Cheap Feed?

Firewell

Firewell

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I went horse food shopping today..

My horses diet came to £91
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! That includes, 1 bag of Alfa A oil, 1 Baileys Balancer, 1 Sarencen Equi Jewel and 1 small tub of oestrus. Even worse is that wont even last a month, she'll need another bag of Alfa A oil in a couple of weeks, at nearly £14 thats a monthly hard feed bill of £105.

While I was there I couldnt help but notice the stores own brand feeds. £4.99 for a bag of Mollichaff and £4.99 for some high fibre horse and pony cubes. It doesnt take a mathematician to realise that if i fed my horse that diet plus some supermarket oil it would cost approx 80% less than what im paying now for a months worth of feed.

Its made me start thinking if im just throwing away money on what im feeding my horse? My mum in the old days always used to feed our TB Competition horses mollichaff, h+p cubes topped up with sugar beet and oats if necc. and they always looked well and were fine to handle.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Do you feed your horse own name brands? Do you think feeding has become too complex with the different types and brands of feed available?

I feed my horse what I do because its quality and and high fibre/fat and low in cereals. Im just wondering if i can do it a hell of a lot cheaper?
 
My horse has a high fibre/low cereal diet: 1 scoop Mollichaff High Fibre Alfalfa, half a scoop of speedibeet and topspec balancer twice a day. The most expensive thing is the Topspec.

Are you sure your horse needs all that? Is she a particularly poor doer?
 
I feed some home brands and they are fine. My horses look very well and healthy. I do still buy Alpha A The home brands are so much cheaper and are normally made by the same companies anyway.
 
I buy Pegasus nuts which are made by Spillers, but are significantly cheaper than their other nuts. I am not a fan of alfafa for horses anyway, and would rather feed oil (not fish oil either) or an oil based supplement separately. I do stick to Happy Hoof, which is the cheapest of the laminitic approved chaff based feeds anyway I think! It is scary how things add up though, and I'm off to the feed merchants later myself. *gulp*
 
bloody hell love! I feed the big lad Winergy which is a high oil, high fat low starch diet to keep his weight on, I don't use any other product except feedmark extraflex, he looks amazing and its nowhere near what that all costs but it's a similar fibre/oil concept.
 
Shes a funny thing my horse she can look fat with a grass belly if im not careful but she has a wide ribcage and you can always see her ribs slightly. She can be quite hard to keep top line and condition on her, shes also prone to crumbly feet. She works very hard as well 1-2hrs 6 days per week. shes wormed properly and has her teeth done. Shes a bit of a typical TB in terms of one day on lush grass and she'll look obese but one day of not enough food or stress and she'll look like a skeleton.
 
Yeah, do you need the balancer? I used to feed a balancer at one point but then realised it was much cheaper to buy a 25kg bag of locally made vit & min supplement - the bag lasts my 3 six months and only costs £25, its also higher spec than the balancer I fed!

I know what you mean though. I've just bought a house and am already thinking of way to help cut costs just so I can afford to keep my horses! Im thinking of taking them off chaff (Alfa-A Lite) - they get as much hay as they like and are turned out 24/7 so I think its pointless feeding it. I only ever used it to bulk out feed a bit. I may change my other horses feed from his conditioning cubes onto a more basic cube as he holds his weight so easily I wonder if I can risk it! I love all things-feed, Im weird but I love reading about feeds and what they do etc. so Ive worked my horses diets out to what I think is right for them. I do think there are cheaper ways though hence Ill be trying them!
 
Ellie normally has D&H Build Up Cubes mixed with Countrywide's own brand mix, as well as Countrywide's own brand chaff
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She does pretty well on it so I see no reason to change!
 
I went to a milling company direct for feed, and when I compared the contents to D&H, they actually came out much better, at a fraction of the price.

When deciding whether to change feed I look at the protein and oil contents first, and then fibre etc. You can get a rough idea of the quality then, and whether you are better off.

