The Science & Art of Feeding Ponies

Compound pony feeds - mixes, cubes, pellets and extrusions - are used to provide extra nutrients which may be required by ponies over and above those they obtain from their forage - be it pasture or hay/haylage.

This is the first significant point when formulating a pony feed - it should be designed to complement the forage, since forage should always form the major part of a pony's diet as it is, after all, what they have been designed to eat!

However, there are times when forage alone cannot provide the nutrients required to perform at the desired level - either in athletic endeavours, or in growth and reproduction, and occasionally after a serious illness or injury. Additional feed is required, to supplement the forage.

Historically, for working carriage or agricultural ponies, these additional nutrients would have been provided from cereals for extra energy from starch, linseed for extra protein and amino acids, and various plants and deep-rooting herbs to provide extra minerals and vitamins.

Today, most modern pony keepers are not able to mix and blend all the necessary herbs, plants, cereals and other ingredients to make a balanced pony feed, so the idea of commercial production of a ground up mixture of the necessary ingredients was developed in the late 1950's with the first horse and pony cube produced in 1958.

There were (usually completely unfounded!) criticisms of this process, with suspicions that the feed mills could put any ingredients they chose perhaps of dubious quality. So in the 1970's new methods of cooking cereals were being developed, and rather than grinding up and mixing the ingredients before compressing them into a pellet, the cereals, protein seeds, fibre sources and minerals and vitamins were combined often with a sticky syrup to produce the coarse mixes with easily discernible ingredients familiar to most today.

Alternative methods of cooking to increase digestibility were constantly being developed, and stream flaking, micronizing and extrusion (high pressure cooking) were all used in the production of pony feeds.

It was not viable or practical to provide all the necessary additional minerals and vitamins from plant sources alone, so inorganic mineral salts are used, together with synthetic vitamins in addition to natural sources from herbs and fruits.

So today, the technology is available to cook (if required), mix and blend ingredients sourced from all over the world to make pony feeds.

But how are they selected, and why are they combined in the proportions they are? How is a new pony feed designed?

The first decision is usually a commercial one - is there a need in the market for a particular blend of ingredients giving a particular nutrient specification? From the days of only three or four feeds to chose from - horse and pony cubes, racehorse cubes, stud cubes and perhaps a hunter cube, many of the leading pony feed manufacturers now offer a selection of up to 30 different nutrient specifications, catering from specific disciplines - a polo mix perhaps - to a different feed for each stage of growth - a foal feed, a weanling feed, and yearling feed, a yearling prep. feed, to a feed that can be offered in very low quantities with high minerals and low energy for overweight ponies or those on lush pasture, or a feed without certain ingredients -oat-free or barley-free mixes.

Once the decision has been made that there is a need in the market, the nutrient specification required is determined - does the feed need elevated minerals and vitamins if it is be offered in small quantities? What quantity will it typically be fed at? Is it designed to be fed with specific other ingredients such as oats, or alfalfa? Does it need high or low energy? Should the energy be provided from largely "quick release" sources, or more from " slow release" fibre sources? Or is the feed perhaps required to address certain clinical conditions where nutrition may influence the progress of that condition?

Once these and other similar questions have been answered, the nutritionist will have gained an idea of the nutrient levels required (where research has allowed knowledge or good estimates of requirements!). The expected daily intakes of the feed must be determined, and the risk of over or underfeeding assessed.

With the desired nutrient levels in mind, and the physical form of the feed - cube, pellet, mix or extrusion determined, the selection of ingredients can begin. How many, if any, and what type of cereals, what type of fibre sources, is additional oil to be added, what specification of minerals and vitamins will be needed, will a blend of herbs and dried fruits for antioxidants and other natural nutraceuticals and micronutrients be included? Will any preservatives or mould inhibitors need to be added if the feed is destined for export to a different climate?

The precise blend of ingredients which will provide the nutrient specification to meet the requirements of the category of pony for which the feed is designed will usually be determined using a sophisticated feed formulation computer programme. This programme can suggest a mix of ingredients from those on its database (i.e those available at the mill) to meet the specification required, and can also be altered to restrict the amount of one or more ingredients, or exclude an ingredient if it is not felt to be appropriate for that feed.

Some feed mills allow the computer programme to select the mix of ingredients to meet the nutrient specification required using the lowest costing blend - this is called "least-cost formulating". However, most pony feed manufacturers will not employ this method, recognizing that whilst a theoretically correct nutrient specification and list of ingredients is a good starting point, feeding ponies is not an exact science. A highly qualified nutritionist, who has practical experience feeding many different types of horses and ponies, from all walks of equestrian life, will select the blend of ingredients they believe will produce the best nutrient specification to promote optimum health and performance.

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