Good feeding starts with knowing your horse
Build a simple daily plan with hay, pasture, feed and supplements, and spot possible red flags to talk over with your vet.
Free during the beta. to save your horses and their plans.
- About
- Work
- Body
- Health
- Diet
1About your horse
Each answer changes the math for your horse. Tap to see why we ask. Your answers stay in your browser unless you save them to an account.
2How much does your horse work?
3How much fat do they carry?
Viewed from behind, looking at the back and rump. Green is the usual target range. How to score your horse
4Any health issues?
Tap all that apply. Not sure? Leave it off and ask your vet.
10–12% is the cutoff most often used for metabolic horses. Ask your vet what's right for yours.
5What does your horse eat each day?
Fine-tune hay, grass and feed
For most horses, hay and pasture supply far more sugar and starch than the bag does. Add what your horse eats in a day to see the whole picture.
Hay
A hay test is the only way to know its sugar.
Pasture
Grass sugar swings with season, weather and time of day.
Based on university research: a 1,000 lb horse eats about 1.5 lb of grass an hour for the first 4 hours, then about 0.9 lb an hour (less for smaller horses). A grazing muzzle cuts that by about 70%.
Bagged feed
Choose one here, or tap “Use in ration” on any feed.
Find what fits Biscuit
Browse feeds and supplements in one place. Everything you choose goes into the plan, which checks it against your horse's conditions and the research.
Feed map: sugar, starch and fat at a glance
Suggested for Biscuit
Based on your horse's conditions and daily ration.
All supplements
Six things to talk over with your vet
How much hay and grass
Forage is usually most of a horse's diet. Many vets suggest around 1.5–2% of body weight a day. Ask your vet what's right for your horse.
Changing feeds
Sudden diet changes are linked to colic and laminitis. Ask your vet how gradually to switch your horse.
Weighing feed and hay
A scoop of one feed can weigh twice as much as another. Weighing your scoop and a flake once makes the estimates here more accurate.
Meal size
Large grain meals are linked to digestive upsets. Ask your vet how much to feed per meal and how many meals a day.
Water and salt
Horses often drink 5–15 gallons a day, more in hot weather. Ask your vet about salt and electrolytes for your horse.
Check-ups and teeth
Ask your vet how often your horse should have check-ups and dental care, especially as they get older.
These ingredient notes are general information written from published research. They haven't yet been reviewed by an equine veterinarian or nutritionist.
Every ingredient, explained
This site is not veterinary advice. It's an educational tool to help horse owners read feed labels and compare products. It does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition, and it does not replace an exam or advice from your veterinarian. Always involve your vet before changing your horse's diet, and call them right away for any sign of laminitis, colic or illness.
How we pick the NSC number
NSC means non-structural carbohydrates: sugar plus starch. For each feed we use, in this order:
- The NSC the maker advertises, when they publish one.
- Starch + sugar from the guaranteed analysis, when both are on the label.
- A third-party estimate (lab test, retailer or blog), clearly marked as unconfirmed.
If none exist, we say "not published" instead of guessing.
How we estimate calories
Calories here mean digestible energy, in kcal. For each feed we use the calories the maker publishes. If they don't publish them, we use a third-party number (marked unconfirmed) or estimate them from the fat and fiber on the label (marked "estimate"). Hay and grass calories are typical values, not tests.
Daily needs follow the National Research Council's Nutrient Requirements of Horses (6th edition, 2007), the standard reference used by vets and equine nutritionists:
- Maintenance: about 33.3 kcal per kg of body weight a day (about 16,600 kcal for an 1,100 lb horse). We use the NRC's lower level (30.3) for easy keepers and its higher level (36.4) for hard keepers. The NRC links these levels to temperament and activity, so using them for easy and hard keepers is our simplification.
- Work: the NRC's multipliers of maintenance: light 1.2×, moderate 1.4×, hard 1.6×, very hard 1.9×.
- Pregnancy: no change in months 1–8, then the NRC's monthly values: about 1.09× in month 9, 1.13× in month 10 and 1.20× in month 11.
- Nursing: the NRC's monthly values, from about 1.9× in the first month down to about 1.46× by month 6.
- Not estimated: horses under 2, whose needs depend on age in months and expected adult size.
