Imagine building your house out of rotten wood or disintegrating bricks

Remember the story of the man who built his house on sand? Or the Three Little Pigs? Same principle applies to the body—structure and foundation matter, whether it’s human or horse.

Now, if you want to eat ultra-processed meals full of CRAP (Carbs, Refined, Artificial & Processed), that’s your choice. But would you knowingly feed your horse defective ingredients that harm their body, gut, and long-term health?

Every cell in your horse’s body - muscles, organs, bones, skin, you name it - is built from the food you provide. Next time you put the feedbowl down for Ned, ask yourself: Am I okay with this feed becoming part of him?

Let’s get real:

• Would you feed Ned something that damages hormone production?
• Or an ingredient so mutated by genetic tinkering that it’s linked to autoimmune diseases?
• Or synthetic vitamins and minerals that his gut doesn’t recognize, alongside fillers that feed harmful gut bacteria?

It’s scary how many feeds contain these ingredients. But here’s the good news: feeding your horse the right way is simpler, more cost-effective, and healthier than you might think.

Your horse is what you feed them

Think of your horse’s genes as software. Every bite of food you offer is like typing on the keyboard, sending messages to their system. Those messages can either create health or fuel disease.

Here’s an example:

• A fast-food dinner (burger, fries, soda) sends your body a “crash incoming” message.
• Compare that to wild salmon, broccoli, and sweet potato—it’s a “run smoothly” signal.

It’s no different for Ned. The feed you choose dictates whether he thrives or struggles. Juliet Getty put it perfectly:

"Feeding your horse contrary to their innate physiological needs makes their body scream for help."

A scoop of this, a slosh of that, a sprinkle of something else, and where's the turmeric gone? And crikey hope Ned doesn't give me the look with this week's new magic feed ...

We’ve all been there. The overwhelming number of feeds and supplements on the market leaves many horse owners confused, frustrated, and guilt-ridden when their efforts don’t pay off. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t need to be this complicated. Let’s strip it back to basics.

The truth about feeds

Most feedbags are loaded with ultra-processed fillers, byproducts, and synthetic additives. They look shiny and promise amazing health benefits, but the reality? They’re the equine version of junk food.

Let’s break it down:

• Modern feeds are packed with CRAP (Carbs, Refined, Artificial & Processed).
• Bulk ingredients like wheat, corn, and soy - often genetically modified - are staples in horse feeds but far removed from what horses evolved to eat.
• These feeds create gut imbalances, fuel inflammation, and leave your horse craving more, all while producers rake in the profits.

Remember, what you feed becomes the foundation of your horse’s health. Junk feed leads to junk outcomes - simple as that.

What should horses eat?

Horses are nothing more, and nothing less, than hindgut grass-forage-fibre fermenting machines. Their digestive systems evolved over millions of years to process coarse, fibrous forage - not neon-green grass blades, molasses-laced feeds, or synthetic additives.

Wild horses roam, graze on diverse, stemmy grasses, and eat what their gut microbes are designed to digest. Compare this to domesticated horses:

• Restricted movement and grazing.
• Limited forage variety.
• Processed feeds loaded with sugars, starches, and fillers.
  
  

This mismatch between evolutionary needs and modern diets is at the root of many health issues like laminitis, colic, and metabolic disorders.

The simple solution

The answer is straightforward: feed your horse like a horse. Here’s how:

Forage first

• Provide free-choice hay, ideally meadow hay, with a diverse range of grasses. Avoid haylage or alfalfa for metabolic horses.

Balance the deficiencies

• UK forage is notoriously low in key minerals like magnesium, zinc, copper, and phosphorous. Use a forage-balancer like our EquiVita range to fill these gaps.

Ditch the junk

• Avoid grains, molasses, byproducts, and fillers. Stick to species-appropriate feed carriers like grass nuts or simple chaff.

Feeding your horse this way doesn’t just simplify your feedroom - it transforms their health, behavior, and overall well-being.

Food as medicine

Every bite your horse takes programs their biology. Nutrient-rich, whole foods turn off inflammation, boost gut health, and support immunity. Processed, artificial feeds do the opposite.

The choice is yours:

• Build your horse’s body on solid, species-appropriate foundations.
• Or gamble their health on shiny promises from feedbags filled with CRAP.

