Cheap Feed?

we feed our liveries on the pegasus nuts or mix and like already has been said its made by spillers anyway, ive found it fine. we then use hi fi original, we tried using cheaper chaff but found it didnt actually last as long because there isnt so much in the bags. Its trial and error but when your on a budget, you have to try and if you add supplements anyway i dont think you have anything to loose.
 
There was an article in last month's Your Horse mag where an owner swapped her horse's diet from well-known makes to Countrywide's own equivalents. Horse was assessed by a vet beforehand and then again after about 3 months and the horse was in pretty much the same condition, even slightly better.
 
Don't fall for the cheaper bags equalling cheaper feeding. Often the cheaper feeds have more bulking agents and you wll need to feed more for your horse to get the vits/mins they need.
I feed sugar beet in winter - for a lot less than speedi beet, I feed a home brand cool mix and I do feed Dengie Chaff, but really should look into something home branded if equally as good. I also do not buy any expensive vit/mn supplements bit use equimins, which is very high quality and excellent value for money.
 
I feel your pain, my feed bill seems to be increasing all the time, she is getting through lots of feed now as she has restricted grazing and she is getting older, costing me a fortune!

In my opinion feeds have become complex, in the old days we just fed a more basic diet, and i am only talking about 10-15yrs ago or so, ours all had a simple diet and thrived.
My girls needs high fibre, lammi safe stuff basically and if i could get an own brand then i would try it.
Give it a go, if your horse starts to look poor, which i doubt then you could change back
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Our best selling feeds in our shop are made by Hilight. Hilight used to be Clarke & Butcher, but are now part of Baileys. Having spoken with Baileys, they say the Hilight range is pretty much the same as their 'standard' range, the only difference being that they cannot guarantee the vitamin level. The high fibre nuts are £5.99 and the cool mix £6.95. They also do a condition mix, condition cube (think Baileys No 4 and 17) and a stud Mix (No 7), can't remember the prices but they should be £2-3 cheaper.
 
Mine is on Spillers comp horse mix. If he wasnt doing BE, he would be fed on cheapo stuff, just they dont say on the bag free of all banned stuff!
 
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mine are on:
home made chaff (meadow hay, oat straw) - £3 per 20 kg
spillers high fibre or slow release energy cubes £7-9 per 20 kg
soaked whole oats £90 per tonne
a variety of supplements as needed

I haven't worked out how much it costs me to only feed them, but it costs me about £110 a month per horse to keep them including farrier/worming/groom's wages etc.
 
A lot of the own brands are made by Badminton horse feeds.... your feed merchant would be able to tell you who makes theirs
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I always feed own brands.... I dont see why he should eat better than me
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Two are on lo-cal, one is on stud balancer, I think it is about £50 a month. In winter the good doer will stick with just lo-cal an maybe a handful of hi-fi, the 2 arabs that don't do quite so well will get alfa a oil and speedibeet. I'm trying to steer away from mixes as with the balancer they just aren't necessary. The alfa and speedibeet will last a good month, so that will put my bill up to about £70 a month for 3.

I also feed my old girl cortaflex, so that adds a bit on and they all get garlic, but that is it. I used to add loads of supplements, but stopped all but the crucial ones! Outcome = no difference!
 
horses are made to run on long stem fibre with energy sourced from hind gut to stop the fizz when riding. i feed alpha a sugar beet and high fibre cubes , ad lib hay and grass. all fit fat and shiny ready to hunt ode dressage etc depending on diary. additives were made for human expeniture!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! maybe i am still in the dark ages!! blue chip is brilliant and 2 mugs a day the bag lasts for 6 weeks or more. re cellie how /where do you buy a and p c and c for less than £8 a bag? bargain
 
I feed all "branded" stuff, but based around a high oil/fibre diet and its still not cheap. I wont feed highly mollassed feeds, so that cuts alot out anyway
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I currently feed Alfa Oil, Speedibeet and Topspec condition cubes and balancer. She looks fantastic, but if I can cut down I will do. Its just knowing what to cut down too!!
 
Almost everything at my yard gets fed chaff, sugarbeet and whatever type or nuts/ mix that it needs. My horse only had hifi with seaweed and garlic with carrots - lives off thin air so she is very cheap to feed.
 
Having 6 i do try to keep my feed bills down!

Sniff, who competes 1.20 level bsja has Pegasus mix, all my others, including the ones i compete all have Pegasus nuts.

They all have moillichaff and in the winter months this is served with sugarbeet!

Anything that needs extra condition goes on Blue chip as well but as this only applies to one of mine my feed bills for mine are low in contrast to some other liveries who feed 'brand' names.
 
We were on all sorts of feed for three different neds! LL on Happy Hoof; LC on oats, and Alpha A; Dizz on Alpha A Oil, Bailey's Outshine, Blue Chip Pro, sugarbeet, and something else I've forgotten. They all had Milk Thistle, Brewers Yeast, and Gluocosamine (sp!).

None have been fed for the last two months, other than the odd feed here and there. They're all worked for at least an hour five/six days a week. All looking good.

As an aside, if I were to feed Dizz the recommended quantities of each feed, she'd end up having to be fed about seven times a day, taking into account the 2kg per feed rule.
 
Mine is feed Alfalfa pellets and Rapesead oil, with unlimited good haylage and a ok amount of grazing. I have just started adding a vit/min supplement as the grazing value will start to reduce. The pellets work out much cheaper and are much more palatable to my horse. He is a 16.2hh warmblood Dressage horse.
 
You can't compare feeds by bag prices alone! First of all the weight of bags vary - some chaffs come in 12.5kg bags whilst some come in 20kg bags! Also the calorie count varies for different types of feed - a cheap mollassed straw chaff may only contain about 7 MJDE/kg whereas something like Alfa A Oil will provide 12.5 MJDE/kg. So you will have to feed much more of the cheap chaff than Alfa A Oil to gain the same amount of calories.

If you really want to work out cost effectiveness in terms of price per calorie, then you have to perform a complicated calculation involving bag size, bag price and calorie content!

But the most cost effective feed is usually good grazing, followed by good quality hay or haylage - so make sure your horse has adlib forage and ensure it is good quality, then you may be able to cut back on the costly bucket feeds!
 
Nope, cheap mix does mine fine! I always buy Alfa-A though as prefer this to chaff and then they get sugar beet in winter too
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Bit of body builder in winter if they get too fine.
 
Hmmm....£91! i don't pay that to feed my 2 - especially not at this time of year.

I have Happy Hoof (cob has had laminitis in the past), Speedibeet, Alfa A (wb has ulcers) and pony nuts. We are lucky as we have good and plentiful grazing as well as good meadow hay - they spend at least 6 months of the year on restricted grazing!!
 
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