Advice regarding feeding sugar beet please

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happihorse

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My horse is schooled five or six days a week with one or two days lunging. He very rarely has a day off.

I work him fairly hard for about 45 minutes to an hour each day (including 10 minutes walking in and 10 minutes cooling off).

At the moment, he has 3/4 scoop of Allen & Page Sustain (slow release energy feed), 3/4 scoop of Dengie Alfa A original and 1/3 scoop of Calm & Condition, twice a day. He is a fairly lazy horse, so needs the energy feed. He is already in good condition, so the conditioning feed is really only to maintain this.

He has NAF Pink Powder (maintenance level), so I think he is getting all of the right vitamins and minerals. (He also has 5 Star Superflex (joints), linseed oil (spoonful for joints and energy) and apple cider vinegar (joints). By the way, he doesn't have a problem, but I am just so paranoid about horses going lame!)

(Finally
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) my question is, would you continue feeding the Calm & Condition or would you change it for something like Speedibeet? Speedibeet would be cheaper (a bag used to last months and Calm & Condition is over £9 a bag!) but would it give him more energy and keep him in such good condition?
 
Happihorse, I'm certainly no expert but my understanding is that Speedibeet (I use TONS of it) is Lami Trust approved, has no added molasses and is just a forage feed. I don't know enough about Calm & Condition to say more than that. Speedibeet certainly makes any feed more appetising to a horse but I don't know about added energy. If I were you I'd ring one of the excellent feed help lines for advice. I know they will plug their own brands but you will certainly get a lot of sensible, sound advice. Good luck.
 
Hey, i'm no expert either but i think that molassed sugar beet is quite a high energy feed, also very cheap. Does have the disadvantage that it needs soaking for 24 hours. A bag does last for ages though.
 
The energy levels of speedi-beet and C&C are very similar - 12.5MJDE/kg for C&C and 12.4MJDE for speedi-beet. The C&C is supplemented with vit/mins whereas the speedi-beet isn't, but as you are feeding Pink Powder that doesn't matter.
 
I would feed Dengle Alfa beet, and stop the speedibeet and the calm and condition. Alfa beet is 50/50 alfalfa and sugar beet, is laminitus trust approved, and gives condition without fizz. The Dengie rep says it is a well kept secret, those people that start on it, stick with it. We used it this summer on out 18 year old breed mare and she looked great on it.

Regards the A & P feed, I have a customer who has a lazy Welsh cob used for dressage by a very keen teenager, they feed him the Spillers Instant Energy mix, says it gives him a lot more energy without lunacy!
 
I agree Alfa Beet is great - I've been using it for my oldies and it does keep them looking good. If the OP decides to use it then they could also cut out the Alfa A they are using rather than feeding two alfafa products. I'm sure Dengie would advise on what quantity would be best to replace the existing feedstuffs.
 
Yes it does - 2 hours in cold water, or they do say you can do with hot water in 15minutes, but I've found that a bit over-optimistic!
 
If you feed normal sugar beet shreds, they will soak to full capacity in about 2hrs, i have fed it like this for years with no problems, in america they dont even soak s beet at all even the nuts!! i am not advising this though.
 
I was having similar problems with my mare and after talking to a couple of feed companies she now has a scoop of spillers conditioning fibre, a scoop of saracen enduro 100 and half a scoop of dry weight speedibeet (obviously then soaked) with a vit and min supplement twice a day and she has never looked better. She is at working livery in a riding school and can do up three hours a day at the weekend and is still going strong at the end of the day without being fizzy or silly.
 
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