Pelleted Feeds: Packaged Nutrition

They look like rabbit food, and the technology that made those bunny pellets a complete diet now is used regularly to make feeds for horses. Granted, pelleted feeds don’t usually exude the tempting aroma that most molasses-laced

Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

They look like rabbit food, and the technology that made those bunny pellets a complete diet now is used regularly to make feeds for horses. Granted, pelleted feeds don’t usually exude the tempting aroma that most molasses-laced sweet feeds have, but they more than make up for that in terms of convenience and digestibility. Furthermore, feed mills have learned to apply pelleting techniques to practically every type of feed a horse can consume, from hay to grains to combinations of the two (often called “complete” feeds).







Tina Hines


One of the major advantages of pellets is that, compared to other types of feed, they are very low in dust. “Compete” pelleted feeds can include not only grains, but vitamins and other supplements. And manufacturers have created many types of pelleted mixes to suit all sorts of horses, no matter their activities.


Almost no commercial feed ration is left untouched by the pelleting process — sift through a prepared sweet feed with your fingers, and you’ll discover a smattering of pellets mixed in with the oats and corn and other grains. That pellet generally contains a vitamin/mineral supplement for the ration, bound up with a fiber source such as dehydrated alfalfa

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Karen Briggs is the author of six books, including the recently updated Understanding Equine Nutrition as well as Understanding The Pony, both published by Eclipse Press. She’s written a few thousand articles on subjects ranging from guttural pouch infections to how to compost your manure. She is also a Canadian certified riding coach, an equine nutritionist, and works in media relations for the harness racing industry. She lives with her band of off-the-track Thoroughbreds on a farm near Guelph, Ontario, and dabbles in eventing.

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

Where do you primarily feed your horse?
303 votes · 303 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!