Calories eaten add up hay, grass and feed. Hay uses typical values for the type you pick (about 780–850 kcal per lb for grass hays, 850 for grass/alfalfa mix and 950 for alfalfa, 5% less if soaked; see the hay table below) unless you enter your hay test's calories. Grass intake is based on research from North Carolina State University, where horses ate an average of about 0.12% of their body weight an hour, roughly 1.2 lb of dry matter an hour for a 1,000 lb horse, and ate about two-thirds faster in the first 4 hours (Dowler, Prediction of Hourly Dry Matter Intake in Horses). So we count about 1.5 lb an hour for the first 4 hours and about 0.9 lb an hour after that, scaled to your horse's size. A grazing muzzle cut intake by 77–83% in a pony study (Longland et al.), so we count about 30%.
Grass calories by season come from a University of Minnesota grazing study of cool-season grass, which measured about 2.17 Mcal/kg in May, 2.24 in July and 2.18–2.37 in September and October (UMN Extension). That's about 985 kcal per lb of dry matter in spring, 1,015 in summer and 1,030 in fall, in line with lab averages for lush grass pasture of about 1,030 (Equi-Analytical, via KPP). We found no published winter figure, so winter's 900 is our estimate for dormant grass.
Pasture quality: studies found horses eat about the same amount on short, medium and tall grass (about 6–17 cm), roughly 2.1% of body weight a day with about 14 hours of grazing (summarized in an NC State review of grazing studies). So "lush" doesn't change our calorie math, though lush grass is usually higher in sugar and we flag it for at-risk horses. Only very short, grazed-down pasture is counted at about 60%, which is our estimate. We cap grass at about 2% of body weight a day, and because horses rarely eat more than about 2.5% of their body weight in total, we only count as much grass as fits on top of the hay.
Our own judgment calls, not from the NRC: body condition is the real test, so a horse at a healthy weight (5 or 6) gets a wide "about right" range, about 65–135% of the estimated need for a 5. Overweight horses (7+) get a stricter check, and thin horses (4 or below) can eat more ("Extra, for gain"). Grass is the hardest number to estimate, so for a horse at a healthy weight we assume it eats only as much grass as its weight shows it needs, and we say so in the results. If you choose a weight goal, we aim for about 15% more than maintenance to gain a little, or about 12% less to lose a little (at most 20% at first), and suggest how much hay or feed that is. Real horses vary by 10–20% or more from these averages.
Other numbers and where they come from
- Untested hay. When you pick a hay type, we use a middle guess for sugar + starch (NSC) and calories: grass hay (not sure) 12% and 800 kcal/lb, timothy 10% and 800, orchardgrass 11% and 820, bermudagrass 10% and 780, teff 9% and 790, brome 12% and 800, tall fescue 12% and 800, ryegrass 15% and 850, oat hay 17% and 830, alfalfa 11% and 950, peanut hay 10% and 900, grass/alfalfa mix 11.5% and 850. Peanut hay uses Mad Barn's feed database (about 8.7% NSC on a dry-matter basis) and University of Florida research finding its digestible energy close to alfalfa. These are our rough estimates based on commonly published ranges for each type, and real hay varies a lot with cutting, season and curing. A hay test is the only way to know, and when you enter one we use your numbers instead.
- Soaked hay. Soaking removes some of the sugar, but research finds big differences between hays and soak methods (for example Longland and colleagues, 2011, and Martinson and colleagues, 2012). We use rough averages for how much sugar is left: about 90% after under 15 minutes, 80% after 15–30 minutes, 70% after 30–60 minutes and 65% after an hour or more. Testing a soaked sample is the only way to know for your hay.
- Untested pasture. Grass sugar + starch (NSC) is a dry-matter estimate by season. Cool-season grasses (bluegrass, orchardgrass, timothy, fescue, mixed or clover pasture): about 20% in spring, 12% in summer, 18% in fall and 8% in winter. Ryegrass, often the highest: 24%, 15%, 22% and 10%. Warm-season grasses (bermudagrass, bahiagrass) store starch instead of fructan and usually run lower: 12%, 10%, 12% and 7%. These are our rough middle guesses from published pasture research (for example Kathryn Watts and Equi-Analytical's common feed profiles); real grass changes by the hour with sun, frost and growth. If you have your grass tested, we use your number instead.
- Suggested sugar + starch limit. We suggest under 10% for horses with laminitis, insulin resistance or EMS, and about 12% as a starting point for others. The 10% figure is the commonly cited guideline for metabolic horses (for example from the Equine Cushing's and Insulin Resistance Group). The 12% starting point is our judgment. You can change the limit anytime.
- Starch per meal. We flag meals over about 1 g of starch per kg of body weight, the level above which blood sugar and insulin responses rise sharply in research (Vervuert and colleagues, 2009).