The only "brand" I buy now is Saracen Equijewel which cannot be beaten - it is awesome!
 
I got tired of spending a fortune on one of my horses as she tends to struggle with weight. Where we stable now the grass is good and I stopped the balancer and bought a multivit and she has a scoop of that, her calmer and handful of hi fi and she has never looked better. She does have a rain sheet on when its chilly or raining at night. I am still deciding what to feed her when winter comes.
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Its countrywide I went to! I find feed interesting as well but just so confusing that i just end up going round in circles! Vays doing well on her diet atm but i really do think im wasting money..
 
I worked out it was cheaper to feed my lad Blue Chip + Alfa A than it was to feed him Spillers Slow cubes and Alfa A...which surprised me, and he's looking better for it.

The other two have a bag of Happy hoof each per month and that does them fine....
 
I switched to Mollichaff (love the smell of the cherry one with oil!) and im feeding wyatts wonder cubes! its so much easier and she is looking fantastic and i can afford to eat myself! i also get pink powder...was feeding equijewel but went back to pinkpowder as im just too poor and would rather spend the money on other things to make her life even better haha!

im VERY happy with mollichaff tho...id always fed Alfa A Oil before!
 
i feed my boy dodsen and horrel safe and sound, pony nuts and biotin over the winter horse but over the summer he gets competitioin mix instead of pony nuts
 
I have all of our 8 horses on cheap mix (Pegasus), Molichaff and Speedi Beet, they have one feed a day in the summer and two in the winter, they all look great on it and no supplements except the two that are in harder work (more than just hacking) have blue chip which is expensive but last ages.
 
I buy own brand course mixes from my local supplier, a bag of standard mix is £6.50 (made by badminton horse feeds) and stud mix which is around the £8.50 mark this week they had offer of buy 2 get 1 free! (this is made by heygates).

Buy own chaff which is around £4/5.

Look at the quality of the mix and the analizes on the bag. Personally im not keen on countrywide own brands, looks like sweepings off the floor.

In the winter mine have adlib quality hayledge and hardly need any hardfeed tbh. (I would then feed a balancer).
 
Neither of mine have lami issues, one is 13 and the other is 22. FB can put on weight quickly, MoM not so fast. I feed mine:

- soaked oats (just plain oats bought in a 30kg sack) x 3/month at €7 a sack

- soaked sugar beet x 1/3 of 30kg sack a month at €10 a sack

- corn/soya oil from supermarket €1.80 litre x 3/month

- cider vinegar 80cents litre x 2/month

So to feed two costs me €31.30 a month, or about £27.

FB has his Pemierflex supplement which sticks another £10 a month on it .

Hay costs about £13 every 12.5 days - so call it a £1 a day

So about £67 per month for ALL feed/supplements for two horses.

Phew! I've never worked it out before
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Cheap feeds tend to have more fillers in them, and less of the higher energy/ better quality ingredients. A bag of cheap mix will have a much higher percentage of cubes in it (as a rule) which bulk out the grains, peas, maize etc that you can see.

For these reasons I wouldn't feed a cheap feed. I like to see what I'm feeding an know what's in it. The nutritional profile is a good guide, but every feed substance known to man can be analysed in that way, so it doesn't really tell you the quality of the ingredients that go into the bag.

I wouldn't bother feeding molichop or similar to your horse; it's just chopped up straw and sugar basicaly, so of no nutritional value and no good for weight gain.

Equijewl is supposed to be good for weight gain, but I've never used it personally. It's very expensive though. Why don't you try feeding a mug of supermarket oil a day? I've had good results doing this
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Grass nuts are also good for condition and are cheap to buy.
 
I get my feed direct from livery owner who buys from allen and page .I use calm and condition which has worked wonders on stressy tbx plus alpha a biotin magnesium and chaste berry .Was thinking of changing to mollichop but only pay £8 per bag for alpha a and less for c and c .
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My hard feed is about £20 month
 
I have a slightly different view on all this. I believe that good grass and good haylege is the best place to start the supplement that where needed.

