Diet changes - how soon to see a difference?

[chaps89]

As above really
If you change something in a horses diet, how soon would you expect to see any difference off the back of that change?

 

[Shay]

Depends on what you changed and why I'm afraid! Removing an allergen or something they are sensitive to might produce results in a matter of days. Adding biotin for hoof quality won't show for 6 - 9 months. So somewhere in the middle probably.

 

[be positive]

I think it depends in part what changes have been made and for what reason, I have seen improvements fairly quickly, within a week, but some things take longer to get into or out of their system.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

When we stopped feeding our TBxWelshD any hard feed, when she was used to 2 bucket feeds of a coarse mix the effect was immediately apparent, the next morning, She was like a junkie who was ready for the next fix. On the 4th day she was much better and continued to improve for a couple of weeks. We actually stopped feeding her because we thought it might be causing her cough, which the vet couldn't get to the bottom of. That stopped as well as the extremely erratic behaviour.

 

[chaps89]

Interesting.
Madam has been a bit flat - looked through the diary I keep for her, 4 days before I changed from Timothy haylage to soaked hay I was writing how fit she seemed and plenty of enthusiasm.
Less than a week on soaked hay and I start making notes about how she seems to have dropped off a bit.
It's the only thing that really changed so wasn't sure it was coincidence or due to that.

 

[Leo Walker]

Depends on what you changed and why I'm afraid! Removing an allergen or something they are sensitive to might produce results in a matter of days. Adding biotin for hoof quality won't show for 6 - 9 months. So somewhere in the middle probably.

You would see the results of the biotin immediately, well if it did work, it just takes 6 to 9 months to grow a new hoof.

As someone with a ridiculously reactive to feed horse, I saw a difference within 48 hours and always considered it out of his system in a week.

 

[be positive]

Interesting.
Madam has been a bit flat - looked through the diary I keep for her, 4 days before I changed from Timothy haylage to soaked hay I was writing how fit she seemed and plenty of enthusiasm.
Less than a week on soaked hay and I start making notes about how she seems to have dropped off a bit.
It's the only thing that really changed so wasn't sure it was coincidence or due to that.

Soaked hay instead of haylage will make a difference to how much energy she is getting from the main part of her diet so I think you would notice fairly quickly, it is the main way to safely get weight off a laminitic so be careful she doesn't drop weight as well, unless that is the aim.

 

[chaps89]

She's a very very good doer.
But I thought I'd try Timothy haylage instead of her usual soaked hay this summer, but when the pallet I bought ran out I moved back to hay.
Her weight is doing quite well so I shall stop soaking the hay quite so much and see how we get on.
It's a very tricky balance between her weight, laminitis, ulcers and having some oomph. Clearly tipped the scales out of sync again :-/

 

[SEL]

She's a very very good doer.
But I thought I'd try Timothy haylage instead of her usual soaked hay this summer, but when the pallet I bought ran out I moved back to hay.
Her weight is doing quite well so I shall stop soaking the hay quite so much and see how we get on.
It's a very tricky balance between her weight, laminitis, ulcers and having some oomph. Clearly tipped the scales out of sync again :-/

I have this problem - so generally tend to feed something with a bit more oomph about 30 mins before I ride. It doesn't take much to give mine a sugar high, so a handful of grass pellets and a small net of dry hay do the trick.

 

[chaps89]

It's a tricky one isn't it.
I hadn't tried grass nuts but I tried oats with little to no effect. Saracens re-leve does her well come winter but I will keep grass nuts up my sleeve as an alternative, thankyou.
She really struggles at coat change time too (she resembles some kind of pony x hairy yak at the best of times) so that one I'm already 'on' as it were.

 

[JennBags]

You would see the results of the biotin immediately, well if it did work, it just takes 6 to 9 months to grow a new hoof.

Out of interest, what results would you see immediately with the biotin please?

OP, switching from haylage to soaked hay could have an immediate effect on energy levels, so it's likely to be that. If you want a little more energy without the calories, you could try something like NAF EnerG which I used to find effective.