Any genuinely non-heating balances or alternatives?

[eezeerider]

Hi, I’ve tended to avoid balancers or top line feed aids almost all my WB gelding’s life, now 13, as he is so sensitive and very quickly flips a switch and becomes an unreachable snorting dragon living half out of his skin, which doesn’t bode well considering we like happy hacking and enough school work to maintain muscle function and flexibility. We don’t compete and aren’t learning flying changes or the like.
We’ve always had weekly lessons with our one brilliant instructor. He’s always had a weak behind, having weak hind suspensory ligaments diagnosed at a young age, technically advised to retire at 5yrs old tbh. But at 13 he’s going well, enjoying life and hacking two-three times a week, but has just dropped off these last two weeks in muscle tone and energy. He’s fed a good quality hay, Allen & Page Fast Fibre and molasses-free happy hoof chaff twice a day. He has the following supplements daily: Alphabute, Turmeric, biotin and Protexin. He is out on natural grass at least eight hours a day, everyday.
My instructor has recommended Top Spec Comprehensive Feed Balancer. I feel I’d like to do this to help him out with a little more energy and to build up some more top line and hindquarter strength. I’m a bit worried it will affect him and make him an anxious looney out hacking, he can be a handful occasionally even on his pure fibre diet. And the Spring grass is probably only a few weeks away here in the south-east!
Anyone any advice, experience or suggestions?
Gratefully received and TIA.

 

[sbloom]

I use to like Top Spec but if you search on here you'll see plenty not liking it and I think I'd be the same. First thing with feeding is to avoid any added iron, check your feed bags for that.

I would say that, unless you rehabbed with a view to posture, the issues that caused the weak behind are still there and this is why there's a lack of topline more than feeding, though in winter the protein in grass drops off and makes quite a difference. Look up topline syndrome, there are some great videos on equitopiacenter.com, and consider getting on, ideally, a customised programme including plenty of in hand work, or a programme such as Gillian Tabor is currently running, a posture challenge. And just to add, horses can only cope with so much before becoming reactive or stressy, or worse, so you may have some discomfort which leads to bad behaviour on the bad days. Fixing their bodies so often fixes the brain.

I'd feed a vit/min supplement (possibly balancer) plus an amino acid protein if necessary, from someone like Forageplus - they have articles on amino acids which are the building blocks of protein and therefore muscle and are basically considered super high quality protein. Forageplus and the other brands favoured by barefooters such as Agrobs, Progressive Earth and others, have no added iron and are almost always super low sugar and starch.

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

Be careful with topscec my Arab's can't eat anything from there range it's like crack to them and sends them nuts.

I used to feed micronised linseed for more condition with good results and no crazy behaviour, I also have used the balancers sbloom has mentioned in the past and they are all really good because it's basically powder with no fillers added.

Thing is alot of the pellet balancer normally has added molasses or other unnecessary things that can affect some horses so I tend to steer clear of those.