We develop feeding plans and nutrition advice for horse owners, ideally based on pasture or forage (hay/ haylage/ baleage) data. We offer a professional service with confidentiality assured. Our feeding plans cover nutrition and nutraceuticals to meet the individual horse’s needs:
- The Troubleshoot: a feeding plan without forage data (balance is estimated), includes troubleshooting current bucket feed & diet (1 horse)- $350 for the first horse and $90 for each additional horse on the same property. This is useful as a starting point to understand what the horse requires and includes listening to you and understanding your current challenges and goals, and building an interim diet based on your horse’s needs and the likely mineral profile of the grass/ hay (until forage can be tested)
- The Balance: build a feeding plan based on your pasture/ forage data (1 horse) – $350 for the first horse and $90 for each additional horse on the same property
We will interpret your pasture data and calculate what minerals and nutrients your horse needs to balance any deficiencies or excesses, includes 6 months of unlimited questions - The Works: troubleshoot bucket feed/ diet, build an interim feeding plan, then balance to forage/ pasture data when available (1 horse) $450 for the first horse and $140 for each additional horse. Includes an interim diet, correctly balanced diet based on pasture data, and 6 months of unlimited questions
- Feeding plans for broodmares and young stock- price on application
- General horse keeping advice and support- price on application
- Plans for agistment centres, pony clubs, studs with multiple horses- price on application
- Advice on applying regenerative agriculture principles to managing horse pasture- price on application
We accept payment via bank transfer, credit and debit card (no surcharges) via our online invoicing system.
Please note: travel is not included in the listed prices and is charged at current IRD kilometre rates. Ideally, we like to visit clients and meet your horses. We are based in norwest Auckland. If it’s not possible to travel, we can also provide services remotely via Google, Zoom, Skype or Facetime.
How to test forage or water
Forage
Forage Wet Testing this is the gold standard for testing grass, hay and other forage, but it’s not currently available at an affordable price from labs in New Zealand. So Chasing Zebras offers a service to prepare and send your forage to Equi-Analytical in the USA for ‘wet testing’. Equi-Analytical receive and test forage from all over the world, our business is fully licensed and set up to provide this service.
- Equi-Analytical guide to preparing forage for testing
- We can prepare and send your sample to Equi-Analytical in the USA (when postal services resume). This costs approximately $200 per sample.
Forage testing by NIRS- Hills and Ravensdown both offer forage testing using Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS). We have built diets based on NIRS forage tests with success, although wet testing as provided by Equi-Analytical provides better accuracy for the available sugar content (important for insulin resistant horses). Prefilled horse pasture/ forage test request form.
Water
Minerals in water can be up to 10x as bioavailable as minerals in forage. It’s reasonably common to find high iron and manganese in bore water, and this can cause animal health issues.
We recommend getting a Livestock Drinking Water Test from Hills Laboratories.
