Fast fibre no good, what else?

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zoon

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My 2 youngsters are good doers - live out 24/7 with sparse grazing at the mo and ad lib hay. Have given them a blob of fast fibre each with their equimins in once a day. One of them will eat anything and happily gobbles it up. The other ate it for a day or 2 but now ignores it. It's not the supplement as he ignores it without as well. So need an alternative to mix the supplement in.

Needs to be alfalfa free and low starch and sugar, but still palatable - he won't eat plain straw chaff. He had pure feeds before and loved it, but I had to order in bulk and no point now they are just having a handful for supplements. All the dengie products seem to have alfalfa in them.
 
Will give speedibeet a go, but think its the texture he doesn't like. Tried different amounts of water in the FF and it makes no difference.
 
My three year old can be fussy, both he and the welsh D are on FF with HiFi- the HiFi is really strong apple flavoured and he loves it. I do feed the ff hot though I have no idea if that makes a difference (as long as I can comfortably stick a finger in the feed once made I feed it!)
 
Trouble is whatever you feed needs to be sloppy for the mins powder to stick to it. If you feed a chaff based feed even if you dampen it you'll find half the supplement powder stays in the feed bucket! Try a splash of lime cordial in the FF (asda sell it, I assume other supermarkets will too) !
 
YasandCrystal said:
Could you not just add the supplements to a balancer?
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No point in a balancer as he has equimins meta balance which has everything he needs.

Can't use hi if apple as it has alfalfa in it - makes him itchy

Are there any tasty chaffs or cubes to mix the fast fibre and supplements with that are alfalfa free and low sugar?
 
I find bran is useful to make things palatable without adding calories but you have to be careful with your phosphorous levels, we're high in calcium so it's fine.

Although it needs wetting it can be quite crumbly.
 
Grass nuts? I always soak them anyway, so you can experiment with his favoured consistency. And because they swell slightly when soaked you'll need very little. And they're very palatable.
 
Is the plain oat chaff you tried molassed or not? Saracen do a slim-chaff that is lightly molassed and this works with Speedibeet for mine (or without). Otherwise Try graze-on (dried grass).
 
Rowan Barbary fibre mash.
All of mine are obsessed with it, including my very fussy mare! She looks for it as soon as she enters the stable which she has never done before.
It is great for sticking supplements to as well.
 
I use coolstance copra meal, can have it quite wet and sloppy or less so, both of mine lick their buckets clean, and I feed them calmag too! Other option is possibly spillers hi fibre nuts, they seem to be quite universally liked.
 
Does he like turmeric? It's got a very strong taste and if they like it masks the flavour of the not so nice things :)

Otherwise for the oldie I used to have on loan we used to make speedibeet with boiling water out of the kettle and put in chopped up apples in too, the hot water used to dissolve the apple a bit and flavor the beet.


Peppermint cordial, spearmint supp, applejuice and a pack of xxx mints have all been used in the past! Oh and for a really odd mare we used to have to make a marmite flavoured water, or she wouldn't eat anything lol
 
Safe and sound is chaff-like with some crunchy bits, alfalfa free and fairly low in sugar and starch. I find adding fenugreek to fast fibre makes mine lick the bowl clean, though they're not fussed about ff without it.
 
criso said:
I find bran is useful to make things palatable without adding calories but you have to be careful with your phosphorous levels, we're high in calcium so it's fine.

Although it needs wetting it can be quite crumbly.
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This ^^^. I give my mare oat straw chaff (Honeychop) with about 30ml bran to make it palatable for her supplements.

Littlelegs said:
Grass nuts? I always soak them anyway, so you can experiment with his favoured consistency. And because they swell slightly when soaked you'll need very little. And they're very palatable.
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And this^^^. Oldie has this everyday in copious amounts and I persuaded the above mare to eat when she was recovering from colic by giving her grassnut mash.
 
My fatty can't resist oats , so I use chopped straw speedibeet and a sprinkle of oats all well mixed up he does not like supplements but with oats he can't resist.
 
I have a very fussy youngster and i give him FF , he was pushing it all around the stable until i mixed in dried spearmint , have to mix it well in and he now cleans up
 
What about adding spearmint to it? Or maybe using bran. I found hi fi molasses free quite good but is obviously dry. Is there not just a complete feed that would be any good rather than adding supplements? It's actually why I use fast fibre. I was under the impression it was a complete feed, it's what one of the rather helpful advisors told me as have a couple of feed merchants, I'm probably wrong though!
 
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