Feed Advice please

[sonjafoers]

One of mine will be doing a little less work than normal now and as such I'll need to look at her feed. She currently gets a combination of Winergy Equilibrium Condition and Saracen Sports Horse Pencils which works very well for her.

I want to reduce the Saracen feed and keep the Winergy the same because that contains less starch but after much experimentation I know she does work better on the Saracen.

I'm thinking of feeding a small amount of Saracen ( a mug full ) on her days off just to keep it in her system and giving her half a scoop for breakfast on her working days which should give her enough energy for her ride that day. TopSpec once told me that horses get the most energy from their feed approx 3 hours after eating so I'm hoping if I ride her in the mornings I'll get the full benefit of the Saracen.

Am I being logical or am I completely off the mark?

 

[Shay]

The principle is good - we feed ours the same way. A tiny bit of competition mix every day, but raising before and during competition.

But you might find feeding her the higher value feed only in the morning before to be too close to ridden work. Different horses respond to feed differently and you need to experiment a bit with yours. We've found one lad needs to be on heavy competition mix 4 - 5 days before competing to get the oomph we want. The other only needs to be increased the night before. You might need to feed the pencils the night before, rather than that morning.

 

[sonjafoers]

Thank you for your reply Shay. I hadn't thought of feeding the night before simply because of what TopSpec told me so I'll definately play around with it.

How much competition mix do you use on your 'off' days?

 

[Shay]

The calmer lad gets about a 1/4 scoop at rest; although if he is turned away for more than a week we drop down to just a handful. The sharper lad has 2 handfuls in a treat ball at night. Calm lad also hunts and if we are mid season and its getting a bit heavy we'll keep the competition mix up.

Calm lad goes up to 1/2 scoop per feed 4 days before and can go up as far as a scoop with the maintenance feed dropped to a handful during longer competitions. (Not if it is just one day obviously - I'm thinking about the 4 and 5 day ones) Sharp lad gets a 1/2 scoop the day before and usually throughout competitions; but if his behaviour disintegrates his feeding privileges get revoked and we cut the competition mix down again!

It is really down to knowing your horse and responding to it. Actually its one of the things I love about horse owning!