Pulling it all together

1. Prioritise forage - hay is king.
2. Supplement with the right forage-balancer to address nutrient gaps.
3. Skip the confusion of multiple feeds; keep it simple with a healthy, grass-fibre-forage-based carrier.

It’s that easy. With the right diet, your horse can thrive. So let’s clear out those shiny bags of promises and give Ned the real nutrition he deserves.

What about vitamins?

For years, scientists wondered how wild horses managed to get all the vitamins they needed. Turns out, nature designed them brilliantly—horses produce most of their own vitamins through their gut and liver.

Let’s take a closer look:

Vitamins A & E

• Growing grass is rich in vitamins A and E, which are stored in a horse’s fat tissue and used during winter or when grass is sparse.
• However, vitamin E completely degrades in hay, especially if it’s not green anymore. Horses on hay-heavy or hay-only diets (common for metabolic horses) need a vitamin E supplement.
• But beware: most vitamin E supplements are synthetic. The liver doesn’t recognize these and just flushes them out—basically, you’re paying for very expensive urine!

Vitamin C

• No need to supplement this one! Unlike humans and guinea pigs, horses produce their own vitamin C in the liver from glucose found in their forage.

Vitamin D

• Just like us, horses synthesize vitamin D in their skin from sunlight. Hay also contains a vitamin D precursor, so deficiency is rare.
• Vitamin K, a key partner for vitamin D, is produced by the microbiome and also has precursors in hay.

The big guns: vitamin Bs

The entire vit.B complex is produced by the horse's gut microbiome, but only two of the most critical B’s can become deficient – B6 and B12, both of which are created in the hindgut in a specific activated form that the body knows what to do with.

1. B6 (P5P)

• Active B6, known as pyridoxal-5-phosphate (P5P), is crucial for detoxifying the liver and supporting enzyme activity. Regular off-the-shelf B6 supplements (pyridoxine) are useless to horses because their gut can’t convert them into P5P.
• If gut health is compromised (think dysbiosis, diarrhea, or colic), P5P production suffers, leading to toxin buildup in the bloodstream - a domino effect linked to metabolic issues like Cryptopyrroluria (KPU).

1. B12

• Essential for building red blood cells and transporting oxygen, B12 can become deficient in over-trained horses or those with microbiome disruptions.



B vitamins are vital for breaking down proteins, fats, and carbs—critical for healthy hooves, which are packed with protein. Horses on a high-quality forage-based diet generally get enough B vitamins, but poor-quality forage or disrupted gut health can lead to deficiencies.

The feedbowl

Here’s where it often goes wrong. You can’t balance a horse’s body by adding high-quality nutrition into a feedbowl full of donuts (a.k.a. junk).

Let’s face it—there are three types of feeds:

1. Good Feeds: Nourishing and species-appropriate.
2. Questionable Feeds: Over-processed, high in carbs and sugars.
3. Bad Feeds: Pro-inflammatory, gut-damaging, and brimming with bulk fillers.

The goal is simple: use a grass forage-based carrier for supplements. This could be grass nuts, cobs, or a simple chaff made from species-appropriate grass. Horses don’t need much - just something palatable that their gut knows how to process.

What NOT to Feed

For gut-sensitive or metabolic horses, steer clear of:

• Grains and grain by-products.
• Molasses: It’s shocking how many feeds still use it!
• Fillers and by-products: These often do more harm than good.
• Salt Blocks: They weather quickly, denature, and can harbor bacteria and mold.

Check the ingredients!

Feed manufacturers don’t always make it easy to find out what’s in their products. Ingredients are often hidden on white labels sewn into the top of the bag, but take the time to read them. Many popular brands include pro-inflammatory fillers that encourage bad gut bacteria and destroy beneficial flora.

The result? Bloat, gas, and toxins (SIBO) in the GI tract, wreaking havoc on your horse’s health and immune system.

The simple fix

Choose a forage-first diet, balance with the right supplements, and skip the shiny marketing hype. Your horse doesn’t need several fancy feeds - just natural, species-appropriate nutrition that supports their biology.

Keep it simple, keep it healthy, and watch your horse thrive. 

See the next part in this section, The Feedbowl - what's really in those feedbags? for the spin behind the spin, and a list of many of those bad ingredients in our feedbags that we should be avoiding.