Do we over complicate our horses feeds?

Cannot help but agree - certain companies have done an amazing job of convincing people their products are far superior and not full of fillers and additives...sigh. Can't blame them for making money can you?
Admittedly I have one on alfalfa pellets plus linseed, magnesium, salt, vitamin E and alcar on a PSSM trial but if theres no change he'll stick to the same minus the vit E and alcar. My days of buying branded feeds are over.
 
I think one of the main things is that people concentrate on what they feed in a bucket, rather than what is actually the main source of the horse's nutrition, forage. I think also a lot of owners have an emotional 'need to feed' - so even if they have a fat pony in very light work they still want to give it a bucket of something that looks and smells nice.

There are some horses that are complicated to feed (poor doers who tie up, dentally challenged underweight Cushings ponies etc) and some of the manufactured feeds can be helpful in such cases. But, yes, I agree that the majority of horses can be fed quite simply, as long as decent forage is the basis of the diet.
 
mine get varying quantities of grass chaff, oats, linseed and salt.

but i can see how easy it is to get sucked in by the marketing as i sometimes look longingly at the pretty bags!
 
I feed straights and think that can also seem more complicated because at times I probably end up with more ingredients than someone feeding a complete feed but I know what all the ingredients are. I do also have quite an array of supplement tubs going these days :D.
 
echo ester.

if these top people feed the horses on nuts i`m amazed frankly, its a real skill putting together a genuinely individual feed meeting the needs of each horse
 
I think 99% of owners (myself definitely included) would be better off looking at their own diets instead of their horses most times. I eat crap yet my horse's feed has been analysed to within an inch of its life. An given the choice, Im sure he's prefer me to lose a few pounds rather than have HIS feed analysed.

Nowadays there also seems to be an issue where people want the feed to be perfect, yet its getting fed to horses who do very little work or else are stuck in stables or postage stamp turnouts all day.

As regards feed quality I always fed my eventer the best quality baileys feed I could. He moved to a yard for a few weeks lessons bootcamp, and the yard there fed him the very basic nuts all their horses get, and he looked exactly the same, no difference in performance or condition. Nowadays I just feed them oats, beet pulp and an oat balancer.
 
I was chatting to the kids in school who come to my equine enrichment every Tuesday lunchtime about feeding. We talked through the levels of work horses are in and how most people hugely overestimate what workload their horses do and are fooled by feed companies into thinking they need to feed all sorts.

When I was a kid, the ponies were always fed a handful of chaff and a scoop of bran and the ones competing had a scoop of coarse mix as well. In the winter we’d add sugar beet for those prone to weight loss. There weren’t many supplements around but we’d add limestone and garlic (everyone added garlic then!)

Mine get feeds- but they are small, twice a day and simply as a carrier for getting the Divas medication in her and Polly’s ulcerfoe. Diva has half a mug of soaked high fibre cubes and P has some unmollassed chaff with micronised linseed and a mug of speedi beet.
 
I don't feed anything that's got more than a few recognisable ingredients in it. And no oat or wheat feed fillers etc. No cereals. He gets a token feed of agrobs museli, the most basic mineral balancer, big dose of salt and that's it. I do notice a difference in his feet if the balancer is stopped, so its clearly doing something. He gets a handful of grass nuts in a treat ball as well. He also gets mountains of hay compared to what most people seem to feed. He goes through 1/2 to 3/4s bale of hay overnight, plus hay in the field if its frosty etc.

Nothing would convince me to feed him a cool mix or conditioning cube of any description!
 
Oh absolutely YES!!! It's wonderful to see how effective marketing is. It's also quite amusing to read some of the comments here about how "simply" people are feeding, and then list at least four different things :-) The last time I fed a bucket feed was 20 years ago when I had broodmares and youngstock (and it was compound nuts with nothing added). Nowadays all my horses get hay. Just hay.
 
Yes when I started owning a horse 57 years ago we fed oats bran and a little black tracle as a treat. Skinny overworked ones had barley and linseed boiled for hours in a big pan. Hay and grass were the only forage and if you knew about it a little limestone flour for youngsters. Did look after one who had malnutition due to ignorant very rich owners he had eggs by the dozen and beer by the gallon
 
Supplements are pointless without forage analysis, no point adding minerals that could block others if they are in excess and most vitamins come from good forage / hay.
 
A friend of mine, who is a vet, knows of two horses which had to be PTS because of over-supplementation: excess selenium caused sloughing off of the hoof capsule in one case, and another had liver failure due to all the extra stuff it's well-meaning owner was stuffing it with.
 
Cortez said:
A friend of mine, who is a vet, knows of two horses which had to be PTS because of over-supplementation: excess selenium caused sloughing off of the hoof capsule in one case, and another had liver failure due to all the extra stuff it's well-meaning owner was stuffing it with.
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I know of a few people who feed a selenium supplement. I asked if their soil was deficient in it as it is local to us, and I got very blank looks. I was always under the impression you had to be very careful about over supplementing selenium for the reason you have stated.
Do the tubs have a warning on them about this?
 
Were they in this country/ireland Cortez, I am aware of examples of selenium poisoning but all of them seem to be abroad somewhere so would be interesting to know if there are examples here too.
 
I totally agree that many of us have fallen for the feeding con... I have 3 horses, all have a bucket feed - 2 as a carrier for some supplements only - the other is the fussiest poor doer imaginable and need extra calories! but they all have speedibeet with ( or without for the fussy one) unmolassed chaff and a joint balancer. I do add individually needed supplements according to their various (and sometimes complicated requirements). My supplementation is based on both grass and forage analysis - the fussy one has a weakened immune system and has to have a vit E and selenium supplement as well as a high level of oil. As my forage /grass is low in selenium...not a problem. Equally, nothing I feed has any added iron as my forage/grass is really high in iron......
 
