Feeding a barefoot sports horse...

T

TwoStroke

Well-Known Member
Joined
7 September 2011
Messages
1,577
Visit site
Hiya

I would like to be able to hunt my eventers, and whilst my youngster has good enough feet, my ex-racer still struggles over stones. Would anyone mind casting an eye over his current diet and offering any pointers? Right now he's fed:

1 (stubbs) scoop fast fiber
1 scoop topspec cool condition cubes
1 scoop crushed oats
250g micronised linseed
250ml soya oil
prohoof supplement

He gets that twice daily, plus ad lib haylage when in. He's turned out most days on poor grazing (in the winter - good in summer). Can anyone offer any suggestions of what I can change about his diet without significantly reducing calories?

Ta. x
 
I would add brewers yeast 50g or yea-sacc 15g and magnesium oxide 25g

The magnesium oxide helps with glucose regulation and nerves. The yeast has a double anti-inflammatory effect on the gut and my boys feel stones unless they are on it in summer.

Check the fibre to make sure it's not alfalfa, some horses do badly on it and he may be one. Check the Top Spec cubes for molasses and/or corn syrup/wheat syrup and consider changing them if they have much. I feed an "own brand" pony cube to mine (5 kilos a day to my hunter !!) which seem to work well.

If none of that helps, test your forage for mineral balances. Many analyses are coming back as heavy in iron and/or molydenum and/or manganese and if you have these you will need to supplement copper and possibly zinc as well. I have high iron and manganese and since I supplemented copper my horses now keep their concavity all summer when they used to lose some of it.
 
Last edited:
TwoStroke said:
Hiya

I would like to be able to hunt my eventers, and whilst my youngster has good enough feet, my ex-racer still struggles over stones. Would anyone mind casting an eye over his current diet and offering any pointers? Right now he's fed:

1 (stubbs) scoop fast fiber
1 scoop topspec cool condition cubes
1 scoop crushed oats
250g micronised linseed
250ml soya oil
prohoof supplement

He gets that twice daily, plus ad lib haylage when in. He's turned out most days on poor grazing (in the winter - good in summer). Can anyone offer any suggestions of what I can change about his diet without significantly reducing calories?

Ta. x
Click to expand...

Your likely problem is going to be the conditioning cubes. They don't list the ingredients on the net.

What is your purpose of feeding them? (not being snarky - genuine question;))

The other stuff looks bob on.
 
Santa Paws said:
I would add brewers yeast 50g or yea-sacc 15g and magnesium oxide 25g

The magnesium oxide helps with glucose regulation and nerves. The yeast has a double anti-inflammatory effect on the gut and my boys feel stones unless they are on it in summer.

Check the fibre to make sure it's not alfalfa, some horses do badly on it and he may be one. Check the Top Spec cubes for molasses and/or corn syrup/wheat syrup and consider changing them if they have much. I feed an "own brand" pony cube to mine (5 kilos a day to my hunter !!) which seem to work well.

If none of that helps, test your forage for mineral balances. Many analyses are coming back as heavy in iron and/or molydenum and/or manganese and if you have these you will need to supplement copper and possibly zinc as well. I have high iron and manganese and since I supplemented copper my horses now keep their concavity all summer when they used to lose some of it.
Click to expand...

Fast Fibre is safe from alfalfa.
The Pro Hoof has yea-sacc, magnesium, copper and zinc in it.
 
Anything with the words Top Spec on the bag puts the fear of god into me - their products are akin to rocket propellant for my lot but lots of people report 'footings' with TP, as santapaws says have a read of the label and look out for the baddies, if that doesn't help then check out mineral balancing.... its the future! :)

oberon - where did you get that wabbit!! I want....!!!
 
maggiesmum said:
oberon - where did you get that wabbit!! I want....!!!
Click to expand...

http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/
bananadance.gif
 
Oberon said:
Fast Fibre is safe from alfalfa.
The Pro Hoof has yea-sacc, magnesium, copper and zinc in it.
Click to expand...

