from indigestion or impaction.
- Pony Club Australia suggests 7 rules to make feeding your horse simple...
- Give your horse 24/7 access to roughage/forage (hay, chaff, pasture - although pasture access may need to be restricted in horses and ponies that are too forward in condition).
- Avoid high sugar/starch feeds
- Good quality protein
- Feed oil
- Feed Vitamin E
- Feed Biotin
- Know supplements can cause problems
