Because of tried and reliable fescue, horses can be pastured year round. Stockpiled fescue is very palatable and horses not being regularly used stay in good shape on year-round pasture.

Most horses are given grain at 1/2 percent of their body weight when fescue is the main forage.

But there's a bad side to fescue. When it's fed to pregnant mares, they will often end up with a dead foal. In these cases there is a very thick placenta, apparently restricting the foal's ability to break out of the placenta sac. Yet, even assisted in birthing, the foals die. Another complication from fescue is that the mare may not have milk. This is called agalactia. A small amount of syrupy secretion can usually be stripped out; however, this is not colostrum and not enough to feed the colt. This fescue syndrome is like everything else in life (when it rains it pours). Many horse owners have foaled mares on fescue for 20 years without a problem, and then in one year they lose all their colts.

Fescue can also cause founder and actually cause the hoof to slough off completely. It's thought that fescue causes such a restriction of blood to the hoof that the hoof loses its life. Fescue can also cause horses to get extremely thick necks that appear cresty like a stud horse. It can get so bad that the tip of the neck loses its nerves and the neck hangs over like a cloth or loose tissue.

How come these problems appear only once in a while rather than every time a horse is on fescue? I don't have all the answers for every case, but I do know that horses can do quite well on fescue, especially in a pasture situation.

There are a couple of reasons why fescue can be good for horses:

• Fescue, even more so than other forages, is at its best when it is very short. Horses have the ability to graze very close to the ground. In a pasture situation, horses graze fescue at this short, vegetative state. This is why you see large grass growing but horses nibbling grass where there is hardly any grass left.
• Fescue is tough enough to take the daily trampling of horses. Even when it is extremely muddy, it is hard for horses to kill fescue.

To avoid the pitfalls of feeding fescue to horses it is a good idea to dilute the effect of fescue for brood mares by taking them off of fescue 60 to 90 days prior to foaling. If completely taking fescue away is not practical, then feed at least 10 pounds of good alfalfa hay each day.

Because a mare will produce up to 5 gallons of milk per day, you need to be more concerned about feeding the mare than the colt. Prior to foaling, have the mare adjusted to 1/2 to 1 percent of her body weight of Easykeeper horse feed. After foaling keep her on all or some alfalfa hay and increase the grain gradually to 1 1/2 percent to 2 percent of her body weight. If she is producing a lot of milk, it will take this much to keep her in shape. How much depends on the condition of the horse. Some Quarter Horses stay fat whereas some higher strung horses will milk down to hide and bone if you don't offer grain at 2 percent of their body weight.

If not feeding alfalfa, it would be a good idea to feed Easykeeper Edge. Edge is higher in protein than Easykeeper 11% and has an advantage where the mare is getting only grass and hay. However, if there is an abundance of grass or alfalfa, Easykeeper 11% would be your best choice It contains beef tallow, which provides energy in concentrated amounts without founder or colic. Tallow also makes their coat shine.

For horses, the most important minerals are salt and calcium. Be sure to have plenty of salt. Include it in the horse feed at 10 pounds per ton, and offer a salt block.

Calcium is extremely important. For one, the milk the mare produces is high in calcium. Without enough of the mineral in the diet, the mare will pull calcium off of her bones to make milk. This will leave the mare with very weak, brittle bones that can cause bone breakage, a weak back and premature aging.

If a horse owner feeds only oats and grass hay there is likely a serious calcium deficiency. Even in a mature gelding, this can cause lameness and bone disease. For a growing colt or a lactating mare, calcium is crucial for health and soundness.

What is possibly worse than the calcium deficiency from an oats-and-grass-hay diet, is the problem of an inverted calcium and phosphorus ratio. When phosphorus is higher than calcium in a grain ration, "big head disease" can develop. This is much more serious than a high calcium to phosphorus ratio that so many worry about.

To be sure there is enough calcium, feed a ration with calcium included. I like the calcium in a horse feed to be around 1 percent. A new feed called TrendSetter SLR has been successfully fed full feed to mares and colts. Be sure and order the SLR without Rumensin or Bovatec, as either ionophore can be toxic or fatal to horses. It's been fed successfully from a self feeder with 50 percent corn and 50 percent TrendSetter SLR to colts up to 2 years old.