Feed recommendations, approx price per sack etc

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SpruceRI

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Hi

My Welsh Cob is now 17yrs old... I've had little grass all summer, which is the only thing that really keeps her looking fab, and she's started to look a bit lean :( She's been on hay and haylage all summer/Autumn and 2 feeds a day since July... and in light work

She really dropped weight at the end of Aug, so I've upped the food, plus she's now out in a paddock on her own during the day to make sure she gets enough as the other 2 greedy pigs eat at twice the speed of she!

So, have been reading your various posts about conditioning feeds, many of which I've never heard of. Can you fill in the missing bits, like what brand they are, price per sack in your area and weight of sack... thanks!

Grass Nuts
Sixteen Plus
Coolstance Copra
Build Up Nuts
Ultimate Balancer

They're the ones I've never heard of.. and then these, approx prices please:

Alfa Beet
Baileys Outshine
Alfa A Oil
Calm & Condition
Spillers Senior

Which if those have the highest calorie count/weight gain? She's OK on Alfalfa, oats or barley... so can try anything!

She's currently on Fast Fibre (1 Stubbs Scoop dry weight split between 2 feeds), Baileys No 4 Topline cubes (1/2 a scoop once a day) (recent re-introduction), Hi-fi - 1/4 a scoop twice a day. Readigrass: 2 heaped scoops mixed with the Fast Fibre at night.... NAF Pink Powder, haylage and hay...and any grass regrowth we get from fenced off paddocks, she gets first go on them!

:)

She's got the appetite of a sparrow at this time of the year. She gets the most feed when she's out on her own as she's got all day to eat it. But in the evenings her mate goes out with her, and I can't stand over them both for hours while Rosie considers each mouthful!

Thanks
 
Outshine is around £37 per 20kg
Alfa a about a tenner ( I think)

The Outshine might be of use to you as the max dosage so to speak is about 1.3 kg a day, which is quite small in volume, thus won't take that long to eat. It's also packed with calories from oil.

I feed everything on a mixture of following, different quantities depending on needs:
Badminton Supreme Grass chaff (or Just Grass)
Whole Oats (grown by myself)
Pegasus Cubes
Baileys Outshine
TopSpec Lite balancer
KwikBeet

Just as an example, my 16.2hh WB very poor doer gets:
ad lib Ryegrass hay
2 stubbs scoops (dry weight) of soaked Kwikbeet in a bucket over night
and:
2kg of oats, 1.5kg of Pegasus cubes, 675g of Outshine, 400g of TopSpec Lite, 4 scoops (about 2kg) of Supreme Grass
split over 3 meals a day.

I feed the Supreme Grass as 2 of my horses are alfalfa (alfa a) intolerant.
 
Don't forget to look at the size of the sack (as not all come in 20kg sacks, especially chaff type feeds) and also the MJDE/kg of each feed, when working out cost-effectiveness, as cheapest bag does not always equal best value for money.

For example, if Brand A costs £7 for a 20kg sack and has 8 MJDE/kg and Brand B costs £8 a 20kg sack, but has 13 MJDE/kg, then Brand B actually works out cheaper in terms of weight gain effect.

If you don't want to stand waiting for ages for her to eat, then you are best to only use the higher calorie feeds and cut out the low calorie ones such as Fast Fibre and HiFi Lite. The cheapest feeds I have found for weight gain (apart from obviously hay and haylage) have been flaked barley, sugar beet and grass nuts - but obviously that is based on the prices at my feed store, and prices seem to vary widely between different stores.

(And I must say your girl looked fine when I saw her, so don't think you have to worry too much about her at the moment, although I know it is always a worry that they might lose more in the winter).
 
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Oh, and calorie counts for the feeds you mention, plus a few more I thought might be useful:

Northern Crop Driers Grass Nuts 10-11 MJDE/kg
Sixteen Plus 11 MJDE/kg
Coolstance Copra 15 MJDE/kg
Build Up Nuts 12.5 MJDE/kg
Ultimate Balancer 11.7 MJDE/kg
Alfa Beet 10.5 MJDE/kg
Baileys Outshine 24 MJDE/kg
Alfa A Oil 12.5 MJDE/kg
Calm & Condition 12.5 MJDE/kg
Spillers Senior Conditioning Mix 12.2 MJDE/kg
Speedibeet 12.4 MJDE/kg
Mollassed Sugarbeet (Supabeet) 12.5 MJDE/kg
Flaked barley 12-13 MJDE/kg
Micronised linseed 20 MJDE/kg
Readigrass 12-13 MJDE/kg
 
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