Breeding – It’s in your hands!
When it comes to breeding, good nutrition is more crucial than any other time. The development of the horse is a dynamic process, which can be influenced in many ways.An invariable element is genetics. They set up certain characteristics that the foal receives from its parents. Let’s move on to the elements that can be influenced, like feeding and keeping!
A foal that is born with rather unfortunate genetic foundation can grow up to be a healthy horse by ideal feeding and keeping conditions.
Obviously this also works vice-versa. The best genetic basis is worthless if keeping and feeding conditions do not meet the requirements of the foal. The cornerstone of the horse’s cartilage and bone structure, which can be influenced by nutrition, is developed in the first 12 months of the horse’s life.
Everything that is missed and neglected in this phase can never be recovered! However, it all starts with the nutrition of the breeding mare. In the last third if the mare’s pregnancy, the horse needs to be supplied with sufficient amounts of proteins, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, vitamins and trace elements.
Overfeeding with easily digestible starch (oats, wheat, flaked cereals, etc.) is harmful to the foal’s development of bones and joints, already in the womb.
The foal’s requirements on feeding and keeping conditions
Sufficient free movement with other horses on different kinds of surfaces (soft, hard, uneven, etc.) should be possible for the foal not long after birth, even in the winter. Since “Ludgers P BREEDING | CIRCLE” is identical for both the breeding mare and the foal, the additional feeding is very simple. In general, the foal’s natural curiosity takes care of adapting to concentrate feed.
Foal-appropriate feeding:
- highly bio-available minerals (for example: calcium. Phosphorous, magnesium) in the right ratio
- organically bound trace elements (for example: zinc, copper, manganese)
- high quality proteins (for example: lysine, methionine)
The horse feed to perfectly meat all nutritional requirements – for an ideal circle of breeding from the pregnant mare all the way to the young horse: zum Produkt
