Confused about feed

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djlynwood

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This is the second winter with my horse and I am moving from livery to DIY so I can feed what I want to now! The first winter I had her she was on box rest the whole time after an accident and was just fed chaff and balancer.

She is a 8yr 16hh ISH lots of thoroughbred. She is ridden almost everyday with occasional day off. Although in winter she will probably be ridden 5-6 days per week.

5 days in school consisting of 3 school and probably 2 jumping. Usually 45mins in school.

Sat and Sun hacking for 1hr to 1hr 1/2 both days. She is turned out all day, stable at night.

She is currently on a handful of hi-fi lite, equimins advance and a squirt of linseed oil. Twice a day.

She is starting to drop a bit of weight but her overall condition and energy seem ok. She is coming in from the field with her glands swollen on her face as there is not much grass in the winter field already.

Im going to carry on feeding her:

equimins advance - in evening meal
mugfull linseed meal from Charnwood - in evening meal
Stubbs scoop chaff ( but Im not sure which one ????) both morning and evening
speedibeat ( not sure on the amount and Im not sure if I should feed morning or evening or both ???)

Does this seem ok or am I missing something?

Do I need to add horse and pony cubes? I dont want to add too many things with vits and mins as I already feed the equimins. Im also worried that it may not have enough calories in it.

I was thinking of adding oats if she needs extra omph but will that come from the speedibeat anyway?

Am I making it complicated?

Any advice appreciated.

Sorry its so long, thanks for reading.
 
If you are worried about losing weight, why not change the chaff to a more nutritious one like alfa-a oil?
 
Your plan sounds good :).

I'd pick an unmolassed chaff, and only add oats if the horse continues to drop condition on the speedibeet. There's no need to add a cube or anything; the Equimins will be supplying her mineral requirements.
 
oh yes, forgot to add that she is getting hay ad-lib at night. I always give her as much as she can eat so that there is a small amount left in the morning.

I have been looking at the un-mollased dengie chaff, they also do a an alfala one too I think.

I just wanted to check here because when I was speaking to people on the yard, they seem to think that what Im feeding is a bit dull and lacking goodness.
 
Yes Dengie "do" an alfalfa one... actually they are an alfalfa company so most of their chaffs ARE alfalfa chaffs to a greater or lesser degree with or without chopped straw.

Speedibeet is so easy to use, just add what you need. This will go up or down depending on your horse. A soaked stubbs scoop is ALOT! Try a cupful to start with.

Some people soak loads in a bucket. It stinks after a day. All i do is soak the morning batch in the evening, the evening batch in the morning so its always fresh, soft and fluffy. I don't like it sloppy (neither does filly).
 
djlynwood said:
Also, how much speedibeat to feed? Would you add it to morning and night feeds?
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Introduce it slowly and build up; I'd probably build it up to about 1/2 a stubbs scoop dry weight per feed, and see how she does on that. You can then vary the quantity or add oats according to her condition.
 
TwoStroke said:
Introduce it slowly and build up; I'd probably build it up to about 1/2 a stubbs scoop dry weight per feed, and see how she does on that. You can then vary the quantity or add oats according to her condition.
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That is still a lot once it soaks! A horses stomach isn't even as big as a rugby ball.....
 
TwoStroke said:
Yes, but you measure feed by dry weight, not soaked weight. Half a stubbs scoop is less than 1kg; a cup of speedibeet isn't going to add condition imho.
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Ok, argument commences!

Yes you do go on dry weight. i agree. Speedibeet swells to almost quadruple it's dry weight... You can't feed that much to a horse in one sitting. It will be two Stubbs scoops worth of soaked matter. Far too much in my humble opinion. Enough if you want to kill something with colic, unlikely as that may be, two horses were put down at my yard this week for feed related colic.

Anyway for a 500kg horse, max recommended is 0.5kg. So if you are "introducing" it then you want about 100g dry matter to start with. Then you build up to 500g over time to add condition.

Fairly basic recommendations you can find anywhere.
 
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tallyho! said:
Ok, argument commences!

Yes you do go on dry weight. i agree. Speedibeet swells to almost quadruple it's dry weight... You can't feed that much to a horse in one sitting. It will be two Stubbs scoops worth of soaked matter. Far too much in my humble opinion. Enough if you want to kill something with colic, unlikely as that may be, two horses were put down at my yard this week for feed related colic.

