Cheap feeds vs expensive brands?

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littlen

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Hi,

My horse is currently underweight.
He is laminitic and also we have very little grazing so I am having to find other ways to put weight and condition on him.

At the moment he is on:
Baileys Number 17 conditioning mix.
Linseed oil.
High fi original (fed in large quanities in a tub trug so he can eat throughout the night)
One large net of hay, and one large net of equaliage the haylage replacer stuff.

In short he is costing a fortune to feed.
In the local tack shop today they had cheaper own brand versions of chaff and mix. Are these worse quality than the named brands and would you use a 'cheap' feed?

For example, hi fi original is £11. Apple chaff is £7. Is there really a noticable difference in quality?

Also if anyone can reccomend a magic feed for weight gain I would be very grateful, as I have tried many different kinds with no luck! His back/teeth/health has been checked. He is just struggling with my lack of grazing.

Thankyou.
 
Hi,
I use what ever suits my mares, but try not to get swayed by brands! That said, they are both on branded feeds as that is what suits them. I decide what to feed based on the content. If he is on good food (and it looks like he is from your post) then I would make sure there are no health probs that prevent him absorbing vits and calories. With your chap being prone to lami I would feed super low sugar stuff. For that reason I would avoid hifi, and also apple chaff - both have added molasses. Might be low sugar molasses, but it is still extra that they just don't need. Try topspec topchop lite or badmington alfa lite for your chaff (both the same, so I just get whichever is cheapest!), neither have molasses or any sugar added so are loads better. Instead of linseed oil I would feed microionized linseed (the oils are more easily absorbed by the horse). Pink powder is a smashing pick me up as well as a good regular source of vits and minerals. The baileys also has added molasses, so I would avoid that (ignore the lami trust stamps - worse than useless!) and pick something again without much sugar. Allen and Page do a molasses and barley free range - I love the fast fibre. But you might want more calories so poss calm and condition? They are great feeds, and keep my 'mad on sugar' mares sane! There are loads of deals on at the mo for them and I find them good value. They have a great helpline so poss worth a call?
Hope all that waffle helps!
 
If he is laminitic I would certainly not be feeding a mix, especially a conditioning one, they tend to get their calories from starch and you really really should avoid starch!

You need to put calories in via fibre and oil and, if he is currently not having an episode I would suggest

Alfalfa with oil
Speedibeet
Vit Min supplement

You could add Triple Top Up which is high in calories but very low in starch (6%), it also contains selenium and Vit E.

I would also feed hay but make sure that the haylage you are using is low in sugars - pure timothy is best.
 
tbh i would think the apple chaff would have a lot more sugar in it. I used to feed the mollichaff apple chaff, was about £5 and it has 17.5 sugar!
 
Thanks everyone.

I thought about speedibeet or something but the thought of using it puts me off a little. I always thought of it as a 'winter' feed... silly I know!

Are there any other types of oil you can feed? Someone said vegetable oil can I really feed this?

He is fed a feed on a morning. Then he goes out on a paddock from 9-4 ish which has poor grazing. He is then in at night with 2 haynets (one hay, one equilage) and a tub trug of chaff for him to eat throughout the night.

I cannot hay the field as other ponies are on restricted grazing also and YO wont allow it due to injuries caused by fighting over haynets.

The mix was reccomended by the nutritionist as he has not had a lami episode for over a year and also because we done have long grass to worry about she said it shouldnt cause a problem. He has been on it 3 months without any signs of a problem. He was also on haylage all winter due to loosing weight and he was carefully monitered at all times by myself and vet and all was well.

I thought about the mix, chaff and speedibeet but I am worried this is too much, his feeds are large as it is?
 
Unfortunately I'm no where near being in the same boat as you, but mine get shops own brand nuts (mix as well sometimes during the winter) but I give them HiFi Lite chaff, but only really because the shop don't do an own brand low sugar chaff. Mine are both excellent do-ers and I have no problem with my grazing.
If I had competition horses/one in poor condition/etc then I might look at switching to a branded food, but it's worth looking at the ingredients and deciding which is best for your individual situation.
I second, that I would hestitate to use apple chaff of any sort, as it sounds like it will be full of sugar and not good for a laminitic.
 
chickeninabun said:
Unfortunately I'm no where near being in the same boat as you, but mine get shops own brand nuts (mix as well sometimes during the winter) but I give them HiFi Lite chaff, but only really because the shop don't do an own brand low sugar chaff. Mine are both excellent do-ers and I have no problem with my grazing.
If I had competition horses/one in poor condition/etc then I might look at switching to a branded food, but it's worth looking at the ingredients and deciding which is best for your individual situation.
I second, that I would hestitate to use apple chaff of any sort, as it sounds like it will be full of sugar and not good for a laminitic.
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Thanks :)

Speaking from experience there is nothing worse than a laminitic who will not put on weight. Give me a good doer any day!
 