I do some work on the yard at the weekend, its a mix of oldies/ youngsters/ happy hackers/ show horses/ low level UA stuff/ one BD horse/ 3x BS/ and my BE horse - The complexity and number of supplements some of these horses have completely baffles me! I like to keep it simple; fibre (chaff) + add any straights as and when needed.

I don't supplement unless I know what for and why, which you cant without a bloodtest. So many people on my yard feed magnesium calmer and our ground isn't magnesium deficient(was tested)! I've tried to tell a few of them that it will have no effect but they carry on wasting their money any way! At the moment, mine is in the most work and has the least complicated feed :D
 
ester said:
Were they in this country/ireland Cortez, I am aware of examples of selenium poisoning but all of them seem to be abroad somewhere so would be interesting to know if there are examples here too.
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Ireland, Ester, where supplementation is actually not as rife as it seems to be over in the UK. If it was just about simply wasting money and lining feed companies pockets that would be merely mildly amusing, but when people are actually harming their horses that's a whole other level of stupidity.
 
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Thanks :), I'm aware of it more from hoofy groups and I suspect some of them have a more US weighting which probably skews what is seen so interesting to know, though very said. So many people don't know about it, and it is why I always mention it when people suggest using fast fibre as a hay replacer (unless they have changed the formula, I've not checked recently tbf).

LP usually with magnesium it isn't about the land being magnesium deficient it is the to do with it's ration with calcium and phosphorous (though obviously the land might be fine for that too!)
 
I've had to stop fiddling with my mare's diet in an attempt to 'cure' her PSSM because her ultra sensitive tummy just goes bleugh. So she gets oat chaff, and enough kwik beet and copra to hide the taste of her powders.

But the gelding is a different story. I'm pretty sure if he could have ad lib haylage in the field he wouldn't need much else, but his sole job is to keep PSSM mare company so he has to make do with poor quality hay in the day. So his bucket feeds have extra copra and linseed just to keep the weight on. Plus in one of my 'cure the PSSM horse' moments I tried to give her D&H ERS pellets. Her gut protested so the gelding got them instead - and did fantastically on them. Every time I try to replace them for something grass pellet like he takes a backward step. So I have a whole extra feed bin for a retired draft who eats food with racehorses on the front of the bag.

So for 2 horses I'm up to 5 bins and I won't even mention the supplements I have stashed away.......
 
Well most people do. Some of the folk on my old yard made the worst hypocondriac seem sane - especially the three old dears with the pointy hats who cackled while stirring their big cooking pot.

I have only fed straight grains and usually stuff bought from the grower rather than a dealer, plus good hay and that funny green stuff that grows in fields.

If you feed any kind of "nuts" - you are invariably being ripped off. Yes, they all live up to what it says on their labels for protein content, energy etc., but they don't say what the source is - usually waste products from other processess ground up to be unrecognisable - i.e. cheap rubbish, which explains their massive advertising budgets and sponsorships.
 
Yes, we do. And I have in the past. But now mine get hay in the winter. When we have grass, they get grass or grass and hay. And that's it unless age or illness dictates. They do well and have lovely coats and feet.

However, they are not in work. Three field ornaments, two ridden very lightly as weather/daylight currently permits and one a growing RID that I don't want joint problems with.
 
OldFogie said:
Well most people do. Some of the folk on my old yard made the worst hypocondriac seem sane - especially the three old dears with the pointy hats who cackled while stirring their big cooking pot.

I have only fed straight grains and usually stuff bought from the grower rather than a dealer, plus good hay and that funny green stuff that grows in fields.

If you feed any kind of "nuts" - you are invariably being ripped off. Yes, they all live up to what it says on their labels for protein content, energy etc., but they don't say what the source is - usually waste products from other processess ground up to be unrecognisable - i.e. cheap rubbish, which explains their massive advertising budgets and sponsorships.
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Agree in principle, but I find high cubes very useful for most of mine. They don't really need supplementary feeding, and would be fine on hay and grass - but they live out 24/7, and separating them all to feed a couple would be far too complicated. I chuck them all a scoop of nuts, which they spend age hunting for while the skinny ones eat their feed.
 
OldFogie said:
If you feed any kind of "nuts" - you are invariably being ripped off. Yes, they all live up to what it says on their labels for protein content, energy etc., but they don't say what the source is - usually waste products from other processess ground up to be unrecognisable - i.e. cheap rubbish, which explains their massive advertising budgets and sponsorships.
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1. I think you are well out of date with the quality standards and ingredient sources of the major brands with a reputation to maintain.

2. I found the cheapest and easiest way to feed a horse with a high calorie need is own brand nuts from an agricultural store with veg oil. And I don't care what the source is, as long as it's safe to eat, my horses eat it with enthusiasm, and they perform and look well on it.
 
I dream of having a horse that can eat 'that funny green stuff that grows in fields'. Currently going the best she ever has in 3 years due to the 'funny green stuff' being replaced by 'boggy brown stuff'.
 
ester said:
cubes definitely state the ingredients.
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Well, it has been a while since I've read a label - they used to be a quantity guarrantee slip in the stitching of every bag - so much % protein, etc., all the way down to minimum trace elements BUT NOT what the SOURCE was. I ask you - do you really expect to find 100% grass fed Aberdeen Angus fillet steak in a burgher? Well you might in *aitrose at £39 each! Most of the stuff that was made into animal food used to be cheap by-product and I expect it still is.
 
I recently emailed one of the larger feed manufacturers to enquire about one of their products.
They asked some details, then messaged me back with info to say they didn't have anything to suit my horse but here is the next best thing we sell.

:eek3:
 
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