Types of Grain for horses

Types of Grain for horses

Deciding what grain is best for your horse can be overwhelming, especially with all the grain for horses there are available on offer.

Firstly, you need to ask yourself:
Does my horse get hot on grain?
What level of work do I do with my horse?
Am I competing at the moment or spelling?
Do I want to feed a straight grain or a premixed feed?

Most common types of straight grain for horses:

• Oats – Whole oats are 13% Protein; they are quick energy source containing high levels of starch and sugars. They are ideal for high performance horses. Oats are one of the few grains that can be fed whole and don’t require any heat treatment to improve digestibility.
• Corn (Maize) – Corn is slightly lower in Protein around 7-12% but has more starch, is a quick energy source. In its whole form it isn’t easily digested processing the corn through either cracking it or heat treatment makes the starch in the corn more available for the horse to digest
• Barley (flaked/stem rolled/micronized) – by weight is a good source of digestible energy, is approx. 11.5% protein, less likely to heat your horse up and is good for putting on condition.
• Rice Bran – Stabilised rice bran is low in carbohydrate but high in fat about 15-18% making it a good cool energy source.

Selecting an appropriate grain for your horse can take trial and error, and you may even find that your horse may benefit from roughage-based diet as opposed to a grain based diet.

If ever in doubt about what to feed your horse and how much you can always seek the advice of an equine nutritionist to help make these decisions a bit easier, there is so much information out there it can get confusing.

At the end of the day, we just want our equine friends to be happy and healthy.

If you would like to discuss your feeding options with our Ranvet nutritionists feel free to give us a call on 1800 727 217 or email nutrition@ranvet.com.au.