conditioning feed

debsflo

debsflo

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trying to put weight on our 14.3 mare.we have had her since september, her confirmation is not good and due to early neglect she is hard to keep weight on and looks quite ribby. had teeth done is regularly wormed has ad lib grass/hay and has been having 2 feeds daily of hi fi with no improvement. as she has loose pooh now on a digestive supplement with pre and probiotics but thinking we may need to try a conditionig feed .has any one experience of baileys no 4 top line conditioning cubes or similar. dont want anything heating but she needs topline. i have never had an underweght horse before and have managed on forage only.
 
Hi Fi is a rather low calorie feed, so not the ideal choice for a horse that needs to put on condition. If you like feeding fibre only, then you might want to swap from the Hi Fi to Alfa A oil and add a broad spectrum vit/min supplement.
 
I have used Baileys no 4 with my TB who did well on it and didn't hot up....HOWEVER, some horses cannot tolerate it so be careful, add it slowly and evaluate. I also found Alpha A-oil to be really good, but again some horses go loopy on alfalfa. Guess its all a bit of trial and error to see what suits each individual.
 
Baileys No. 4 is good for putting on weight. I used to feed my mare this with sugar beet and Alfa A and it worked well. Try feeding linseed oil as this will put on weight as well as making her coat shiny!
 
I have used Spillers conditioning cubes with great success. Last winter (not the one just gone), our big heavy draught horse lost some condition. We switched him on to conditioning cubes and he soon looked excellent again. They didn't heat him up at all, which is very important in a 17.3 heavy horse! He was fed the cubes with hi fi lite and ad lib good quality hay/haylage. If you don't feed to manufacturers recommendations, you will need to add a vit/min supplement or a balancer.
 
I have always used either Allen and Page calm and condition and top spec or more recently the Top Spec conditioning flakes which are EXELLENT!! I have an older horse that has not long been with me and who was in the most awful condition when he came and a very fussy eater and he loves them and is looking so much better already [5 weeks]. i feed this with alpha a [ ive never had a horse go wizzy on it] and top spec feed balancer ,oh and speedibeet.I have also been using it on one of my spanish horses and the young eventer we have all have put on conditionand not lost their marbles!!
 
I've just started my boy, who needs to gain weight for showing, on Bailey's Outshine, as well as their TopLine.

Outshine is the highest-calorie feed on the market, I think, and is supposed to be non-fizzing as well.

He also gets sugarbeet and of course ad-lib hay.

Can't report on success yet as we've only just started this regime, but lots of people recommended Outshine when I posted on here (and elsewhere) about this. So might be worth a try with yours as well.
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