Anyway for a 500kg horse, max recommended is 0.5kg. So if you are "introducing" it then you want about 100g dry matter to start with. Then you build up to 500g over time to add condition.

Fairly basic recommendations you can find anywhere.
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I like a good argument :D.

I agree about building up slowly - as I said in my other post.

Also 1/2 a stubbs scoop is around 0.5 kg, though you can feed more than 10g per 100kg safely if necessary:

We would recommend, as a general daily guideline, 100g of Speedi-Beet (dry weight) for every 100 kg of horse weight e.g. 0.25 kg for a 250-300 kg pony, 0.5 kg for a 500-600 kg horse. However, depending upon the rest of the diet fed and level of horse activity, this rate can be increased to 500g of Speedi-Beet per 100 kg horse weight each day.
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I maintain that a cup of speedibeet (which would weigh in at maybe 100-200g) will not add condition.
 
TwoStroke said:
I like a good argument :D.

I agree about building up slowly - as I said in my other post.

Also 1/2 a stubbs scoop is around 0.5 kg, though you can feed more than 10g per 100kg safely if necessary:



I maintain that a cup of speedibeet (which would weigh in at maybe 100-200g) will not add condition.
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I maintain the same, no where in my posts did I say that it would ;) althought please don't feed 600g worth of dry speedibeet soaked in one sitting!

I have to say to OP... If you want condition... Go for fibrebeet. Same company but its half alfalfa pellets all mixed in. Has more protein and higher in nutrition.

Here you go, check it out here.

http://www.britishhorsefeeds.com/company-products/fibre-beet

I sort of use this (although I mix my own, I prefer straights and its cheaper).
 
tallyho! said:
I maintain the same, no where in my posts did I say that it would ;) althought please don't feed 600g worth of dry speedibeet soaked in one sitting!

I have to say to OP... If you want condition... Go for fibrebeet. Same company but its half alfalfa pellets all mixed in. Has more protein and higher in nutrition.

Here you go, check it out here.

http://www.britishhorsefeeds.com/company-products/fibre-beet

I sort of use this (although I mix my own, I prefer straights and its cheaper).
Click to expand...

I disagree, speedibeet is good for conditioning, and I've fed a round stubbs scoop (dry weight) to a colicky horse in one sitting regularly with no problems at all.

Adding oats and increasing the linseed is a better strategy for adding condition than something like fibrebeet imo.
 
Speedibeet's recommendations as a starting point are 100g per 100kg of horse so for a 600kg horse you could feed 600kg which is what my not a stubbs scoops holds and what I feed split between two feed to a large horse needing condition.

I'm not sure the added water should be taken into account or you would be feeding completely different quantities depending on whether you make up a whole range of feeds sloppy if a horse takes a drink while eating.

Fibrebeet can be a good option but not all horses do well on alfalfa so not for everyone.
 
Well I can only say you are lucky ts.

Good luck OP. Keep it simple as they say. Adding fats to feed is definitely another option for you and you are already doing that with linseed so I think you have it covered.
 
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Interesting, thank you.

I will start to introduce the speedibeat and build it up.

If I do use oats, is there a particular kind Im looking for? Is it different to the bags of rolled oats for humans?
 
No, I agree not all horses do well on alfalfa but since her horse is already eating alfalfa in the form of hi-fi, one assumes there is no problem.
 
djlynwood said:
Interesting, thank you.

I will start to introduce the speedibeat and build it up.

If I do use oats, is there a particular kind Im looking for? Is it different to the bags of rolled oats for humans?
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So many different oats on the market... Tiger oats, rolled oats, bruised oats, sprouting oats... I have used rolled oats and sprouting oats the latter is such a faff I gave up.

See how you go with the speedibeet and linseed and everything else before you go down the grains route. You will probably find its not needed. If it is, regular rolled oats are fine.

In a spectrometry and mineral analysis study on oats versus sprouted oats, there was surprisingly little different.

Here you go, you can compare nutrition stats here:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5750/2
 
Is this where someone else weighs in and says pure fibre feeds don't count in the whole rugby sized stomach thing (which is true). Mine can't eat hay so has a massive bucket of just fibre - no colic!
 
I'll throw alpha beet pellets as a good feed into the mix. Alpha and beet in one handy pellet, got weight on my old lad no bother. Is less faffage and storage too and I'm all for less faffage :D

I know its silly, but I like to think its good they get something green going into there guts when the grass is poor or unavailable because its under snow.
 
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