At Dragon Stables Equine Center, we believe that true rehabilitation doesn’t start with flashy feed or fast weight gain.

It starts with fiber.

When horses come into our care, many have experienced inconsistent feeding, high-grain diets, or nutritional imbalances. While grain can add calories quickly, it often contributes to:

• Digestive stress
• Increased ulcer risk
• Hindgut imbalance
• Behavioral tension
• Blood sugar spikes

To truly restore a horse, we focus on what their bodies were designed to do: graze.

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Understanding Forage-Focused Diets

You may hear the terms forage-only, forage-first, and forage-based. Here’s what they mean — and how we use them in rescue.

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🌿 Forage-Only (100% Forage)

This strict approach feeds only:

• Pasture
• Hay
• Hay pellets or cubes

No grain.

While this can work for some easy keepers, most hay is deficient in important trace minerals such as copper, zinc, selenium, iodine, and sodium. Without supplementation, deficiencies can develop — particularly in working or growing horses.

Forage-only requires careful balancing.

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🌾 Forage-First (Our Primary Philosophy)

This is the approach we use most often at Dragon Stables.

Forage makes up 80–90% (or more) of the horse’s diet.
Concentrates or ration balancers are added only if the individual horse cannot maintain weight or meet nutritional requirements on hay alone.

This allows us to:

• Support digestive healing
• Provide steady, calm energy
• Stabilize weight safely
• Reduce ulcer risk

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🌱 Forage-Based (High Forage, Structured Balance)

In cases involving seniors, hard keepers, or horses in heavier work, we use a structured forage-based diet. This means forage is still the foundation, but we strategically add low-starch feeds or ration balancers to ensure all nutrient requirements are met.

Rescue is not one-size-fits-all. Each horse receives individualized nutritional planning.

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Why Forage Matters So Much in Rehabilitation

Horses naturally consume 2–2.5% of their body weight daily.

For a 1,200-pound horse, that’s 20–25 pounds of feed — ideally mostly forage.

Fiber fermentation in the hindgut produces slow-release energy and heat. This supports:

✔ Digestive health
✔ Reduced colic risk
✔ Reduced gastric ulcers
✔ Calmer behavior
✔ Healthier weight gain
✔ Stable blood sugar

For horses coming from stressful situations, the ability to eat frequently and naturally is not just nutritional — it’s psychological.

It restores rhythm.
It restores normalcy.
It restores hope.

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Not Every Horse Can Thrive on Hay Alone

Some horses — particularly high-performance athletes or those with specific metabolic challenges — require additional calories, protein, or micronutrients.

We carefully evaluate:

• Body condition score
• Workload
• Age
• Dental health
• Forage quality (when possible, we test hay)

Because good intentions without balance can create new problems.

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The Real Cost of Rescue: Hay

When people think of equine rescue, they think of dramatic saves, vet care, and retraining.

But the daily reality?

It’s hay.

Pallets of it.
Truckloads of it.
Every single day.

Forage-first nutrition isn’t glamorous — but it’s foundational. It’s how we rebuild muscle safely. It’s how we calm anxious systems. It’s how we give neglected horses the steady fuel they deserve.

At Dragon Stables, we don’t just feed horses.

We restore them.

Where Hooves Find Hope. 🐴💛

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