Feed weight confusion!

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travelmad

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I have just spent ages on feedxl analysing my horses feed (bit sad for a Friday night!).

My question is can I feed this in 1 feed a day (assisted livery yard prefers one feed a day)

In terms of volume it looks like loads but in terms of concentrate grain intake its under 2kg which I understand is fine to feed in one go.... Do I count the weight of the alfa a or not?

(this is for a horse that needs to gain weight)

Feed:
40g brewers yeast, 20g magnesium
1/2 scoop racehorse cubes
2 scoops alfa a
500g soya flakes
250g stud balancer
250g outshine

Help appreciated. Thank you
 
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I would over haul your entire diet to be honest. There's too little of a lot there and not that much that will help with weight gain.
2kg is not a lot of feed, especially if your horse is over 14.2.

A stud balancer will not provide weight gain, it is infact for good doers and racehorse cubes will have high amounts of starch.

What height, breed and work load is your horse?
 
Trot_On_Dressage said:
I would over haul your entire diet to be honest. There's too little of a lot there and not that much that will help with weight gain.
2kg is not a lot of feed, especially if your horse is over 14.2.

A stud balancer will not provide weight gain, it is infact for good doers and racehorse cubes will have high amounts of starch.

What height, breed and work load is your horse?
Click to expand...


Balancer is just in to get vit/minerals in order.

I have spent the summer chatting to various nutritionists but I'm driven a bit mad by it all, I have read so much, and tried So much different stuff.I'm hoping to use up the stocks of all the feed I have stockpiled so I can start over (I have bags and bags as I had a bulk order!). Based on the MJ needs of my horse and the MJ contained in the feed described above it should fhelp him put on.

Once I start over I do have a new base feed and linseed in mind but I must use everything up first so I'm trying to make do with what I have.

Would love any ideas on what else to try

10 year old, tb, stress related weight loss (now on magnesium for calmer), worm counted,vetted, teeth done.
 
Whatever you feed to get the real benefit, weight gain and a relaxed horse it should be in at least 2 feeds daily, preferably 3, the yard are being very unhelpful if they cannot manage to feed correctly. As you are on assisted livery is there any reason they cannot give one feed, whichever end of the day they do, then you give the other one when you do the horse.

The diet seems rather muddled and over complicated to me, I would find a base that the horse is happy to eat, add the balancer if required plus supplements and divide by 3 meals or leave a big tub of fibre for him to pick at over night.
 
In that case I wouldn't give him race horse cubes as the starch could be adding to his stress.

Oil is a safe energy source which is high in calaries so I would go for a cube which uses oil as the energy source instead of cereal starch. Spillers do one its from their response brand, slow release energy cubes and has a low starch level. I used it on my old stress head TB who needed weight, it worked fab.

If you are feeding the horses minimum level of feed it would be getting a balanced diet so no need for balancer, save yourself some pounds :)

If your horse is 500kg his minimum level of feed should be around 3kg of feed. This would be 2 scoops of the cubes per day but would need to be put into 2 feeds as 3kg is too much in one.

You could bulk it out with Alfa a if you want but Alfa a doesn't have vits and mins added (unless it's the oil one) so you can't include it into your total ration as it isn't contributing anything. I'd go for Alda a oil. So you could do 1kg of Alfa a oil or equivilant and 2kg of slow cubes.

Hope that helps.
 
Thank you so much everyone, going to take this all on board, maybe try sell off my stockpiles of feed! Really appreciate the help
 
I take it your horse is in a lot of work if he needs that much feed?

I would try and simplify your diet. I have a TB mare who was really really thin when I got her - looked like a cruelty case. I started off feeding Rowan and Barbary Readymash Extra - she loved it but put on so much weight that I had to take her off it.
I've had her on Pure Feeds Pure Easy which has maintained the weight well, but am trying to move her back to Fast Fibre (which although it is supposed to be for good doers, also seems to work keeping the weight on my TB!). All these feeds have been fab for her. I feed her adlib haylage at night and she is out during the day (weather permitting) on pretty poor grazing. The only thing which I found did nothing for her weight or condition were High Fibre cubes, although she really enjoys them - I use them for feed ball treats now.
What I have found with Tbs (I've had a couple before this one) is that they seem to thrive on the adlib forage more than anything. I also feed micronised linseed. Keep it simple and you'll see changes. I also wouldn't feed alfa as this made all of mine stressy.
 
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