How to Read a Horse Feed Label: What the Numbers Mean

Reviewed by Dr. Ali Ehtisham, DVM

Pick up any bag of horse feed and you will find a dense block of nutritional information on the back — percentages, units, feeding rates, and analysis figures that most horse owners glance at and then ignore. That is a missed opportunity, because the numbers on a feed label are one of the most practical tools available for managing your horse's diet, condition, and long-term health. Understanding what those figures actually mean, and how to use them to compare products and match a feed to your horse's specific needs, takes less expertise than you might think — and it could make a meaningful difference to how your horse looks, performs, and stays sound.

Why Reading Feed Labels Matters

Most horse owners choose their feed based on brand familiarity, stable recommendation, or the picture on the bag. While there is nothing wrong with relying on a trusted brand, it does not protect you from the most common feeding mistakes that lead to real health consequences: overfeeding calories to an easy keeper, underfeeding essential vitamins and minerals to a hard keeper, or inadvertently feeding a high-sugar and high-starch diet to a horse at risk of laminitis.

Laminitis is one of the most painful and potentially life-altering conditions a horse can develop, and it has a well-established dietary trigger in the form of excessive non-structural carbohydrates — sugars and starches — that flood the hindgut when the small intestine is overwhelmed, triggering a cascade of inflammatory events that damage the sensitive laminae within the hoof. The irony is that many of the feeds marketed for horses in moderate work contain sugar and starch levels that are entirely inappropriate for the large proportion of native breeds, cobs, and easy-keeping warmbloods that make up the bulk of the amateur horse population. If you are not reading the label, you cannot know what you are feeding.

Equally, overfeeding calories through a high-energy compound while the horse is in light work is a common cause of stable vices, excitability, and weight gain. The feed label gives you the information you need to avoid all of this — but only if you know how to read it.

Crude Protein — What It Means and What Your Horse Needs

Crude protein is almost always the first figure listed on a horse feed analysis panel, and it is also one of the most misunderstood. Crude protein is not a direct measurement of the usable protein in the feed — it is a calculated figure derived from the nitrogen content of the feed, based on the assumption that all nitrogen in the feed comes from protein and that protein contains a standard proportion of nitrogen. The word "crude" signals that it is an approximation, and it tells you nothing about the quality of the protein sources used.

What matters in practice is not just the percentage of crude protein, but the amino acid profile of the protein — particularly the content of essential amino acids that horses cannot synthesise themselves, with lysine being the most critical. A feed using soya, alfalfa, or full-fat linseed as its protein source will deliver a much more useful protein to the horse than one relying on lower-quality grain by-products at the same stated percentage, because the quality sources contain the essential amino acids in the proportions horses need for muscle maintenance, tissue repair, coat condition, and hoof growth.

In practical terms, a mature horse in light to moderate work typically requires a diet containing around 8 to 10 percent crude protein across the total ration — both forage and hard feed combined. Growing youngstock, broodmares in late pregnancy, and lactating mares have significantly elevated requirements, often in the 12 to 14 percent range or above. Performance horses in hard work need slightly more than horses at rest, but the increase is modest — protein is not the primary fuel for exercise, and feeding excess protein is wasteful, heat-generating, and kidney-loading. Matching the protein percentage on the label to your horse's life stage and workload, combined with choosing feeds that specify high-quality protein sources in their ingredient list, is the informed approach.

Digestible Energy (DE) Explained

Digestible energy is the most useful measure of a feed's caloric value for horses and is the standard used on most UK and European horse feed labels. Expressed in megajoules per kilogram of dry matter (MJ/kg DM), DE represents the gross energy in the feed minus the fraction lost in faeces — the energy the horse's digestive system is actually capable of absorbing and using. Higher DE values mean more energy per kilogram of feed; lower values mean a lighter, less calorie-dense product.

On compound feeds, DE values typically range from around 8 MJ/kg for lightweight chaff products and balancers up to 14 to 15 MJ/kg for high-performance conditioning and competition feeds. A good-quality meadow hay might deliver around 8 to 9 MJ/kg, while high-quality alfalfa or haylage can reach 10 to 11 MJ/kg — which is one of the reasons forage quality matters so much in the overall diet calculation.