- Meal size. We suggest splitting grain or pelleted feed into more meals above about 0.5 lb per 100 lb of body weight per feeding. This is a widely used rule of thumb, not a hard limit.
- Hay amount. Our tips use about 1.5% of body weight a day in forage as a common minimum, and 2–2.5% as typical total intake (NRC, 2007).
- Feed calories we estimate. If a feed has no published calories, we estimate kcal per lb as 1,500 + 25 × (fat % − 6) − 22 × (fiber % − 10), with fiber counted as at least 8%, kept between 700 and 3,900. This is our own simple formula, it's always marked "estimate", and it can be off by 10–20%.
- Supplement calories. Fat supplements count toward the plan's calories: Purina Amplify and Nutrena Empower Boost at 1 lb a day, and Cool Calories 100 at 1 scoop (about 500 kcal, from a retailer copy of the label). Check the bag for how much to feed.
- Weight tape estimate. Body weight (lb) ≈ heart girth² × body length ÷ 330, with both measured in inches. This is the widely used heart-girth formula for adult horses; it's usually within about 5–10% of a scale.
- Body condition. We use the Henneke 1–9 body condition scale (Henneke and colleagues, 1983), where 5 is moderate.
- Fit ratings and feed picks. These are our own rules, not a published formula. Each feed is checked against the conditions you pick (for example sugar + starch against your limit, fat for hard keepers, alfalfa for HYPP), then ranked by your horse's work, age, weight goal, pregnancy or nursing, how much forage it gets and whether the numbers are confirmed by the maker. Feeds made for a specific need, like gastric support for horses with ulcers, get extra weight. Each pick shows the reasons behind it.
- Product numbers. Guaranteed analyses (or typical values, labeled as such, when that's all a maker publishes), calories, ingredients and supplement amounts come from each maker's website or product sheet where we could find them, otherwise from retailer copies of the label or the Mad Barn feed database, as shown under "Where this came from" on every product.
What the badges mean
✓ Verified Numbers come from the maker's own website, spec sheet or label.
◐ Partly verified Some numbers come from the maker, others from retailers or third parties, or sources disagree. Unconfirmed numbers are underlined with a dashed line.
? Unconfirmed Only retailer, third-party or older sources were found.
Numbers were collected from manufacturer websites, retailer listings and the Mad Barn feed database in October 2026. Formulas change, and the tag on the bag in front of you is always the final word.
Neutrality
Rankings are based only on how a feed's published numbers match your horse. No brand can pay to change a ranking. Any future affiliate links or sponsored listings will be clearly labeled.
Known limits
- Fit checks are simple rules, not a full ration balance. The daily ration estimate covers sugar, starch, calories and intake, not minerals or protein.
- Pasture intake and grass sugar are estimates. Grass can spike on sunny spring and fall afternoons and after frost.
- Ration balancers and fat supplements are fed in small amounts, so their NSC % matters less than a grain fed at 6 lb a day.
- Potassium (important for HYPP horses) isn't in the data yet. Some ingredient lists are shortened and say so.
- Ingredient write-ups and research ratings are drafts awaiting review by an equine nutritionist.
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Terms of Use
Effective October 10, 2026
These terms apply to your use of Equine Feed Guide at equinefeedguide.com (“the site,” “we,” “us”). By using the site, you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use the site.
Not veterinary advice
Equine Feed Guide is for general education and research only. Nothing on the site is veterinary, medical or nutritional advice, and it does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition. Using the site does not create a veterinarian–client–patient relationship or any professional relationship with us. Always consult a licensed veterinarian or qualified equine nutritionist before changing your horse's diet, feed, supplements, grazing or care, especially for horses with laminitis, insulin resistance, PPID, PSSM, HYPP, ulcers, pregnancy or other medical conditions. If your horse shows signs of illness, colic or laminitis, contact a veterinarian immediately.
Information on the site
Product information, including guaranteed analyses, sugar and starch (NSC) values and supplement amounts, comes from manufacturer websites, product labels, retailer listings, third-party databases and user submissions. We label where each number came from and how confident we are in it, but we can't guarantee that any information is accurate, complete or current. Manufacturers change formulas, and online listings often disagree. The label on the product you buy is the final word.
Fit ratings, red flags, ration estimates and supplement suggestions are produced by general rules applied to the information you enter. They are rough estimates that may not suit your horse. Hay, pasture and individual horses vary widely.
