Feeding a Shire Weanling

[hudsonw]

I'm buying a 6 month old full shire weanling. He's currently running round a field with his mum just eating grass and mums milk. As of next weeend he'll be weaned and then i'll take ownership of a bundle of fuzzy colt!!!

I've never had such a youngster before and i just want to do everything right for him.
He'll be stabled at night and turned out with a 15.2hh cob gelding during the day.
I want to make sure he's getting all the vits and mins, right forage in the right qtys.
I'll be contacting Spillers next week for advice but you guys always have good suggestions.
I was looking at the stud mixes/cubes which i know contain vits and mins but i don't want anything that is going to make him fizzy or damage his joints.
If anyone has any experience with younsters, shires or feeding in general please let me know.

 

[VictoriaEDT]

I have no idea but you are so lucky! I would love to have a shire........in fact one day I WILL! ( i have just not informed my bank manager yet!)

 

[Magicmadge]

I bought a 1/4 sire x cob as a weanling. She's 2 now and going to be a big girl. For her first year with me i fed her suregrow in the recomended quantaty and over the winter added some safe and sound speedibeet and carrots. With hay and haylage when in at night. Now she has 2 small feeds of mare and youngstock with the safe and sound and carrots. She is calm and good in all ways, very respectfull of me and a pleasure to own. The person i bought her from advised me to get her respect early as she would be big.Love to see some pics when you get him

Hope this helps.

 

[CBFan]

One thing you need to bare in mind with big horses is not to encourage them to grow too big too soon by feeding them lots of vits and mins. Having had a large breed horse (Clevelend Bay) develop OCD (having fed a balancer) I'm very against feeding rich balancers and stand by my vets opinion that the grazing in the UK (compared to the States and AUS where a lot of the modern stud balancers originate from) is so rich that it is perfectly adequate to feed a growing youngster, albeit in the winter months I add bulk by feeding ad lib hay and hifi, hi-fibre cubes and speedi beet with an added gen purpose vit and min supp.

 

[TangoCurly]

hello!

The man who breeds shires at our yard has just fed the weanlings on chaff, sugarbeet and i think a mineral and vitamin supplement. we have tons of very good grass and his youngstock have done really well on that.

bye!

 

[DollyDolls]

You'll have to post some pictures.
I fed the following to Dolls when we got her as a yearling.
D&H mare & youngstock, fed this for about 7months until I worked out that for her size she needed about 4scoops which I thought was far too much (as someone else points out).

Then we changed to sugarbeet, Hifi & dengie alfa nuts.
For about 8months she had bluechip, which really helped her through the winter, but stopped it due to rich grass & cost. Now she's on hifi (summer) or Alfa-a oil (winter), sugarbeet, A&P quiet cubes & equivite original.
I am totally against giving young horses too much hard feed. Start with simple, but good quality feed & he'll fill out his frame when he's ready to. Shires do most of their growing between 6months & 3.5yrs. He will look out of proportion until about 4yrs, but you'll just have to ignore the ugly duckling phase.
Worming is just as important at a young age.