GUIDE TO USING THE CALCULATOR BELOW FOR DAILY AMOUNTS OF MINERALS TO FEED

Firstly you need to input four pieces of information in the boxes below.

1)  BODYWEIGHT OF HORSE (PONY)  Do not worry unduly about being precise try to get to the nearest 50 Kg.  For a comparison two year old racehorses average 490 Kg. Horse weight calculator Enter weight in Kg's. PRESS RETURN

 2)  THE FEED VALUE OF YOUR FORAGE The feed value of your forage can make a difference to the mineral & vitamin content contributed to the total diet by the forage the higher the feeding value the higher the availability of the minerals and very often the higher the content. It is best not to overestimate the value of your forage. Due to displacement and the relatively small amounts fed, plain auxiliary roughage (soaked pulp, chopped straw/hay/haylage/alfalfa etc) does not alter the overall mineral status of the forage portion of the diet very much. If however a lot of high feed value auxiliary feed (dried grass for instance) is being fed to supplement poor forage then elevate the value by 0.5. Typical values used by nutritionists are :-

0.7 Good Grazing, 0.65 Average Grazing, 0.6 Good haylage, 0.55 Good hay & average haylage, 0.5 Average hay, 0.4 Lower value hay, 0.35 Poor & moor grass hay. Fractions in between can be used. ENTER FORAGE FEED VALUE PRESS RETURN

3) APPETITE FOR AD LIB FORAGE Most horses will eat between 1.5 to 1.6% of their bodyweight as forage (roughage) dry matter. Ponies eat slightly more. If your horse consumes above average quantities of forage increase this figure slightly. Likewise if you know your horse eats relatively small amount of forage come down to 1.2 to 1.3%. .These calculation cater for grazing as well as conserved forage so a percentage of the horse’s bodyweight is used to determine the approximate daily amount. Typical values used by nutritionists are :-

Large appetite for forage 7% of Bodyweight, Normal appetite for forage 5% of Bodyweight, poor appetite for forage 3% of Bodyweight. Fractions in between can be used. ENTER APPETITE FOR AD LIB FORAGE PRESS RETURN

 4)  Having entered your details in the 3 boxes see how the red figures compare with requirement for leisure or performance when giving two spoons of Sweet Minerals per day. This may sufficient, if not try 3 Spoons. A fraction can be entered if you wish however in a busy feeding situation whole spoonfuls may be more practical. ENTER SPOONS PER DAY PRESS RETURN