4 Advantages of Feed Pellets Over Unprocessed Feeds

Feed pellets are better for most horses because “cooked” ingredients are easier to digest. Since pellets are already “pre-chewed”, horses can eat them a lot more easily.  It’s the same way humans find cooked foods more convenient.

But it doesn’t end there. Here are four other reasons you should consider feed pellets over unprocessed hay or grain:

  • Less dust

Pellets are less dusty than loose or baled hay, or unprocessed grains. This is important when feeding a horse with respiratory problems. Moreover, since you don’t have to worry about covering yourself in dust, scooping and pouring becomes a lot more fun. Pellets, unlike other commercial sweet feeds, aren’t coated with molasses. This makes them easier to handle in the winter when molasses tends to freeze and become too hard for the horses to chew.

  • Less storage space

This is something you’ll find out on the first day you purchase the pellets. Take a ton of baled hay versus a ton of hay pellets, for example. The baled hay would need between 200 and 330 cubic feet of space for storage whereas the ton of pellets would only need between 60 and 70 cubic feet. Being lighter, feed pellets are also much more portable and ideal for traveling compared to unprocessed grains.

  • Less wasted feed

Feed pellets are also a great way to minimize feed waste. Loose hay fed on the ground often causes wastes of about 14-22% in cattle and scientists suggest that the figures can be higher for horses. Leaves of legumes, in particular, tend to shatter and be lost. Considering that these leaves contain much of the nutrition in hay, it can be a costly loss. With feed pellets, there is almost zero waste because all the stems and leaves are incorporated into the pellet during milling.

  • It’s a great way to deal with the picky eaters

Finally, there couldn’t be a better way to deal with picky eaters. There are some horses who like to sort out all the oats out of their sweet feed and leave the rest. With feed pellets, there can be no picky eating – every horse has to eat the whole thing. The great news is that most horses will eat a pellet as happily as they would eat unprocessed grain!

So, as you can see, you have a host of reasons to start feeding your horses on pellets.