Does my horse actually need a hard feed?

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littlen

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Horse in question is overweight, gains weight very easily and is a native breed. He needs to loose weight over winter to give me a fighting chance over summer as he is a high lami risk.

I was thinking of just giving him a handful of happy hoof when he comes in to keep him quiet however YM insists he needs a balancer or suppliment in with this.

If this is true, what sort of suppliment or balancer should I give?
 
Horses survived many years without vit and min supplements/balancers so I'm sure he will be absolutely fine either way. Perhaps a mineral lick in his stable would be an idea.
 
You could ask her what minerals she has found to be lacking in her pasture/hay - and then supplement accordingly. One would imagine there is a reason why she's so keen on sups/balancers!
 
littlen said:
Horse in question is overweight, gains weight very easily and is a native breed. He needs to loose weight over winter to give me a fighting chance over summer as he is a high lami risk.

I was thinking of just giving him a handful of happy hoof when he comes in to keep him quiet however YM insists he needs a balancer or suppliment in with this.

If this is true, what sort of suppliment or balancer should I give?
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Why don't you give pink powder? Its got all the vitamins and minerals your horse requires, and contains probiotic. Its also very reasonably priced for a balancer. I've always given it my horse as he used to be very colic prone, although since moving yards and off ex cattle grazing, I have managed to wean him off it successfully and onto Magic Calmer which has a probiotic in it.

Touch wood its staved off his colic, although I do think the change of yards has had a lot to do with it.
 
applecart14 said:
Why don't you give pink powder? Its got all the vitamins and minerals your horse requires, and contains probiotic. Its also very reasonably priced for a balancer. I've always given it my horse as he used to be very colic prone, although since moving yards and off ex cattle grazing, I have managed to wean him off it successfully and onto Magic Calmer which has a probiotic in it.

Touch wood its staved off his colic, although I do think the change of yards has had a lot to do with it.
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Please don't give PinkPowder, it has very little of any use in it and loads of stuff your horse is better without. I gave it to ours until I realised that it was giving them sore feet and causing behaviour problems (probably because of the sore feet).
Your horse doesn't actually need anything except good quality hay. If you decide to soak the hay because you want the horse to lose weight, you might need to replace the vits and mins that have been removed with a balancer. If you need to give him something because you are restricting his hay, you could give plain oat straw chaff, there are a few companies now who sell it.
 
If a native type horse has access to good quality forage, then I see no reason to feed a hard feed, balancer or supplement.

Regardless of that surely it is your horse, therefore your choice - I don't see why it is anything to do with your YO?

Maybe point them in the direction of all the current equine obesity studies....
 
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I have to confess I am a recent convert to using a balancer - my good doer needed to lose weight so I dropped his hard feed (gradually of course) but while he began loosing weight his coat was less shiney, hooves more brittle so I began researching balancers - it is a minefield, some of them are better quality than others so please pay attention to the ingredients and ignore the marketing blurbs. Since being on the balancer I eventually chose he looks amazing - better than ever so he clearly was lacking in something. I even started taking a multivitamin myself after seeing what a difference the balancer made!
 
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Do an as fed analysis so you know what your horse is currently getting and what it needs. I am a fan of a good (and not all are equal) multi min / vit esp if your horse is on a restricted diet and don't forget the need for protein.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Please don't give PinkPowder, it has very little of any use in it and loads of stuff your horse is better without. I gave it to ours until I realised that it was giving them sore feet and causing behaviour problems (probably because of the sore feet)..
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HI Pearslinger - how can PP possibly cause sore feet? Sorry but I don't understand.
 
I would certainly not give any hard feed or balancer to an overweight native or good doer. Your horse will be absolutely fine on grass and hay - what they are designed to eat! My Irish Draught is fit and currently cubbing one or two days a week, living out and on grass only and she is in lovely condition. Through the winter, she will graze during the day and have good quality hay in her stable at night but no hard feed and she will be hunting too. Only if she loses condition or needs some extra energy or spark as the season progresses, will I give her a small amount of hard feed. I would tell your YO that you appreciate her advice but you will feed your horse forage only and see how it goes. The condition of your horse as winter progresses will give you the best answer as to if he/she needs anything else.
 
None of mine get any kind of feed or supplement until they really need a grass top up in the depths of winter (when they get grass nuts)
All look fabulous and are competing successfully. Balancers are a massive waste of money imho, just like vitamin pills are for humans
 
Too many people are suckered into the idea of balancers & supplements! I've kept horses for 20+ years feeding a diet of good quality forage and straights when needed. My horses are the envy of the yard and out competing. Good quality forage is the key as it's the staple of your horses diet... if your forage is rubbish look elsewhere and source quality forage. Your horse will look & feel better & will save you wasting money on supplements etc.
 
pinkypug1 said:
Too many people are suckered into the idea of balancers & supplements! I've kept horses for 20+ years feeding a diet of good quality forage and straights when needed. My horses are the envy of the yard and out competing. Good quality forage is the key as it's the staple of your horses diet... if your forage is rubbish look elsewhere and source quality forage. Your horse will look & feel better & will save you wasting money on supplements etc.
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I beg to differ - yes if horses have a varied diet the forage is sufficient - my horses live on the same paddocks of limited size and so therefore do not get variety of diet to supplement the various vits and min requirements, I do not own my own place of have a huge amount of money so cannot provide them with the variety to met their needs.

I have found a good multi vit (in conjuction with an as fed analysis of the diet) very benefical and I do not have any issues with my horses in regards to immunity issues like rain scald and mudfever (I have fixed these issues in new horses with the change to this diet incl the one in the picture below), poor quality hoof or coats or anything else. This is my horse (all my horses have look like this over the years) in the middle of winter last year she hasn't been shampoo'd for over a year just hose wash downs after riding, she lives on hay/grass, a scoop of chaff and a supplement.

She did have her rug on prior to this being taken as the weather was horrid but only wore a rug for a total of two weeks over winter.

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Wouldn't feed happy hoof, just a lite balancer or put mineral lick in stable. I like topspec lite and they take a while to eat their mugful am and pm and don't wolf it. You may be lucky and not need to supplement diet but without analysis of grazing and forage you won't know if they are missing something, balancer covers all basis and means you can give a "feed"
 
maccachic said:
I beg to differ - yes if horses have a varied diet the forage is sufficient - my horses live on paddocks of limited size and so therefore do not get variety of diet to supplement the various vits and min requirements, I do not own my own place of have a huge amount of money so cannot provide them with the variety to met their needs.

I have found a good multi vit (in conjuction with an as fed analysis of the diet) very benefical and I do not have any issues with my horses in regards to immunity issues like rain scald and mudfever (I have fixed these issues in new horses with the change to this diet incl the one in the picture below), poor quality hoof or coats or anything else. This is my horse (all my horses have look like this over the years) in the middle of winter last year she hasn't been shampoo'd for over a year just hose wash downs after riding, she lives on hay/grass, a scoop of chaff and a supplement.

She did have her rug on prior to this being taken as the weather was horrid but only wore a rug for a total of two weeks over winter.

attachment.php
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Wow - can almost see your reflection in that shine! And I agree not all horses will get sufficient nutients from the available grass/hay so a good balancer can help. As with many things they shouldn't be disregarded completely as some marketing fad, nor are they a magic formula, but a good quality one can help fill in nutritional gaps as I have seen with my own horse.
 
I am another that never feeds any hard feed or supplements with the exception of my elderlies. The others all have grass until usually around November and then plenty of hay. They all live out and come out of the winter slimmer, as they should.

We had a horse with severe laminitis many years ago. Dealing with a 12 month recovery is a steep and painful learning curve
 
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