To use DE practically, you need an estimate of your horse's total daily energy requirement — which depends on bodyweight, workload, and physiological status — and then to work backwards from the DE value and daily feeding rate to determine how much energy the hard feed is actually contributing. A 500 kg horse in light work might require around 65 to 70 MJ per day, the vast majority of which should come from forage. A horse in heavy competition work may need 120 MJ or more. Understanding DE allows you to choose a product that delivers the energy density you need at a feeding rate that is practical and safe.

Crude Fibre — Why It Should Be High

Crude fibre is the measure of the indigestible structural carbohydrate fraction in a feed — primarily the cellulose and lignin that make up plant cell walls. On a compound feed label, a higher crude fibre percentage is generally a positive indicator, because it means the product has a significant structural fibre component that will slow down the rate of transit through the digestive system, reduce the risk of sudden blood glucose and insulin spikes, and support healthy hindgut function. The horse's hindgut is a microbial fermentation chamber that has evolved to process fibrous plant material, and feeds that are high in digestible starch and low in fibre are fundamentally mismatched to this physiology.

Many high-energy performance feeds and older-style cereal mixes have relatively low crude fibre figures — sometimes as low as 4 to 6 percent — because their energy comes primarily from rapidly fermentable starches in grains such as barley, maize, and oats. Fibre-based feeds using sugar beet pulp, alfalfa, and digestible fibre sources instead of grain starch will typically show crude fibre values of 10 percent or above. For horses in light to moderate work, particularly those with any history of digestive upset, gastric ulcers, or hindgut sensitivity, choosing a product with a higher crude fibre percentage is a straightforward way to reduce dietary risk. Even for performance horses, a good dietary fibre base reduces the risk of colic and hindgut acidosis caused by starch overload.

Sugar and Starch — The Numbers That Matter Most

If there is one section of a horse feed label that deserves the most attention, it is the sugar and starch figures. Together, these two values make up what nutritionists refer to as non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), and for a significant and growing proportion of the horse population, elevated NSC in the diet is a direct trigger for laminitis, exacerbation of equine metabolic syndrome, and destabilisation of horses with pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID or Cushing's disease).

On a feed label, sugar may be listed as "water-soluble carbohydrates" (WSC) or simply "sugars," while starch is almost always labelled as "starch." The critical figure is the combined total of these two values — the NSC percentage. For horses and ponies with a history of laminitis, or those in high-risk categories such as native breeds, easy keepers, and metabolic horses, the current veterinary consensus recommends keeping the NSC of the total diet — including forage — below 10 percent on a dry matter basis. For the hard feed component in isolation, many nutritionists advise targeting a combined sugar and starch figure below 10 to 12 percent for at-risk animals.

A figure above 20 percent NSC in a compound feed should be considered unsuitable for any horse at metabolic risk. Cereal mixes and traditional coarse mixes built around grain often have starch levels of 25 percent or above. By contrast, feeds marketed specifically as "low sugar and starch" or "suitable for laminitis-prone horses" typically achieve NSC levels well below 10 percent by replacing grain starch with highly digestible fibre sources. The label is the only reliable way to verify these figures — marketing language on the front of the bag is no substitute for checking the actual numbers.

Oil Content and Why It Matters for Condition

The oil or fat content of a horse feed is listed as "crude oil" or "crude fat" on the analysis panel, and it is a figure that deserves more attention from owners trying to improve condition and topline in horses that struggle to maintain weight. Dietary fat is a highly concentrated energy source — providing roughly 2.25 times more energy per gram than carbohydrates or protein — and because it is digested and absorbed in the small intestine rather than fermented in the hindgut, it delivers energy without the associated risks of starch overload or digestive upset.

