Competing TB's on a mostly forage diet?

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alinni1336

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So my new horse (we have had her for about 3 months) has been eating 5.5kg of hard feed (I know it's a lot but she is slender and we were hoping to fatten her up) She is very hot some days with her jumping (I know, I know because we feed her that much) long story short - on the amount of feed she is on already we are not happy with how she looks (slender) and we are not happy with her energy levels so we are putting her on a mostly forage diet after speaking to a lady with 2 thoroughbreds (they look like warmbloods:p) who has them on a mostly forage diet and I am going to start feeding my girl the following in the next two weeks on advice given by the lady.

Daily:

3kgs Lucerne
1kg Hard Feed
750grams of Balancer
And hay in the mornings and night - She gets half a bale of hay every day but I am not sure how much that weighs, still have to weigh the bales but in our country the bales weigh about 20 - 25 kgs

And we are buying 4 bales extra for her now every month.. Will weigh everything once I have everything - aiming for 10kgs of food a day lol

Going to put her hay and lucerne in haynets.

Basically I just want to know who has TB's on a mostly forage diet and some advice, success stories?

Hoping for a happy, fat and sane TB after 2-3 months - the expected transition period
 
Mine has mostly a forage based diet and is very well. For condition i feed micronised Linseed which is also good for coat and feet and joints. Copra is another that can be fed without causing silliness. Forage should be the base of all diets and lots of people feed Oats for extra energy when needed. They are also high fibre and not the demon food some people make them out to be.
TB's are often fed high starch high sygar diets in an attempt to weight gain when in fact it just has the opposite effect and blows their brains in the process.
The diet you have been given is far better. Good luck!
 
Have evented TB's on mostly forage, as mine were always out at grass 24/7 (picture under my name is a horse at a three day event competing of grass plus added hard feed). I used oats for extra energy and, as deicinmerlyn says, they are not a demon food and i have sometimes had to add maize for some horses to increase the energy levels (or high energy compound feeds) but this was when competing regularly when they were on a reasonably high workload.. Did you realise that lucerne is quite high in protein too (may be up to 20%, although bioavailability varies, whereas oats may be nearer 10-15%) and can mess with the calcium/phosphorus/magnesium balance?
I would not consider 5.5kg of hard feed a lot for a TB doing a medium level of work, but it depends on work level/fitness/size of horse etc. and they can certainly do very well in light work on forage only. You can do a rough diet check using the NRC website http://nrc88.nas.edu/nrh/ but please do note their disclaimer, and in the end you need to feed based on how your horse is responding. The best way to add calories without 'fizzing' them up is to add vegetable oil (different types have different omega levels and types; I can't remember off the top of my head, but easy to google the different benefits of omega 3's and 6's).
You might find this article interesting too: http://www.thehorse.com/articles/33441/feeding-horses-to-increase-weight-and-body-condition , as it gives an expected timespan for weight gain.
Note that TB's can get overweight too, and you should go on body condition score rather than trying to make them look too much like a warmblood if that is not their normal body type - some TBs are naturally heavier than others and some always look racing fit no matter how much feed you shove in ( one of mine only put weight on if on very good quality grass and lots of it; another had to be on very restricted grass otherwise he got porky very fast). Overweight leads to leg problems, metabolic problems (e.g. horse equivalent of diabetes) etc. and there is research to indicate that fat horses can be more naughty (via the leptin produced by fat).
 
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Agree with above 5.5kgs is not a lot but I also dont know how big your horse is. My ex-racer has a history of ulcers so he is fed high fibre/forage diet. He is little though (15.1hh) and has ad lib hay which I soak because of dust allergies. He normally gets through a bale a day in winter (spread out over a day).

Are you sure she is digesting everything efficiently? Have you had teeth checked? I would suggest a course of some sort of gut probiotic; I used something like pink powder when I first got my ex-racer 10 yrs ago and restore for a little while too as he hadn't been fed/wormed properly for a long time before I got him. After that the weight piled on with some good grass and lots of small feeds every day (we did 4 or 5).

ETA: anything "conditioning" triggers the ejector seat!
 
I would say she is slender because she is not getting enough hay. Half a 20-25kg bale is not a lot for a TB in a decent amount of work. My poor doer (not full tb) would get through almost double that in winter and probably goes through a good 16kg in summer when she is out during the day. You should aim to have hay available to her at all times, not just for her weight but for her digestive health.

I feed mine alfa a molasses free, coolstance copra, linseed, a digestive supplement and a hoof supplement. Plus as much hay as she can eat and she is finally looking good rather than ribby.
 
My TB's have ad lib forage- you really need the hay rack to always have some left. I use a low level rack not a net, because they eat more from a rack. I use big square Heston bales- in the winter each horse gets a HUGE barrow full twice a day, at least.

I also use oats to increase energy, also linseed and unmolassed sugarbeet. I used to feed copra succesfully, but it is a PITA to get hold of round here, and expensive. They are doing just as well on unbranded rolled oats from the local ag store.(I soak them with the sugarbeet, might possibly increase digestiblity).
I had more problems when I tried feeding lucerne(alfalfa), oats don't bother them at all.
 
Uhm, they say a horse should get 1 to 2% of their body weight in roughage. At 5kgs of hay plus 3 kgs of lucerne plus 1 kg of hard plus 1 kg of balancer she is getting 2% of feed for a 500kg horse and that was worked out without the extra hay I am feeding her because I don't know how much it weighs - on the new diet now. On her old diet she was getting 9kg's or a little more of food a day. Yes it's winter but she gets blanketed at night in a winter blanket and during the day in a more light one.

Going to weigh the bales tomorrow. Everyone in my country thinks feeding 5.5 kgs of hard feed to a horse is crazy.

No I am not trying to make my horse look like a warmblood. Gee stop taking my words out of context - I am trying to explain to you how good her horses look. They are not over weight.
 
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