Fast Fibre as Hay Replacement

[russianhorse]

Morning all,

For the last couple of days, when I have popped down to see my boy he has just been stood in his shelter and not grazing

As I believed the spring grass was coming through, I never ordered another roll of hay (which I have to wait for the farmer to drop off anyway, and takes for-everrrr), but it looks like the field is actually going to be pretty *****e this year so........should I get him some fast fibre as a hay replacer for a bit?

He's really well in himself, I've split his feeds into 3x a day whereby he gets balancer, Alfa A oil and sugarbeet but don't like the fact he doesnt appear to be grazing

If fast fibre, how much and how often should I feed. If not fast fibre, what else should/could I do??

Thank you very much for any advice and reading through my waffle

 

[team barney]

I believe fast fibre is fed weight for weight.
Can you not buy small bale haylage (horsehage for example) from you local feed store? It would be a lot cheaper than feeding fast fibre, and your horse would be less inclined to guzzle it all down at once (they don't tend to ration their consumption of Fast fibre, you have to ration it for them!)

 

[Oberon]

I feed a round scoop of FF for my old boy, in addition to forage.

It can be used as a forage replacer - like a haynet in a bucket.

It won't last all day, but it's a good way of getting calories in them without complications or impact on other minerals.

Are his teeth OK? Does he have an infection?

I also use a bag of unmolassed hay chaff alongside, with speedibeet.

 

[touchstone]

Fast fibre is a good hay replacement, but its one drawback is that it doesn't give them anything to chew. As an alternative I'd use high fibre horsehage.