Standard compound feeds typically contain around 3 to 5 percent crude oil. Conditioning feeds and high-performance products formulated to provide energy from fat rather than starch may contain 8 to 12 percent crude oil or higher. For horses that are difficult to condition, such as Thoroughbreds in hard work or older horses with reduced digestive efficiency, choosing a feed with a higher oil content — or supplementing with a direct oil source such as linseed or a commercial oil supplement — can produce noticeable improvements in body condition, coat quality, and stamina without the behavioural excitability sometimes associated with high-starch feeding. When assessing oil content on a label, also look at the type of oil used: linseed oil provides an excellent omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, which supports a healthy inflammatory response; sunflower and corn oil are higher in omega-6 fatty acids, which are less beneficial in excess.

Vitamins and Minerals — What to Check for Your Horse

The vitamin and mineral section of a horse feed label is often printed in small type and listed in a separate panel from the macronutrient analysis, but it contains information that is critical to understanding whether a feed will actually meet your horse's micronutrient needs. Most compound horse feeds are fortified with a broad-spectrum vitamin and mineral premix, but the levels provided are only meaningful at the manufacturer's recommended daily feeding rate. If you feed significantly less than the stated amount — which many owners do, particularly with high-energy feeds given to horses in light work — the horse will not receive the intended micronutrient levels.

Key figures to look for include vitamin E (expressed in IU/kg), selenium (mg/kg), zinc (mg/kg), copper (mg/kg), and the calcium to phosphorus ratio. Vitamin E and selenium work synergistically to protect muscle tissue from oxidative damage and are particularly important for horses in hard work and for breeding stock. The calcium to phosphorus ratio should be at or above 1.5:1 in the overall diet — an inverted ratio (more phosphorus than calcium) over time can impair bone density. Iodine and cobalt are trace minerals sometimes listed separately, and iodine in particular can be deficient in inland and highland areas where soils and therefore forages are naturally low. Comparing the vitamin and mineral profile across two otherwise similar products can be the deciding factor in which one delivers better long-term nutritional value.

Feeding Rate Instructions — Why the Small Print Is Critical

Every bag of compound horse feed carries a recommended daily feeding rate, and this figure is not a suggestion — it is the linchpin of the entire nutritional analysis. The vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients on the label are formulated to be delivered in full at the stated feeding rate for a horse of a specified bodyweight. A feed recommended at 2 to 3 kg per day for a 500 kg horse in light work will provide the intended nutrient package only when fed at those quantities. Feed less, and the micronutrient delivery falls proportionally short.

This creates a practical challenge for owners of good doers and easy keepers, who often need to restrict hard feed to manage weight while still providing adequate vitamins and minerals. The solution is not to underfeed a standard compound and accept the micronutrient shortfall — it is to use a dedicated balancer or a low-calorie, high-specification feed designed to deliver full micronutrient levels at a much smaller feeding rate (typically 100 to 500 g per day). Understanding the feeding rate instructions allows you to make this distinction and choose the right product for the horse's caloric needs without compromising micronutrient status.

Always weigh hard feed using a kitchen or stable scale rather than relying on a standard scoop, because the density of different products varies considerably. A 2-litre scoop of a fluffy alfalfa-based chaff may weigh 400 g, while the same scoop of a dense pellet may weigh 900 g. Feeding by volume rather than weight is one of the most common sources of unintentional over- and underfeeding in yard management.

How to Compare Two Feed Products

When standing in a feed merchant or browsing an online catalogue, comparing two products that both claim to be suitable for your horse requires a systematic approach. Start with the crude protein — is it in the right range for your horse's workload and life stage? Then check the DE value — does it match the energy level your horse needs? Move to the NSC figure (sugar plus starch combined) — is it appropriate for your horse's metabolic status? Check the crude fibre — a higher figure is generally preferable for hindgut health. Look at the oil content if condition or coat quality is a concern. Then review the vitamin and mineral panel against the feeding rate, and calculate whether your horse will actually receive the intended micronutrients at the amount you can practically feed.

