Feed choices for a "good do'er"

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Emmabee

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Hi. My 14.2 cob mare is a new challenge for me feeding wise. I've always had horses that struggle to keep weight on and now find myself in the opposite situation.
My girl is 8 and been out at grass ( on the best grazing I've ever seen!) for the last 2 years due to her owners ill health. She is arriving on Sunday and I have no clue what to feed her! As I will be re backing her and she will be stabled with poor winter turn out I'm struggling to come up with what to feed her on so she gets enough nutrients but so she doesn't put any more weight on.
She weighs roughly 520kilos and is "fat". I can barely feel her ribs even when pressing hard.
I was thinking about happy hoof with a feed balancer like blue chip original with carrots and hay for her.
She will be worked 4-5 times a week starting with basic lunge work and hacking for around 1/2 an hour and building up from there.
Any help appreciated!!
 
If she is fat as you say I'd just give her a vitamin and mineral supplement to ensure she is getting everything she needs in a tiny bit of chop or speedi beet to make her eat it. Then increase her feed to something more as and when she needs it (look at her workload and condition).
 
Thanks, sort of what I was worried about, lack of vitamins.
What supplements are good for this?
She is overweight even though she's a cob so I don't want to put any more on her but I also don't want to deprive her of the vitamins and minerals she needs.
 
NellRosk said:
If she is fat as you say I'd just give her a vitamin and mineral supplement to ensure she is getting everything she needs in a tiny bit of chop or speedi beet to make her eat it. Then increase her feed to something more as and when she needs it (look at her workload and condition).
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Pretty much this. Start with the minimum and increase if needed. Once she gets fit and drops some of the fat, you know what you're dealing with.
Go easy on the carrots and check out feed with no added molasses designed for the well covered horse. My cob gets ad lib soaked hay at night and a mug full of fast fibre with added water am and pm and a balancer with the evening feed. He's ridden most days for 45 minutes at moderate intensity.
 
Soak hay to remove sugars. This means she can still be have constant access to hay for a healthy gut without piling on weight.

Literally a palm sized amount of fast fibre as a carrier for a good vit/min supplement (would personally recommend pro balance).

Don't over rug ( can appreciate needing a rain sheet to be dry for tack/work) and/or excessively clip (if clipping). She'll burn calories keeping warm on a fibre diet.

Good luck with the backing :)
 
The vast, vast majority of horses do not need vitamin or mineral supplementation. A clean, stemmy hay, or hay/straw combination, should be sufficient. Hay can also be soaked to reduce calories further. If you are worried about micro nutrients then a mineral salt block should do the trick.
 
You might find the following details helpful - they were given to me by Dengie. I changed my boy to Hi Fi Molasses free a couple of years ago and he has plenty of energy and great hoof and coat growth

Hi-Fi Good Do-er oil 1%, sugar 9%, starch 1.3%
Alfa-A Original sugar 10%, starch 2%
Hi-Fi Original sugar 9%, starch 1.5%

Please note that all the above products contain molasses.
Alfa-A Molasses Free 4.5% sugar, 2% starch
Hi-Fi Molasses Free 2.5% sugar, 1.5% starch product which are completely molasses free.
 
Just hay, soaked if need be to enable you to give enough volume without the calories then either mineral lick or a lite balancer, I use topspec lite so I know they are getting vits and mins but I am scroogy and feed half a mug/measure each horse morning and night rather than a full mug, they take ages making sure they eat every last pellet, no need to feed it with anything, I don't feed carrots or apples as its all sugar/calories and they don't need it...... Mean mummy I am!
 
meesha said:
Just hay, soaked if need be to enable you to give enough volume without the calories then either mineral lick or a lite balancer, I use topspec lite so I know they are getting vits and mins but I am scroogy and feed half a mug/measure each horse morning and night rather than a full mug, they take ages making sure they eat every last pellet, no need to feed it with anything, I don't feed carrots or apples as its all sugar/calories and they don't need it...... Mean mummy I am!
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Sorry to be pedantic but if you are not feeding the recommended amount then they are not getting the vit/ min quantities that the feed advertises. Rubbish comparison but say for example we got our RDA of vit/mins by eating ten potatoes a day; if we only ate half of the recommended amount then we'd only get half the vit/ mins therefore leaving a deficiency and wondering what the point of it was at all...

I personally wouldn't feed topspec as I believe they don't list full ingredients/ analysis of their feeds ( happy to be proven wrong) and personally believe we should know what we feed our horses.

The progressive earth and forage plus balancers work out cheaper than most (all?) commercial balancers, don't have fillers and all ingredients etc readily available (& no I don't work for any company!)
 
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True they are not getting the full amount but they also have good grazing and access to a mineral lick, half the RDA is better than none, it means they come in when they see me and if they seemed off/dull coats etc I would up it to full amount.
 
Thank for all the advice guys! Can't believe its harder to feed a cob than the TBs I'm used to!!
I will start with the bare minimum and work from there. She will have a mineral lick in her stable anyway so she can make up her own mind.
I'm very lucky in that she isn't a greedy pony and will leave food/hay when full.
 
My Welsh D lives off restricted strip grazing and is in at night all year round on weighed (2% bodyweight) year old soaked hay. He has a few handfuls of chaff to put Feedmark Benevit supplement into but there is no way I would feed him anything else as he does not need it. He never has carrots, mints, extra feed etc.
 
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