Ex racers & weight

Well it sounds as though you are doing everything you can, so just be a little patient, that is a key 'watch word' with ex-racers.
My boy was never openly stressy when he arrived, he's not that type, and like yours he was a bit fussy with feeding to begin with but i just carried on with the same feeding and he tucks into it and finishes it all up now.
So just stick to your regular routine and you should start to see the results. But some TB's are naturally skinny mini's, plus you don't want to blow their minds with too much feed!!!! In fact i'm just about to cut mine down as he is feeling v v v good about life at the moment!
 
I think you can get small bags of copra meal from ebay for a tenner I think, my friend's ex-racer was iffy about eating it for the first week but now happily wolfs it down and he's a fussy eater, the gleam on his coat is AMAZING!
 
Hi thanks, dab you don't think I should change her feed then? I will have a look into the readymash and copra feeds. She will be a naturally fine horse but the moment she looks like gypsygirl's first pic minus the hair!
 
Hi thanks, dab you don't think I should change her feed then? I will have a look into the readymash and copra feeds. She will be a naturally fine horse but the moment she looks like gypsygirl's first pic minus the hair! I've always had good doing natives so this is a steep learning curve for me!
 
broke_but_happy said:
Hi thanks, dab you don't think I should change her feed then? I will have a look into the readymash and copra feeds. She will be a naturally fine horse but the moment she looks like gypsygirl's first pic minus the hair! I've always had good doing natives so this is a steep learning curve for me!
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Hi BBH, well i'm no feeding expert but i think i'd be a little more patient. It takes time for their gut to get used to new feeds and changing after only 1 month could upset her digestion even more. If she's not losing condition then stick with it for another couple of months and if you still dont see an improvement then maybe change.

But as i say it took my boy about 4 months before i really started to see a difference, i did start to doubt my feeding and i even went as far as buying a bag of Pure Condition but he turned his nose up at that :rolleyes: and a good friend said to stick with what i was feeding and hey presto, all of a sudden he looked good.
When you say you feed 1 scoop c&c is that before adding the water?
 
broke_but_happy said:
Ok cool. I'm just wondering if less is more IYSWIM? At the moment mine gets 1 scoop C&C, ½ scoop barley rings, ½ scoop topline cubes, ¼ chaff and ¼ lo cal twice a day. But she has been on this for a month with no visible improvement. I am just wondering if I should just give 1 x C&C and 1 x barley rings instead? She also gets a glug of oil in each feed as well.

ETA: I take photo's of her every week to compare so would know if she was putting it on.
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1/4 scoop chaff? I would up the chaff massively to 3 or 4 scoops a day. 3 feeds a day if possible and as much grass/hay as it will eat
 
It takes about a year of correct feeding and different work for them to start to look different and maintain their weight.

Don't be tempted to fill up with cereals and starch, but stick to good quality ad lib forage and good quality grazing.

I put mine on Top Spec balancer and cool condition cubes + Beet.

Why do you feed lo Cal?
 
I would feed her a scoop of chaff and one scoop of CC (dry) OR one scoop of topline cubes twice a day plus as much hay as poss and then wait.
By adding 2 different conditioning feeds, barley and a balancer and hardly any chaff you are unbalancing the feed ration and she won't have the fibre to stop her bolting or to slow the passage of the food through the gut.
Keep it simple. The other way to do it is knock the conditioning premixed feeds on the head and feed her just the balancer, barley and a lot of decent chaff with adlib hay ect.
 
I feed it as a balancer to know she is getting all she can from the feed. I appreciate it will take time but we get harsh winters here and I want her to have some weight going into the winter.
 
Problem is that we do not have enough grass for her to be out 24/7 with nothing else. I was also looking at grass nuts because of this.
So far I am thinking either:
1 scoop grass nuts & 1 scoop sugarbeet/readymash/copra with the balancer
½ scoop grass nuts, ½ barley rings & 1 scoop readymash/C&C/copra with the balancer.
1 scoop sugarbeet & 1 scoop readymash/copra
 
You are making it so over complicated. I have a TB ex racer and when he dropped a lot of weight I fed him:

As much hay as he would eat plus a large bucket of chaff at night. Poor grazing during the day.

4 scoops chaff
3 scoops conditioning nuts
linseed
good splash oil
pro bio

split over 3 feeds a day. It took about 2 months before he was looking almost plump!
 
broke_but_happy said:
No, I soak a scoop which normally does 2 meals.
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My boy gets the following twice per day (but is out 24/7);

1 scoop (before adding water) of c&c (So he is getting about twice the c&c that your girlie is)
1 scoop alphalfa
gulg soya oil, pinch of salt


He is 17h1 and it took 4 months for him to look just right (albeit he needs some more junk in the trunk but that will come with work :eek:). But he only gets work 4 days per week.

Like an earlier poster said don't make it overly complicated, oh and sub the limited turn out or poor grass with good quality forage.:)
 
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I got my boy in september and tryed pumping the food into him, cool n calm, then topline n conditioning with all with alfa a, hay and haylege when in none of which really seemed to do much good. I was also recomended pink powder to line his belly cuz most racers are in alot they can have issues due to that. but it werent untill the spring grass came through that i really started to notice a differene, i do feel abit like it was throughing money down the drain to a certain degree with all the feed. But he looks good now. :D
 
OK my plan is this: buy another bag of C&C, double the amount and drop everything but the barley rings. If that doesn't have any effect then switch onto ReadyMash.
 
Its taken my boy almost 3 years from the last time he raced to be at a consistent weight as he tends to drop it during the winter so easily. The key appears to be quite simply good quality hay and grass, plus barley rings and baileys no. 4 to give that extra finish.
 
Grass!!!!
dec
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june
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