It is also worth checking the ingredient list, which on UK feeds is listed in descending order of inclusion. A product that lists soya, alfalfa, and sugar beet pulp in the first three positions is built on a very different nutritional platform from one that leads with wheat, barley, and oat feed. Neither is automatically better for every horse — a Thoroughbred eventer in hard work may benefit from the energy density of a grain-based product — but knowing what you are buying allows you to make an informed choice rather than an accidental one. Two products at a similar price point can be dramatically different in nutritional suitability for your individual horse, and the label is always the most reliable guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage protein does my horse need?

The protein requirement for horses varies considerably by life stage, workload, and physiological status. A mature horse in light to moderate work typically requires a diet containing around 8 to 10 percent crude protein in total — factoring in both forage and any hard feed. Growing youngstock, pregnant mares in the last trimester, and lactating mares have significantly higher protein needs, often in the range of 12 to 14 percent or more, because protein is essential for tissue development and milk production. What matters as much as the percentage is protein quality: feeds using high-quality protein sources such as soya, alfalfa, or full-fat linseed provide essential amino acids like lysine and methionine that lower-quality protein sources lack, meaning a feed with 10 percent high-quality protein may be more useful than one with 12 percent poor-quality protein.

What is a safe sugar and starch level for a laminitic horse?

For horses and ponies that have had laminitis, or those considered at high risk — including native ponies, horses with equine metabolic syndrome (EMS), or horses with pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID, also known as Cushing's disease) — the generally accepted safe threshold for non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), which is the combined total of water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC) and starch, is 10 percent or below on a dry matter basis. When selecting a manufactured compound feed for a laminitis-prone horse, look for products specifically labelled as low-sugar and low-starch, and check that the combined WSC plus starch figure on the analysis panel falls below this threshold. It is equally important to have pasture grass and hay tested, as grass can contain very high levels of water-soluble carbohydrates — particularly in spring and autumn, and during periods of frost or drought stress — that far exceed what appears in the hard feed.

What does DE mean on horse feed?

DE stands for digestible energy, and it is the most practical measure of the energy content of a horse feed. It represents the gross energy in the feed minus the energy lost in faeces — in other words, the proportion of the feed's total energy that the horse's digestive system can actually absorb and use. DE is expressed in megajoules per kilogram of dry matter (MJ/kg DM), and values on compound feeds typically range from around 8 MJ/kg for low-energy chaff and balancers up to 14 or even 15 MJ/kg for high-performance conditioning feeds. Using the DE figure alongside the recommended daily feeding rate allows you to calculate whether a given product will actually deliver the energy your horse needs at the quantity you are able to feed.

How do I know how much feed to give my horse?

The feeding rate instructions on the back of every bag of compound feed are the single most important piece of small print that horse owners routinely ignore, and every manufacturer's recommended daily feeding rate is calculated to deliver the nutrient levels shown on the analysis panel at the stated quantity per day for a horse of a given bodyweight. If you feed significantly less than the recommended rate, your horse is not receiving the intended vitamin and mineral profile even if the feed looks and smells like the same product. For most compound feeds, the recommended rate is given as a range — for example, 1 to 3 kg per day for a 500 kg horse in light work — and you should weigh feed rather than use a scoop to ensure accuracy, as feed densities vary widely between products.

Is a higher protein feed always better for performance horses?

No — feeding excessive protein to performance horses is a common and counterproductive mistake that can actually impair performance and increase health risks. When a horse consumes more protein than its body requires, the excess must be broken down and excreted as urea in the urine, a process that requires water, increases urinary output, raises ammonia levels in the stable, and places an unnecessary burden on the kidneys. The performance benefit of protein comes not from feeding more of it, but from ensuring the protein fed is of high quality and contains the essential amino acids — particularly lysine, methionine, and threonine — that the horse cannot synthesise itself, meaning a well-balanced 10 to 12 percent crude protein diet using quality protein sources will support a performance horse far better than a 16 percent protein diet built on poorer-quality raw materials.

For more on building a balanced equine diet, read our complete horse feeding guide. You can also explore what horses eat for a broad overview of forage, hard feed, and supplementation. If you have a horse at risk of metabolic conditions, our detailed guide to laminitis prevention and recovery covers diet management in depth.

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Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only. Always consult a licensed veterinarian for your pet's health and medical needs.