I recently received a letter from a reader on the East Coast who is facing a challenge that every horse owner is going to face at least twice each year if your horse spends any time on pasture. In the fall and early spring, every horse owner is going to face the challenge of switching their horse from pasture to hay and back again from hay to pasture.

I recently bought my first horse (morgan/perch cross). He is VERY solid and has always been on pasture board (with run-in). I live in Pennsylvania and the grass is starting to get yellow. At what point should he be getting hay(my barn manager insists it's still good)? He also is just starting to get a handful of grain He's getting very fit and has lost a little weight (which is good in that he was getting too big), but just think he should start getting hay. Thanks so much. I look forward to hearing from you.

Martha

Hi Martha,

Good to hear from you and congrats on purchasing your first horse! As for grass vs. hay, there are two things I would recommend:

1. If you call your local ag extension office and ask them to run a test on the grass in the pastures this time of year to determine the nutritional value, this will eliminate all the guesswork. Of course, many barn owners will be offended if you do this, but you are ultimately responsible for your horse's health.

2. You can call your local vet and ask him what he thinks about the nutritional value of yellow grass.

At the end of the day, if you horse is in good flesh and his energy level is good, he is probably fine on the diet he is currently on. If he is not thriving on it, I would at least call the vet to ask the general question about when he thinks horses should start to transition off field grass onto hay for the winter (in your part of the country).

Remember to ease him onto hay, if he hasn't been on it for the summer, especially if he is on yellow grass now. If there is little or no nutrition in that field grass this time of year and you start him on alfalfa hay (which is a very rich hay), you run the risk of colic or founder, so in a perfect world, while he is still on pasture most of the time, I would add 1/3 of a flake a day of the hay (for two days), increase that to 1/2 flake for another two days and then continue to increase incrementally in two day phases until he is on whatever his full daily hay ration is going to end up being. If this transition is hard for the barn staff to do, you can always arrange to swing by the barn yourself during the transition period to ensure he is eased onto the new diet.

In horses, it is not so much what they eat that is a danger, it is the transition from old diet to new diet that generally causes the most medical distress. This is true in the spring when the horses have been on hay and suddenly the pastures are filled with rich, wet, grass everywhere. The same cautious transitional rule applies, ease him onto the new grass in small bits each day until you eventually have him onto the new diet.

Whether you live on the East Coast or on the West Coast or in Europe, the same rules apply where diet change is concerned slow is best. The last thing you want to do is find yourself with a horse that has a stomach ache or worse. The simple formula is to divide the total amount of the new feed that you plan on feeding each day into a fourteen day transitional period (assuming you will feed the same amount for two days each time you increase the amount). In other words, if you intend to switch from no grain to 7 pounds a day (used here as an example only, you should follow the quantity recommendations on the feed bag), split the 7 pound ration over a 14 day period. This would mean that on the first and second days, you will feed 1 pound of grain. By day three and four, you will be feeding two pounds a day, etc, etc. Remember that if your horse was on another grain product and you are switching from one to the other, remember to decrease the amount you are feeding of the old product, proportionate to the amount you are feeding of the new. In other words, if you start to feed one pound of the new brand of grain, reduce by the same amount what you were previously feeding of the old brand. If the goal is to transition from one product to a new product, reduce what you feed of the old as you increase what you feed of the new, in order to keep his diet balanced and to avoid colic or founder risks.

Another tip when you are transitioning your horses diet keep an eye on his water intake and output and keep an eye on his stools to ensure he is not showing any signs of diarrhea or worse, is not producing any stools at all. For most horses, if you exercise the basic common sense detailed in this column, your horse will transition from grass to hay and back again, or from one grain product to another without any problems. As long as you exercise common sense and caution, it should be a very uneventful transition. If you short cut, you can expect expensive vet bills, lots of sleepless nights and the possibility of lifelong founder issues as a result of taking that short cut.

I want to hear from you! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions that you would like to share with the rest of us, drop me a line at:

Bonnie Marlewski-Probert
P.O. Box 548
Yellville, AR 72687

Or you can contact me directly on the Internet at BRMP@AOL.com or by visiting our web site, TheCompletePet.com

For more information on any of Bonnies books,

A Parents Guide to Buying That First Horse
Debugging Your Horse
The Animal Lovers Guide to the Internet
Horse Tales for the Soul, Volumes 1 5
Dog Tales for the Soul, Volume 1

Or for her videos,

Debugging Your Horse and
Trail Riding, Rules of the road
Visit, http://TheCompletePet.com.