Food, Glorious Food

Bringing horses into our lives has brought a daily structure. One part of that daily structure is feeding Morgunn and Gletta. Besides sleeping and pooping, horses love to eat. We feed our horses three times a day - in the morning about 6:30 AM, around Noon, and in the evening about 5:30 PM. They get hay at all three feedings - each getting 2 1/2 to 3 lbs. Gletta also gets some Senior feed at each feeding to help her keep her weight up. As horses get older they need additional calories to maintain their weight. Morgunn gets grain in the evening feeding. They both get supplements with their evening feeding.

One of the complications to feeding Morgunn and Gletta is that Morgunn, being younger and larger, eats about twice as fast as Gletta. So we have to feed them in separate stalls and lock Gletta's run out gate so Morgunn won't finish his food and then go in to eat the rest of her food.



Here's what a typical feeding day looks like.


Betty's heading out to the stable for the evening feeding. Morgunn is very, very happy. He knows that he needs to head for an empty stall. Gletta is already in the furthest stall which is usually where she is at every feeding time.













Here's Gletta patiently waiting for Betty to bring her Senior feed and hay and Morgunn heading into his stall. If Gletta happened to choose that stall he would have gone into the other. He's a real gentleman and always lets Gletta choose her own stall.










Both horses get supplements with their evening meal -added to their grain. They both get garlic powder (good for cholesterol and healthy blood), ground flax and black oil sunflower seeds (lots of Omega 3 and good for hoofs and coats), and diatomaceous earth (good for preventing intestinal parasites). In addition, Gletta gets an enzyme called Prozyme to help her digestion.










Morgunn waiting impatiently for Betty to bring his hay and feed. "Feed me, feed me Seymour." (For those who don't know that's a line from the "Rocky Horror Show.") Correction: My oldest son who is much wiser than I reminded me, respectfully of course, that the above line comes from "The Little Shop of Horrors." He's right of course as he usually is. I guess I'm getting old, but I knew "Horror" was in there somewhere. Thanks, Wade Daniel.













Betty giving Gletta her feed and then her hay. Gletta loves her Senior feed and will always eat it first before touching her hay.













Morgunn greets Betty with a look of "What's taking you so long?" Finally, he gets his grain.

Three hours later, we open Gletta's gate and Morgunn joins her to finish up what little bit of hay that she has left.



And that's one more feeding done and the next one comes at 6:30 AM tomorrow morning. (Oh, that sounds so early.)