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Accessibility statement
Updated October 10, 2026
We want everyone who cares for a horse to be able to use Equine Feed Guide, including people who use a keyboard, a screen reader, zoom or high-contrast settings.
Our goal
We build to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. We check pages with automated tools and test the main tasks with a keyboard.
What we know isn't perfect yet
Some charts, like the weight tracker and the sugar and starch bars, show information visually. We put the same numbers in text next to them, but the charts themselves aren't fully described to screen readers yet. Some product numbers link to outside sites that we don't control.
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Privacy Policy
Effective October 10, 2026
Equine Feed Guide (“we,” “us”) respects your privacy. This policy explains what information the site at equinefeedguide.com collects and how it's used. In short: accounts are optional, there are no advertising trackers, and we don't sell your information.
Information that stays on your device
Details you enter about your horse (name, age, weight, conditions, hay, pasture, feed and supplements, and the state you live in if you choose to add it) are processed in your own browser to build your plan. They aren't sent to us unless you save them to an account. If you tap Save plan, the plan is stored in your browser's local storage on that device. We can't see it, and you can delete it at any time below.
If you create an account
Accounts are optional and free. When you create one, we collect:
- Account details: your email address, an optional first name, and your password. Passwords are handled by our sign-in provider, Netlify Identity, and stored only in hashed form. We never see your password.
- Saved horses: the horse profiles, plans and optional photos you choose to save to My horses (name, breed, age, sex, weight, body condition, conditions, hay, pasture, feed and supplements, and your state if you added it, which we use only to show feeds sold near you). Photos are resized in your browser before upload. They're stored privately with Netlify, linked to your account, and only you can see them when signed in.
- Account emails: we use your email to send account messages, such as confirming your email or resetting your password. When you sign up, the newsletter box is checked so you get new feeding guides by email. Untick it if you'd rather not, or unsubscribe from any newsletter email.
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Information you choose to send us
- Tag checks: when you confirm or correct a product's numbers, we receive the product, the numbers you entered, and any date or note you add.
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Tag checks and product requests don't ask for your name or email. Please don't include personal information in notes. We use submissions only to check and improve product information on the site, and we may publish product numbers derived from them, without identifying you.
Information collected automatically
Like most websites, our hosting provider (Netlify) automatically processes technical information such as your IP address, browser type and the pages you request, to deliver the site and keep it secure. Our fonts are served from our own site, so no font company sees your visit. We don't use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking. If we add analytics or affiliate links in the future, we'll update this policy first.
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We don't sell or rent your information. Submissions, accounts and saved horses are stored with our service providers (such as Netlify, which hosts the site and runs sign-in) only to operate the site. We may disclose information if required by law or to protect the site and its users.
Service providers we use: Netlify (United States) hosts the site, runs sign-in, receives form submissions and stores saved horses and photos. Brevo (Sendinblue, France) stores newsletter subscribers' email addresses and sends the newsletter. We don't use any other service that receives your personal information. If we add one, we'll list it here and update the date above before it starts.
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Retention
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You can use the site without an account and without submitting anything. If you have an account, you can view, change or delete any saved horse in My account, and delete your whole account there at any time (Account settings, then Delete my account). You can also ask us to access, correct or delete your information by emailing hello@equinefeedguide.com. To remove your saved plan from this device, tap the button below or clear your browser's site data.
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Equine Feed Guide is responsible for your information (you can reach us at hello@equinefeedguide.com). We use your information on these bases: to provide your account and saved horses (contract), to send the newsletter you asked for (your consent, which you can withdraw anytime), and to reply to messages, review submissions and keep the site secure (our legitimate interests). Your information is stored by Netlify in the United States, under the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, and newsletter addresses are stored by Brevo in the EU. You can ask to access, correct, delete, restrict or move your information, or object to how we use it, by emailing us. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
Changes
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Contact
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My horses
Save a profile and plan for each of your horses, then come back anytime to update them.
Say hello
Questions, ideas, a feed we're missing, or a number that looks wrong? We'd love to hear from you. Email hello@equinefeedguide.com or use the form below. We usually reply within a few business days.
We can't give advice about your horse. Equine Feed Guide is for research only. For questions about your horse's health or diet, please ask your veterinarian. If you think it's an emergency, call your vet now.
Quick answers
- A product's numbers look wrong? Open the product and tap "Your tag looks different?" or "Help verify" to send us what your label says.
- Missing a feed or supplement? Use Request a product in the feed or supplement list.
- Delete your account? Go to My account, open Account settings, then Delete my account.