What is a horse balancer?

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A horse feed balancer is a low intake, concentrated source of minerals and vitamins (can also include protein) which balances out a horses diet providing the essential nutrients your horse needs for best performance and health.

Balancer should be fed all year round but if you’re not already feeding one autumn/winter is the optimal time to start due to the nutrients your horse may be lacking from less grass or from spending more time in the stable fed on hay/haylage.

On the back of a year (2022) where we have had very poor grass growth, due to the high temperatures and a lack of rainfall, if your horse relies on pasture and foraging there is no better time for you to increase your horses essential nutrients.

What are the other reasons you should feed your horse a balancer?

If your horse is being fed with straight concentrates such as oats, sugar beet, chaff etc.
If your horse is a fussy eater and only eats very small portions of food
You are looking to increase the volume of protein in their feed
Your horse is at pasture 24 hours a day and does not eat extra supplements

So to put it simply if your horses diet lacks vitamins, minerals or even protein that you need to introduce a balancer into their diet.

To feed alongside the balancer we recommend a high fibrous feed such as chaff to encourage saliva production and chewing.

If you are currently not using a feed balancer your your horse diet please note that a feed balancer should be introduced slowly over a period of 10 days.

There are lots of different types of balancers including performance balancers, senior balancers. light balancer, ulcer balancer etc.

So ultimately the balancer you choose will depend on what your horses’ diet is lacking.