Determining pasture quality
Entering ‘Pasture Quality’ for Accurate Diets
With pasture sometimes forming the majority, if not all, of our horse’s diets, it’s important to enter pasture quality as accurately as you can in FeedXL.
Pasture quality corresponds with the amount of digestible energy, crude protein, macro minerals and vitamins your pasture is providing. Therefore, pasture quality determines what else you may (or may not) need to supply in your horse’s diet to meet their nutritional requirements.
We like to keep it simple when it comes to deciding pasture quality – by looking at colour and presence or absence of seed heads (basically stage of maturity). When pasture is overgrazed (less than 1 inch in height), it’s unlikely you’ll see any seed heads, therefore colour is your major guide.
So, next time you’re entering your pasture use the definitions and images below to help you determine quality.
Pasture Quality |
Overgrazed |
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Excellent
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Good
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Average
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Poor
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