Pounds of grass consumed in 24 hrs -grazing (from Barb Peck)

[guest@endurance.net]

Barb Peck bpeck@together.net
Michelle:

Well.. here goes..
Of course, the water content of grass varies by geographic
location.. so you have to adjust for your locale.

Let's figure a 1000 horse needs 20 lbs of DRY matter per day
to live.

The spring grass in our area can be as much as 80% water.
Well that means to get 20 lbs dry matter the horse would have to consume
100+  lbs of grass... and I think that's entirely possible for a horse to
do in less than 12 hrs on high lush pasture. (My horses can eat grass ALOT
faster than they eat hay).
Also, if idle, the horses water consumption is directly related to the
water content in the grass.

If you feed 20 lbs of hay a day and the horse drinks 10 Gal of water a
day.. that works out to be about 90 lbs total..
so by total weight (water and dry matter) it's close.

Barb