Oberon won't mind (wil ya chuck :p ?) me adding "but if your forage has excess iron/manganese/molybdenum then you'll need to add more copper to counteract it.
 
maggiesmum said:
Anything with the words Top Spec on the bag puts the fear of god into me - their products are akin to rocket propellant for my lot but lots of people report 'footings' with TP, as santapaws says have a read of the label and look out for the baddies, if that doesn't help then check out mineral balancing.... its the future! :)

oberon - where did you get that wabbit!! I want....!!!
Click to expand...

another one who panics at the words TS.
My problem was caused by their balancer which kept my horse in low grade laminitis for a very long time. I haven't tested their nuts but if my horse struggled over stones they would be the first thing to go for a short period to see if things improved without them.
 
The pro hoof does have some mag ox in, but not 25g - I can try adding more, see if that helps, thanks.

The cubes purportedly have less than 10% combined sugar and starch, which is why I chose them, but yes, trying to get info on them is like getting blood from a stone.

Oberon said:
Your likely problem is going to be the conditioning cubes. They don't list the ingredients on the net.

What is your purpose of feeding them? (not being snarky - genuine question;))
Click to expand...

No worries :) I use them because they don't need soaking, so when the ex racer is being persnickety I can still get him to eat these. I'm willing to change them, of course, but have struggled to find anything suitable.

I had heard about some top spec products causing problems, but not about the cubes. I'll try switching them to something else, but if that fails it looks like forage testing is the way to go.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.
 
Oberon said:
Sorry, my question meant to ask what you are wanting to provide from the cubes?
Click to expand...

Ah I see. Extra calories, basically, in a form other than oats, linseed or oil, which I'm all already feeding. And I need something to feed in the mornings when he won't eat his normal feed. I considered grass nuts, but I'm a little wary of feeding too much grass.
 
Have you considered unmolassed beet?

Fibre is the way to go for calories - horses get most of their calories from fermenting fibre into acetate, buterate and proprionate and then into glucose and glycogen.

The bacteria that ferments in the hind gut can change depending on what is in there. So fibre will have a certain class of bacteria (in it's own pH) and grains/cereals have their own class (in it's own pH).

To feed different types of feed and having the bacteria and pH swapping and changing is inefficient and even harmful.

So it's best (IMO) to try and stick with fibre.

Fast Fibre is great (haynet in a bucket)
unmolassed beet is easy to ferment and get calories from - if the horse gets on with it

(I feed both to my elderly boy)

Soya oil is easy to digest and puts weight on.

I've safely used Readigrass in the past.

I'm very wary of anything with the words 'Conditioning' in it.....and most commercial feeds tbh:p
 
Oberon said:
.....or you could just try feeding Two Stroke;)
Click to expand...

Pmsl! Two stroke is the name some friends and I gave (for obvious reasons) to a particularly vicious cocktail we invented during one very drunken weekend... so it may chill the TB a bit, or make his head explode!

Oberon said:
Fibre is the way to go for calories - horses get most of their calories from fermenting fibre into acetate, buterate and proprionate and then into glucose and glycogen.

The bacteria that ferments in the hind gut can change depending on what is in there. So fibre will have a certain class of bacteria (in it's own pH) and grains/cereals have their own class (in it's own pH).

To feed different types of feed and having the bacteria and pH swapping and changing is inefficient and even harmful.

So it's best (IMO) to try and stick with fibre.
Click to expand...

This is very interesting. I've always thought that feeding fibre with oats helps the oats' digestibility - is this not the case?

I have tried speedibeet a couple of times, but the TB always goes off it. The TBxWB will eat anything, though.

Perhaps I might give grass nuts a go then. Just Grass didn't go down too well, but the nuts may work.
 
TwoStroke said:
This is very interesting. I've always thought that feeding fibre with oats helps the oats' digestibility - is this not the case?

I have tried speedibeet a couple of times, but the TB always goes off it. The TBxWB will eat anything, though.

Perhaps I might give grass nuts a go then. Just Grass didn't go down too well, but the nuts may work.
Click to expand...

Oats aren't bad, digestible wise.

I have fed them for a while to my old boy. I've just stopped as he's doing less work and looking a bit porky at the moment:p

Grass nuts are worth a try:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top