Feeding time! Open a bag of ready-made feed and you’re set, right? But wait–there’s a staggering variety of offerings on the feed store’s shelves, and it’s important that you choose the correct one for your particular horse.

Manufacturers fortify these feeds with vitamins and minerals in a "complete" blend designed to provide all the nutrients a horse needs (when fed the recommended amount) without additional supplementation. While many horses (particularly overweight or sedentary animals) simply need hay/pasture, water, salt, and a vitamin/mineral supplement to meet their nutritional requirements, the working or underweight horse, for instance, will benefit from a commercially fortified feed.

The array of complete feeds includes some that are cereal grain-based and others that are low-starch. Some are sweet feeds and still others are pelleted. There are those designed for growth, broodmares, performance–even senior citizens