What sort of volumes are you feeding at the moment?

I would personally be looking to change your choice of chaff to something with less sugar and more nutritional content - for me it would be Alfa Oil

I would also be adding in speedibeet, good source of suitable calories.

I would also remove the conditioning mix, given it will be high in sugar/starch and replace with high fibre cubes (spillars do a good one)

Also consider adding in micronised linseed / copra meal / rice bran, all are a good source of suitable extra calories.

Volume wise I'd say 3 feeds if possible (brekkie, 4pm and later evening) - 1 big round scoop of each alfa/beet/cubes. With adlib hay 4pm-9am this should keep most poor doers in okay condition
 
I think I would ditch the conditioning mix and have him on unmolassed alfalfa (the topspec/badminton ones suggested above for example) and speedibeet. sugar beet is an excellent way of keeping weight on but also fibre not starch based. We feed vegetable oil, I remember our vet saying he had a azoturia prone horse who had 3 litres of oil a day but you have to introduce it slowly so that the body can adjust to using it as an energy source.

How underweight is he? what has your vet said about his condition and feeding him? is he in work?
 
Cereal is not good for horses prone to lammi due to the high sugar and starch.
I would buy topspec comphensive balancer which will help with weight and although expensive to start with cost effective in the long run and alfa a oil. At lib hay as well
 
littlen said:
Thanks everyone.

I thought about speedibeet or something but the thought of using it puts me off a little. I always thought of it as a 'winter' feed... silly I know!

Are there any other types of oil you can feed? Someone said vegetable oil can I really feed this?

He is fed a feed on a morning. Then he goes out on a paddock from 9-4 ish which has poor grazing. He is then in at night with 2 haynets (one hay, one equilage) and a tub trug of chaff for him to eat throughout the night.

I cannot hay the field as other ponies are on restricted grazing also and YO wont allow it due to injuries caused by fighting over haynets.

The mix was reccomended by the nutritionist as he has not had a lami episode for over a year and also because we done have long grass to worry about she said it shouldnt cause a problem. He has been on it 3 months without any signs of a problem. He was also on haylage all winter due to loosing weight and he was carefully monitered at all times by myself and vet and all was well.

I thought about the mix, chaff and speedibeet but I am worried this is too much, his feeds are large as it is?
Click to expand...


Goodness, I am shocked that a nutritionist would suggest a mix for a laminitic no matter what the circumstances! Nowadays it is widely recognised that fibre and oil are the best way to feed a laminitic.

Speedibeet is full of calories but very very low in starch and is an excellent source of fibre, you can make it up daily in the summer and is a much much safer way of getting weight on him. Yes you can use vegetable oil, but try to make it sunflower as opposed to a blended one. The Badminton/Top Chop as suggested are both excellent unmolassed alfalfas but you will still have to feed a vit/min supplement, especially Vit E if you are going to be feeding high volumes of oil.

What you need to remember is that fibre is the best way to put weight on ANY horse, if a horse is not fed enough fibre, he WILL lose weight and you can pile in the mixes and cubes as much as you want, the fact is, if the fibre levels are too low, the horse will not put on weight, other than that, too much cereal in the diet is responsible for numerous disorders including laminitis and azoturia. Obviously there are circumstances where a high starch diet needs to be fed (competition/race horses) but for the average horse doing light/medium work, cereal is probably not a requirement.
 
Alfa A Oil is very good for conditioning and has low sugar content/no molasses (Marksway who make Mollichaff make an Alfa Oil too),Pink Powder is also great for giving them extra vits/mins as well to keep them looking well and when I had an elderly mare with cushings/laminitis I spoke to Spillers who were very helpful and we gave her the slow release energy cubes (that my other horses have that are in work!) and they are low starch and really did help her put a bit or weight on ( they are full of good things to keep them looking good and theres also Rice Bran in them which is good for building them up).
 
littlen said:
I cannot hay the field as other ponies are on restricted grazing also and YO wont allow it due to injuries caused by fighting over haynets.
Click to expand...

