in weight followed by compensatory development. From the point of view of their osteoarticular health, the worst possible situation. Tameness resulting from this kind of management is a value difficult to quantify, but which is very much appreciated by tamers and future users. Lastly, very often when deciding to choose this system of feed management, it is believed that a lot of staff is needed. I have seen establishments where 40 births a year occurred, attended by two people, and perfectly managed with daily individual rationing for over several years.
-What is your perspective of feed in the raising of animals until they are weaned in the different areas of the country, from the best locations of our Humid Pampas; the West; the Salado catchment area or our more tropical Northern area?-Reality has given me a glimpse of very well bred animals raised on farms that are not considered good, as well as foals with very poor development on farms of excellent quality. The problem is not the productive quality of the land, but awareness of the needs of the horses, i. e., giving them the space they need and all that is necessary for them to be well fed every day. There is no doubt that as the things we must provide ourselves increase, the more difficult it is to obtain good results. This happens not because it is difficult to find the items with the nutritional quality needed, but because the management of this“ socially” complicated species is difficult. Exhaustion through stress of the great majority of those who make up the management group( 15-20 foals) is huge, and consumption irregularity— because they are competition animals— is irreparable as their feed dependency on their daily ration increases. Last year, when I visited an important Quarter Mile stud farm during the mid-Texan summer( USA), I noticed that annually they needed to resolve continuity of their production of some 200 foals from the moment they were weaned till adulthood, spending the dry season without altering the excellent development of each batch. In order to give them the space they needed, the batches of approximately 30 foals were distributed into 20-25 hectare pastures that were stripped of greenery because they were awaiting plantation of pastures for the following winter. In order to give them fiber, placed close to the water troughs were several grass troughs raised on a 4-leg stand, the classic type that are like two sets of railings placed in a“ V”, each of which held a huge bale of very good-quality grass. The amount of grass troughs and the distribution, made it possible for all to have access to it without any competition problem. In order to complement what could be lacking in protein, minerals and vitamins a truck would arrive every day driving a small feed hopper, and the curious thing about this was that it would drive in wide circles around the grass troughs, dropping 1-2 Kg fractions of its load on the ground, separated by several meters. The operator would let fall as many doses as foals there were. It was incredible to see how each of the foals would find its dosage of balanced feed as it followed as in a procession behind the truck. It was an amazing spectacle! Those batches of foals of perfect body fitness walking on compact clay ground as though it were a back yard. This protocol, which they repeat year after year, is proof that if we give them space, fiber and the adequate supplements we could raise horses on almost any kind of land.
-Is it possible to reach a good development with foals born late( January-February-March)?-Before I go any further, I wish to make clear that feeding horses correctly does not increase their size. Adequate feed( feeding them what is right) allows us to get each individual to reach what is genetically programmed for it. Feed can do no more than that. Some years ago it was common to see polo herds raising their foals on fields that were far from being the best on the farm, and when some of the playing ponies that had been born and then raised after they were weaned in these conditions, went on to become donors, their offspring— after having received good feed management— reached a larger size than their dams. That donor that had been underfed had not expressed its“ genetic” size, whereas its offspring had. Returning to your question, yes, it is possible to reach good development with foals born late. It can
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