The Basics of Feeding your horse
1. Provide plenty of roughage. A horse should eat 1-2% of their body weight in roughage. A bulk of a horses calories should come from roughage. Horses naturally are meant to graze throughout the day. If a horse is in a stall, try and replicate their natural feeding pattern by keeping hay in front of them at all times so that they are able to graze on it whenever they would like.
2. Supplement with grain. Horses are designed to eat a high fiber diet based on forage but it's important to provide your horse with additional vitamins and minerals based on their metobolic needs. Horses with high metobolic needs such as lactating mares or performance horses may not have all their nutritional needs met from just forage. Grain should be given in small amounts and not all at once. Preferrably you should grain twice a day. It's recommended to find a commercial grain product that suits your horses needs rather than try and mix plain grains on your own. Follow those instructions on grain amounts for your horse.
3. Have a consistent feeding schedule and regimine. It's important to feed your horse at the same time each day. This is important to maintain their health. If you feed at sporatic times each day, it can affect the overall health of your horse.
4. Feed the amount consistently. Keep the amount that your feed your horse consistent. Don't make abrubt changes in their diet. If changes need to be made, do so in small increments. Watch what your horse is actually eating to make sure that your portions are an acruate amount.
5. Don't feed an hour before or after exercise. Make sure you give your horse plenty of time to cool down after exercise and plenty of time to eat before you exercise.