An Automatic Feeder… For a Horse?
Phelps Media Group
Enviro Equine & Pet and its partner iFEED share the sentiment that nature is best at determining how horses should eat. In order to bring that ideal to life, the two companies are making it simple and cost effective to feed horses small portions dozens of times each day, mimicking the horse’s natural grazing habits. By automatically delivering feed and supplements up to 48 times, up to 15 portions each time, over the course of each day and night at pre-scheduled times, the patented iFEED automatic feeder allows a horse to practice grazing the way his gastrointestinal system intended. Horse owners can rest assured that their horses have constant access to feed whether inside or outside, thus reducing instances of intestinal distress, colic, ulcers or other disorders. Plus, the feeder is proven to cut feed costs!
Enviro Equine sponsored rider Victoria Colvin and her team are proponents of the iFEED automatic feeder, especially for horses that are nervous, underweight or overweight, get bored easily or have to spend large chunks of time in a stall. Adding to the appeal, the automatic feeding reduces clean up!
“I have been using the iFEED for one of our horses and a customer’s sales horse. Our horse ‘Charlie’ used to chew the walls and was generally agitated. This has stopped him and he is much more calm now. He doesn’t chew the walls anymore,” commented Colvin. “He is relaxed in his stall and stays relaxed going to the ring, which normally he wasn’t. The client’s horse would kick and kick when we would give him his feed, but with the feeder he has access to hay pellets all the time and is happy!”
In addition to calming the horses, the iFEED system has shown tangible results in terms of the horses’ health. “The customer’s horse was always a little stressed, and I have to say it made a huge difference! He was hard to get weight on, and in the two and a half weeks we had him he probably put on 100 pounds. It doesn’t take a lot. We scheduled iFEED to serve handfuls every 30 minutes, and it is working!” praised Colvin.
With such a busy competition schedule, Colvin began using the automatic feeder during the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Fla., with the system programmed to serve hay pellets all day every 30 minutes while on the show grounds. With the horse show lifestyle offering limited to no turnout for the horses, most remain in their stalls for the majority of the day. According to Colvin, the iFEED has helped keep the horses from being bored all day because food is almost constantly being supplied.
From a management standpoint, the iFEED negates most cleaning routines because food is consistently moving and never stagnant in a ground feeder or bucket where it could collect water and produce mold. The first feed in the system is the first feed out, meaning nothing goes bad!
“I used to make a spare buckets with pellets, and then if I didn’t dump it every day it would get nasty. Now, we just fill the hopper and it is perfectly clean all the time. The horses eat it all up, so there is no mold or nasty stuff at the bottom!” she noted.
Backed by independent research conducted at the Colorado State University, iFEED was shown to significantly reduce the severity and incidence of ulcers after 24 days of use when horses were fed their daily ration in small fractions as opposed to twice per day. Plus, barns that have iFEED installed report a 30% reduction in feed costs due to better feed digestibility. Using iFEED allows you to feed in a way that honors more closely the way your horse was designed to be fed.
If you want to give iFEED a try, a representative will help you install your automatic feeder system for a free four-week trial! For more information, please visit www.enviroequine.com.