For instance i have a 18hh ISH who struggles to keep top line and when stressed he can easily drop weight. He is on good grass, good haylege and at the moment nothing else, he is in full work, 1 hour schooling a day 6 days a week and competing in dressage twice a month.

In winter he is on moly chop and Allen and Paige Calm and Condition, then if needed he is supplemented with sugar beet.

I have tried Blue chip and other expensive feed and to be honest they didn’t do anymore that the diet he is on now.
 
I used to feed the local feed merchants feed, it made my horse look fantastic and he loved it! A lot of people around me feed it, and all have horses looking really well.

I still feed the local feed, but i also mix it with straights as it is much easier to control how much to feed - ie. if horse is too fat cut down the maize or if needs more energy add more oats and barley. They get fed own brand horse and pony nuts with it, and they look really well.

At the mo my horse is on spillers horse mix, and they really like it.

I dont see the point of feeding alfa and oil etc. if you want to feed oil then use oil from tescos, and why feed chaff when you could feed better quality hay etc.

But cheap feed is a false econemy, you will end up paying more as you need to feed more
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To be honest, I think a lot of the feeds and supplements on the shelves today are purely just a marketing ploy to make us horse owners spend our cash!

I've recently switched from feeding a brand I've used for years to a locally produced feed manufacturer here in Sussex and I've been impressed with the quality and price of the feed and marked improvement in the horses.

I've also switched from feeding "the main brand" of Alfalfa products to the locally made Alfalfa chaffs, and its fresh and half the price!! I'm so cross with myself that I've spend all this money for years on feed!

Most of the time you are paying the feed companies wages to man their helplines and print their colourful feed bags to put their feeds in and pay their huge advertising costs and overheads.

My 2 horses cost me £24 a month now in feed and look great, the only extras I pay out for are extra oil which lasts for 5 months, garlic and a joint supplement.

A lot of the cheaper feeds that are sold at the feed shops are made by the big feed companies anyway- I think feeding has become very complicated nowadays and keeping it simple is best,theres nothing wrong with the old pony nuts and chaff!!

£91 though- thats a lot of money isn't it, I agree!!
 
The problem with feeding oil from the supermarket is that is creates oxidants/free radicals when digested.....these cause cell damage......you need to feed an anti-oxidant such as high dose Vitamin E to counteract this.

The reason its better to feed a feed with oil added is that is also has the anti-oxidant added as well.......

I feed Blue Chip to my veteran...it keeps him looking good and lively and frankly, he's worth it.
 
I feed alfalfa chaff because it is extremely good for horses with stomach ulcers - the vet recommended it. He doesn't get any hay at the moment (out 24/7) and even if he did he wouldn't eat it because he has fresh grass not dried stuff!

Additionally, the grass we keep horses on these days is v leafy and not v stalky - Mollichaff High Fibre Alfalfa has a percentage of chopped straw in it, so along with the benefits of alfalfa, it also provides the benefits of long-fibres from the straw to help prevent splash ulcers.

Given the prevalence of ulcers in competition horses, I would never now own a competition horse which was not fed an unmollased high fibre alfalfa chaff to help counteract ulcers. Along with what he is fed in his feeds, he also gets a double handful before exercise to hlpe provide a buffer layer to prevent splash ulcers.

This is just good management of a competition horse IMO.
 
Thanks everyone, some really good ideas! I think the mollichaff alfalfa is cheaper than dengi? TBh i think i might carry on with the equi jewel, its expensive but my horse does look great on it..
How do you go about finding local places that make feed?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Thanks everyone, some really good ideas! I think the mollichaff alfalfa is cheaper than dengi? TBh i think i might carry on with the equi jewel, its expensive but my horse does look great on it..
How do you go about finding local places that make feed?

[/ QUOTE ]

The mollichaff alfalfa is cheaper than the dengie....but its in a smaller bag and my horse didn't like it as much....
 
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