Feed Management: Inventory, Delivery, and Individual Feeding Programs
Feed is the largest recurring expense at most equine facilities after labor. It is also the area where management quality has the most direct daily impact on horse health. A facility that manages feed inventory proactively, maintains accurate individual feeding programs, and monitors consumption per horse is providing a level of care that shows up in body condition, coat quality, and overall horse health.
Feed Inventory Management
Running out of hay or feed is a serious operational failure. It is also entirely preventable with a basic inventory management system.
Hay inventory: Track bales on hand and average daily consumption per horse. At a facility feeding 30 horses at an average of half a bale per horse per day, you use 15 bales per day. With 200 bales on hand, you have approximately 13 days of hay. That 13-day number tells you when to order. Most facilities want at least two weeks of inventory as a buffer against delivery delays, weather disruptions, and hay quality issues.
Grain inventory: Track bags or pounds on hand for each grain product used. Calculate daily consumption across all horses on that product and divide into current inventory to get days remaining. Reorder before you are within one week of running out for any product used regularly.
Supplement inventory: Supplements often come in containers with enough for one horse for 30 to 90 days. Maintain a par level for each product and reorder when you reach the par level. Supplements that run out cause gaps in a horse's care program that can affect health outcomes.
The inventory review should be part of a weekly routine, not something done when someone realizes there are only three bags of senior feed left.
Delivery Scheduling
Hay delivery scheduling depends on your storage capacity, the reliability of your hay supplier, and the time of year. Key considerations:
Storage capacity: How many bales can you store? This determines your maximum reorder quantity. Ordering 400 bales when you only have room for 150 creates a problem regardless of how good the price is.
Seasonal availability: Hay availability and price fluctuate seasonally. Purchasing larger quantities in summer when local hay is abundant and prices are lower, if you have the storage, can reduce annual feed costs significantly.
Supplier reliability: Work with suppliers who can deliver on a predictable schedule. Multiple supplier relationships reduce risk if your primary supplier has availability or quality issues.
Quality consistency: Document quality concerns with hay deliveries (dusty bales, mold, unusual smell, poor nutritional appearance). If quality issues arise, address them with the supplier before simply feeding substandard hay to horses.
Individual Feeding Programs
The complexity of managing individual feed programs increases non-linearly with horse count. At 5 horses, it is manageable in your head. At 30 horses, each with a different ration, supplement stack, and special instruction, you need a written system.
A complete individual feeding program for each horse should specify:
Hay: Type (grass, alfalfa, mixed, timothy, orchard grass), quantity per feeding, and any method requirements (hay net, ground feeding, soaked hay).
Grain: Product name, brand if relevant, quantity in pounds or volume, and which meals it is given with. Include whether it is given dry or wet.
Supplements: Each product with the amount to add, which meal, and any notes on mixing. Some supplements should be added after the grain is wetted. Some need to be kept away from certain other products.
Medications: Any medications mixed into feed with dose, frequency, and duration.
Special instructions: Slow feeders, grazing muzzles, timed feeding restrictions, horses that bolt food and need a handful at a time approach.
BarnBeacon stores individual feeding programs per horse and makes them accessible to all staff, so the person doing evening feeding has the same information as the person doing morning feeding, even if they have never been briefed in person. For the daily care operations that feeding programs support, see equine daily care management. For the feeding schedule structure, see feeding schedule management.