Best balancer for fatties

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Supertrooper

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He's currently on Simple Systems metaslim but I have to order online. I'd like to change onto one that's more easily available.

Want it to be low cal, low sugar & starch though xx
 
Mine is nice and shiny with great hooves on Topspec lite, not sure about ingredients but if i don't them they are V helpful, at some point they will prob have the £10 a bag offer (i stock up for winter then)
 
Vet school near me uses Top Spec Lite and I now use it for mine...I bought all my winter feed when it was £10 a bag and ponies are healthy (touch wood) and shiny and have good feet.
 
I use Equibites, which means you don't have to feed anything else - they are like dog biscuits, so you can feed them as treats if you want to. Pony loves them. You can buy the small tubs anywhere to check your horse likes them, but the cheapest way to get them is by the sack. Unfortunately that is only on-line, but a sack lasts mine about 6 months so you don't have to order often.
 
Another vote for Topspec Lite��Fairly sure , without looking at bag, that it ticks your boxes re starch etc.
 
Most balancers (usually fed at about a rate of 100g/100kg bodyweight) are pretty low calorie, and if fed at the recommended rate don't add that many calories to the overall diet. For reference, most pelleted balancers have about 10MJ/kg energy, not much more than a good hay (at 8-9MJ/kg). If fed at the recommended rate ~500g, you'd be adding 5MJ with the balancer. My 400kg good doer pony has a daily calorie requirement around 70MJ, so that's not a huge chunk out of the daily allowance. You can always reduce your hay by half a kilo if you're worried about the calories. A "light" balancer has maybe slightly fewer calories (around 9MJ/kg), but that's really not much of a saving over regular balancers, so I'd focus more on vit and min levels in the product, and not so much about whether it says "light" on the bag.

My tip would be that a) you really need to feed balancers at the full recommended rate, not feed less because you have an easy keeper. They still need a full dose of vits and mins and b) in fact might benefit from a really high spec balancer. If you have a fatty, you're more likely to really restrict their grazing (fresh grass contains vitamins) and feed them nutritionally poorer forage (may be lower in quality protein). So read the label, looks what levels of vits, mins and amino acids (lysine, methionine) are included per dose and decide based on that.

I like the Spillers range, mostly because they are competitively priced compared to other brands, but still have very comparable levels of ingredients. The Spillers "daily" balancer costs about 57p/day, while TopSpec lite would be 66p/day (at normal price of 19.99/bag).

The other option would be to go for a powdered supplement (virtually no calories in that), but depending on how fussy your horse is, you may end up having to feed more calories as a "carrier" to mix the powder into and dilute the taste, and that would defeat the purpose.
 
I've had good success with Spillers lite and lean . Have also used top spec lite in the past and baileys low cal many moons ago .
 
Cowpony said:
I use Equibites, which means you don't have to feed anything else - they are like dog biscuits, so you can feed them as treats if you want to. Pony loves them. You can buy the small tubs anywhere to check your horse likes them, but the cheapest way to get them is by the sack. Unfortunately that is only on-line, but a sack lasts mine about 6 months so you don't have to order often.
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I started using these this year and have been really impressed my 22yo Welsh D looks beautiful and hasnt gained the usual weight she does with a low cal balancer. Really economical too.
 
Cowpony said:
I use Equibites, which means you don't have to feed anything else - they are like dog biscuits, so you can feed them as treats if you want to. Pony loves them. You can buy the small tubs anywhere to check your horse likes them, but the cheapest way to get them is by the sack. Unfortunately that is only on-line, but a sack lasts mine about 6 months so you don't have to order often.
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I would love to use these, but do they not contain extra iron that our horses do not need?
 
I have no idea...I've just been on the D&H website and they don't list the separate minerals that are in it. All I can say is that my mare has been on it for years and seems healthy.

I've just looked up iron in horses and the article said that absorption levels are low, and reduce when the horse already has enough. It is dangerous for foals, so not included in feeds specifically for them.
 
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Ive just swapped my highland onto the Top Spec product and he's full of beans and looks great. Always have to watch his weight though, of course.
 
Cowpony said:
I've just looked up iron in horses and the article said that absorption levels are low, and reduce when the horse already has enough. It is dangerous for foals, so not included in feeds specifically for them.
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That isnt the issue with iron. The issue is the way it effects copper and zinc absorption. Long story short you want something with high levels of copper and zinc and no iron as UK forage is already usually high in iron. The NRC recommends an iron: copper: zinc ratio of 4: 1: 3 so your going to have to feed reasonable levels of copper and zinc to balance the iron without adding more iron.
 
It all depends on what you are balancing. Shortage of certain minerals? Or vitamins? For minerals it is well worth talking to Forageplus, their products are not cheap but you might save by not using fillers a lot of other so called balancers include. And the same for vitamins, if you talk to Forageplus they might advise depending on whether your horses present with any signs of deficiency.
Not good to feed on their own but a good carrier is a small amount of bran, even though it contains starch it will be a very small % of their overall diet.
 
OK, I've had several e-mails from D&H. They have provided the following, but bear in mind that the mg amount is per kilogram, and of course Equibites are very light, so the horse won't be getting anything like these amounts on a daily basis.
Trace elements:
Ferrous sulphate monohydrate 3,950mg/kg
Cupric sulphate pentahydrate 2,055mg/kg
Cupric chelate of glycine hydrate 1,450mg/kg
Zinc oxide 2,528mg/kg
Zinc chelate of glycine hydrate 4,236mg/kg

Separately they show copper as 750mg/kg, iron as 1,260mg/kg and zinc as 2,867mg/kg.

So, not being a scientist or nutritional expert I'm really none the wiser! Anybody able to shed any light?

They said Equibites are "fully balanced" and when I asked whether that meant balanced for UK soil or balanced for global use without any regard to local conditions it seemed to be the latter. They did say though that the amount of Iron in the product is very low and they would not be at all concerned about the level of the iron in the product.

I'm a bit taken aback by all this. I assumed that a balancer would provide the daily required amount of vitamins and minerals a horse would need, like a daily vitamin tablet for a human where you get the RDA of each vitamin. But on the basis that Equibites only contain traces of the 3 minerals we are discussing I'm wondering whether they are actually giving my horse what she needs. Or maybe they only actually need traces of these minerals? To be fair, D&H say they are a "top up" for leisure horses. Mine is out 24/7 (but gets hay when she comes in to be ridden) and the land is quite stressed from having horses on it all year round.....think I need to do a soil test!
 
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I'm no expert but I do know someone who is - Sarah Braithwaite at Forageplus. Usually happy to give advice too, although she would like you to buy her products lol
 
I've taken my fatties off the TopSpec balancers (was using AntiLam) and they're now just on Progressive Earth Pro Hoof (have to order online I'm afraid) mixed in with some Speedibeet. Both are looking great plus the nervous tense one is now significantly more relaxed for some reason.
 
I used topspec lite then topspec antilam.
Both were good but I went back into suregrow much cheaper I use slightly less and it works for me! His coat and hooves are great on it :)
 
Thanks for all your feedback. I decided to not go with a balancer again but instead use a powder vitamin & mineral supplement so I've changed him onto NAF general purpose supplement. It's perfect for what he needs xx
 
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