feed advice please!!!

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horsey mad matt

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another one from me!!!

as the same from a different thead i feed my 15.2hh irish x gelfing once daily:

3/4 round scoop pasture mix

3/4 round scoop h + p cubes

1 round scoop chaff

1/2 bale good hay

alot of people said give no bucket food and just hay or very little bucket food!
the thing is i like to give hard feed something nice for him to look forward to and something to keep him busy while i pick out his feet.

i was thinking:

happy hoof with some extra hi-fi cubes and some spedi beet

or

bran, chaff and hi-fi cube

or something of the like what are your suggestions??

sorry for the long winded post
 
If your thinking of cutting back food, my TB is on a handful of chaff and a handful of bog standard (non-heating) pony nuts. And he looks fantastic; shiny coat and carrying a nice amount of weight.
 
Why do you bother with the cubes and the mix? They are both doing the same job! You are feeding too much at one meal IMO. Horses have small stomachs in relation to their overall size.
I stick to a fibre-based diet and feed grassnuts and dried grass as a bucket feed to give supplements to all ours, in varying quantities according to their condition/needs.
Dried grass, either Graze-on (which I prefer) or Readi-grass works well as a chaff and sin't empty calories as many are. Bran is worse than useless in a horse's diet as it causes mineral imbalances.
I think you need to decide why you are feeding the horse, to start with. If it is to distract it while you pick out the feet etc then a handful of dried grass would be sufficient, although I find that they are better able to balance with their heads off the floor.
If you are feeding to maintain or gain condition, then you will obviously need to feed more than that. The best idea is to find out more about the different types of feed and the horse's digestive system. They are evolved to be trickle feeders, eating fibre not cereal or sugar.
 
nuts and mix will containe the same, so one of thoose can go. ,

bran has no use in a day to day fed.

if your horse is a good doer then high fibre cubes, and a handful of chaff are more than enough with if needed a min and vit supplement, as the amounts your likley to be feeding will not be providing this.
 
I didn't see your other post so don't know what level of work your horse is doing, what age/weight it currently is etc. For the normal horse with the weather we've had recently who will barely have been doing any work, IMO you are feeding way too much, the nuts and the mix are the same thing so effectively you are feeding 1 1/2 scoops of hard feed! I personally would just cut out either the mix or the nuts and leave the other at the current amount of 3/4 scoop, leave the chaff the same and top up with a vit and min supplement or give access to a lick in the stable/field for self top up. See how he goes on this, if you need more weight off, cut back the nuts (or mix, whichever you kept him on). Alternatively put him on chaff and a balancer which contains all he needs without bulk.

On the other hand IF he's in hard work, or is underweight and needs this amount of hardfeed then try to split it into 2 feeds to reduce the intake in one feed. I would though change to either just the nuts or just the mix. There's no point in feeding the two types together.
 
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