Management know-how
Our experts
Sarah Nelson is a nutritionist at Spillers, responsible for managing feed formulation.
Photos: Jon Stroud
Perfect portions
Why is it important to split my horse’s daily ration up into smaller portions?
Jamie Spencer
A Sarah Nelson answers: The advice to feed small meals is one of the long-established golden rules of feeding, and for good reason.
Horses evolved as trickle feeders and in the wild spend around 16–18 hours per day grazing. As a result, their stomachs are small, about the size of a rugby ball, and have a capacity of approximately 8–15 litres. It’s also relatively inelastic, meaning they don’t have the ability to stretch to accommodate more food. This is why horses are best fed little and often.