Feeding Advice for my Broodmare

[littlewhittle]

Hi there can anyone help?

I am breeding my first foal (due end of June 08), broodmare is a full TB, 16hh we bought her with a foal at foot, in July last year, the mare looked a bit poor but foal was fine we weaned the foal at 7 months, she is doing really well. just not sure if i'm feeding the mare too much.... she still needed quite a bit of condition when the foal had been weaned, still a bit ribby and was really hard to keep condition on her when the foal was still on her, i am now feeding her one round scoop of alpha a oil and one round scoop of dodson & horrell broodmare and younstock mix twice a day, she is out at grass in the day (grazing i would say is average) and she has ad-lib good quality haylage at night.

She is now just looking okay, i would say she is now looking just right for her term, but don't want to over-feed her.... she has definitely put much needed weight on since the foal was weaned in the past 6 weeks so not sure if i am now feeding her too much or not the right stuff as i don't want her to get fat??

anyone have any ideas??

Thanks!

 

[KenRehill]

Sounds OK to get her through winter, but be careful as the grass starts to improve. You'll already have laid a foundation of condition, so don't increase too much as you come into April.

 

[Gingernags]

If you think she's starting to put on too much condition, you could substitute the stud mix type of feed for a lo cal stud balancer like Baileys do - she'll still get the right vits and mins but without too much excess weight worries.

My mare is a good doer and I had the balancer recommended. She's maintaining her normal condition score and weight tape levels and looking good and healthy but not fat, and just recently I changed her coarse mix (she only gets a handful per feed) from a basic mix to stud mix. She gets exactly the amounts she'd get normally (she's still being quietly ridden) but I swapped the type of mix. Of course I'll build this up later unless the grass is doing it for me!

And she's on ad lib haylage on a night and hay out in our rather bare field during the day.

I really do like the balancer - has been doing a grand job!

 

[pairciban]

That sounds about right if she does put to much weight on then baileys stud balancer is brill. my 17hh ISH is due mid june, she's out full time without a rug and gets 1 scoop hi-fi, 1/2 scoop baileys stud cubes, 1 cup stud balancer and 1 scoop of sugar beet. twice a day and a bale of GOOD hay at night between her and a 14.2 whos out with her.