What exactly is a maintenance horse? Maintenance applies to horses that aren’t pregnant, lactating, growing, or performing hard work. In reality, all horses have maintenance nutrient requirements, as daily body functions, such as metabolism (heart function, breathing, digestion etc.) and maintenance activities (walking to graze and drink) and temperature regulation all require nutrients. 

Horses in their natural habitat would walk miles and graze for over 70% of the day, obtaining a huge variety of natural nutrients. As this isn’t possible for most of our horses, we need to provide those nutrients, even to the good doer and the horse that is not in work.

If your horse is an adult, with a good body condition, on good quality roughage, without balanced nutrition, they will have less-than-ideal muscle tone, coat and hoof quality. Even if your horse has miles to roam and graze, we do need to fill the gaps that our pasture isn’t providing. These would include vitamins, minerals and quality proteins in the form of amino acids that their body need for normal tissue repair, hair- and hoof-growth and muscle maintenance.

Spurwing Maintenance has the correct balance of nutrients to meet the requirements of maintaining your horse, with top quality Lucerne, full fat soya and a full range of vitamins and minerals. Spurwing Maintenance is a low energy, grain free feed providing high fibre and low sugar that is a more natural feed for your horse’s digestive system, avoiding digestive problems such as colic and laminitis.

It is crucial not to dilute balanced rations. We may be tempted to dilute balanced feeds with bran or other raw materials, but this changes the nutrient balance and decreases the feed’s nutritional value for horses. A better alternative is rather topping up with a good quality digestible fibre supplement such as Spurwing Lucerne Conditioner Mix.

As we demand more activity from our horses, we need to provide the correct nutritional support for the increase in workload. Spurwing Lucerne Conditioner Mix provides that extra nutrition during times of increased workload as well as increased seasonal demands. As horses’ nutrient requirements change with the season, a horse with minimum maintenance requirements in the summer, may need elevated maintenance in the winter when they need more fuel to keep warm. Instead of increasing or changing feed, simply adding Spurwing Lucerne Conditioner Mix will supply these seasonal needs, as well as during mild work increase needs. 

As always, keep in mind that horses are individuals and should be fed accordingly, there is no one-solution-fits-all.