Not a pop at you, OP, but this is a bit of a bugbear of mine. Very frequently on here people are worrying that they can't keep the condition on their horses, but then have the same old excuse about why they can't feed any greater quantity or quality of forage. Time and time again people say they can't hay/haylage in the field because of other horses, but plan to give their horses whole scoops of starchy mix, it's really not the best thing for the horse, and is complete false economy.

If your horses needs more access to constant forage then you need to rearrange your grazing arrangements. I know it's a P.I.T.A, as I have to do it with both of mine; neither of who are allowed much grass, but I can't put them in together as one has to have access to hay (she's a poor doer, but has cushings). This is even a problem for me in winter as one has hay and one haylage, (and the one of hay is CONSTANTLY trying to get to the haylage!) but it's essential management for their well being, and so I have had to do some pretty serious electric fence work and maintenance on a regular basis.

I'd much rather that my horses could be in together, but obviously lami management comes first. They can groom each other over the fence (or squeal at each other :D) and graze side by side so still have plenty of interaction, but I can keep my poor doer, lami risk horse's weight up with ab lib hay/haylage, and my chubby pony's weight down with strip grazing.

If I were you I would be fencing your horse off separately and making sure he has ab lib hay/haylage and then see how much bucket feeding is required after that. I also agree with Sirena that you don't want to be feeding starchy mixes if you can help it, and looking more at Alfa oil and high fibre cubes. I'd steer clear of cheap chaffs as they are likely to have too much molasses in them.
 
Another vote for kwik/speedi beet, good value, excellent fibre and very pallatable. I use this and CWG's ( our local feed merchants) version of Alpha lite (oat straw, alfalfa, mint and soya oil). I use this as a carrier feed for a general feed balancer for all my lot. I then have an elderly girl who doesnt do so well in the winter, she has a scoop of pure alfalfa nuts from simple systems. Might be worth giving them a call, they will offer advice and have a good range of feedstuffs suitable for lamis.
 
It definately pays to shop around and look at other feeds - also pay attention to what is on the label of the feed - compare the label of what you are using now, to what a cheaper brand offers.

I used to be a D&H person through and through, until I spoke to a Charnwood representative at the Suffolk Show in 2009 - I compared their labels, spoke to their nutritionist at length, and realised that Charnwood feeds were much better quality, and at 2/3rds of the cost, eg, stud nuts had been costing me approximately £10/bag D&H and from Charnwood they were about £6.50/bag, yet the oil, protein and base vitamins were much higher from the Charnwood range, meaning you could even feed slightly less of it. Their nutritionists were excellent, and went through everything with me, and I even got a tour of their processing plant (they make a lot of food for the big companies but they are packaged in their own bags, with no reference to Charnwood of course!)

I am sure there are lots of smaller companies out there that offer excellent feeds without the huge prices, so it is definately worth looking around.
 
the main thing is to go with what suits him.

the main difference between applechaff and hifi is the sugar content, applechaff has quite a bit of molasses added to it compared to hifi, and that could trigger lami.

rather than linseed oil, try feeding sunlustre (full fat extruded soya meal) at about £13 for 25kg it is a very good source of digestible oils and proteins, to help with condition and coat and hooves.

I wouldn't be wanting to feed a mix to a laminitic, but a general rule for conditioning mixes is to look out for a good oil content, around 12% is good, 14% is better. look for soya, barley, and alfalfa high on the list of ingredients.

My lad works hard in the winter and drops weight, and he can be very cereal/starch sensitive. The best thing I've ever found to feed him was speedibeet, alfa-a oil, full fat soya and baileys stud balancer. worked brilliantly, and he looked great all year. PM me if you need more help!
 
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I swear by Allen Page Calm and Condition, its a lovely feed and really made a difference to my old horse without adding any fix, I have used it for my lot through the winter, it needs to be soaked for 10mins?? I think if I remember rightly but it is very cost effective as one scoop lasts 2 feeds once soaked. I also use Dengie Hi Fi lite which was recommended for my daughters pony and he loves it but it is low in sugar, and I also use Heygates nuts which have a good ingredients list and are only a fiver a bag as said pony can't tolerate any mix or high sugar contents (it gives him extremely sloppy poo's) :eek:
 
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