Best feed for horse wintering out?

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saddlesore

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Following on from post below. I'm wintering out this year and i'll only be able to feed him once a day. Has anyone found some feeds are better than others for keeping weight on?
 
Breed, age is he a good doer would help
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Sorry, that was a bit vague wasnt it!
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He is 5, m/w of unknown breed but i reckon there is some native in there. I've had him less than a year and he dropped a bit of weight (not loads) when he was living in last year but will be going into the winter in good condition
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For my native all she gets is hay when it gets really into winter, then twice a day some chaff and nuts with a vit and mineral supplement.
Someone will surely come up with a better feed regime than me though
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My horse lives out all year. He's 3/4ID 1/4TB 15.3 good middle weight. He has 1 bowl (Stubbs scoop) of conditioning cubes and 1 of soaked suger beet with a splash of veg oil once each day during the winter. He is on good grazing, has plenty of hay and is well rugged. He also does not do a lot of work.
If you are feeding only once a day, you need to feed somethig fairly concentrated as horses should only be fed about 2-3kg of hard feed in one go.
 
Thanks, thats what i was thinking because I normally split feeds when he's in. Do you think a scoop of pony nuts, a scoop of kwik-beet and some chaff would be too much? This is basically what he got before but it was split into two. He will be working most days. x
 
If it were me, I'd probably opt for some sort of conditioning feed, as it will give you the most calories in the least amount of food; which is what you want if you're only feeding once a day. You can also choose whether you'd like one with cereal or without depending on his temperament. I would also add a balancer such as pink powder.

That does, of course depend on how well he holds his weight, he might not need a conditioning feed at all. It would be wise to add a balancer anyway as you'll probably be feeding less than the reccomended amount of whatever you choose.
 
Yeah i guess that makes sense! Really glad i asked now! I really pink powder so he will get that anyway and will add oil but will look into high calorie food, although alfa-a made him a bit jumpy last year
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Oh thats fantastic thanks.
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Lots of people seem to find their horses actually winter out better than winter in so hopefully i'm worrying about nothing, but its best to be prepared! What weight of rugs did you use on her? Did you get full/high necks?
 
Mine lives out in winter, he gets copra (coconut mash type feed) which conditions, gives nutrients blah blah blah, nuts and rolled barley. The barley was excellent at keeping weight on.
 
Maybe mine was so darn cold he had to use the energy to keep warm! :P
Nahhh, it didn't hot him up at all, just kept his condition and weight at a nice level, and it only made up about 1/4 of his feed, so probably not enough to have too much of a negative effect.
Forgot to mention the hay mountains when the grass is non-existant
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Most improtant I would say is ad lib forage...hay or haylage
If he is going into winter well covered then I would feed him whatever it is you feed now and check his weight regularly to see if he drops off at all.
You may only need chaff and a balancer.
I add a blob of veggie oil to my boys feed and speedibeet in winter plus last year he had Bailey's No.4 but he went into winter a little underweight. This year he'll just have chaff and high fibres cubes plus oil, with ad lib hay and I'll monitor his weight.
As long as he is warm and dry he shouldn't lose weight
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Thanks guys, he'll be getting ad-lib access to good quality haylage and he will be in for around 6 or 7 hours a day around 5 days a week to dry off and get a wee sleep so hopefully wont be too truamatic for him. He hates neck covers though so i'm not sure if i should get a high neck or just make do with what he's got?
 
High neck if he's okay with that, but if not use a normal neck rug, he'll be fine. The most important part is access to ad lib fibre which you've already taken care of.

We're wintering all ours out this year too.
 
Thanks, good excuse to buy a rambo wug lol. Judging by some of the recent posts on here quite a lot of people are opting for wintering out this year so I'm sure there will be lots of good advice if i go wrong!
 
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