Drought Strategies To Help Your Horses

 
Mares and foals especially need to be supplemented with good feed and minerals during a drought.
Drought is hard on you your horse and your pocket so knowing how to make life more comfortable during such a depressing time helps a lot. The three main issues to be addressed are
1. Feed 2. Water and 3. PastureProperty Management.
Feed is obviously the biggest issue and as it becomes scarce whether on the ground or to purchase we will have to consider other options to keep our horses healthy.
Firstly its important to learn how to condition score your horse so you know what body condition is acceptable and when to increase feed. It will help if you regularly estimate your horses weight either with a weigh band or by calculating weightbased on girth and length measurements. Here is a good guide on how to condition score your horse based on the Huntington Method used in Australia.  If you are in the USA you will most probably use the Henneke Condition Score system.

Next you need to assess what feed is available and how you will manage it if you still have some grass then decide if you will better off restricting your horse to easily regenerated paddocks or if you can rotate pastures frequently enough to not permanently kill the pasture. To save money when supplementing roughage such as hay or straw using a slowfeed hay net or feeder will also reduce wastage.
There is a very good booklet called Drought Feeding and Management for Horses by David Nash that goes into much more detail than I can in this article so download this excellent resource.
You will need to supplement the pasture or lack of it with roughage and in most cases concentrates which will also become more expensive and in short supply so it helps to know what alternatives you can safely use.
Again the booklet above has some very good charts on the feed value of various alternatives of which there are many. Be sure to consult this information and your vet before starting to feed anything out of the ordinary to your horse and be aware that sudden feed changes or too much can cause colic.
Its a very worthwhile exercise identifying all the plants available on your property and in nearby lanes roads or unused areas as there may be many plants commonly called weeds that have the herbal and nutritional value that