feeding andvice ??

[hannah28]

hey my mare is slightly dropping her weight as we have really poor grass, she is being fed hay twice a day but she just so hungry all the time, i cant give her any more hay because of the other horses, so i want to start feeding her, just not sure what ? i want her to gain a little more weight but not loads and i just want her to be less hungry. any suggestions greatly apreciated
thanks
xx

 

[SmartieBean09]

A high fibre feed will help fill her up and slow the passage of food through the gut thus providing heat which will help with the poor weather we are having. I would start off with a high fibre chaff such as Dengie Hi Fi and some high fibre cubes. Allen and Page Fast Fibre is very good and very high in fibre.

Going into winter, if she is still losing weight then there are a number of things you could do such as chaging from Hi Fi to Alfa A, adding oil to your feed or adding sugar beet. For now though I would up her fibre intake with a good chaff and high fibre cubes and see how she goes.

 

[ThePony]

If she isn't getting enough forage then she really needs that first before adding anything else. Is she out with others? I guess this does make it harder to add forage to her diet, esp if the horses she grazes with don't need it. Ideally if I were you I would bring her in to have more hay, then turn her out again. If she is getting sufficient forage, then I would just start with something pretty basic to up her calories - easier to go slowly and steadily put a bit of weight on rather than rushing it and overshooting your goal! I hate anything with added sugars, just no need for it and it is def harmful to the horse. Am a total fan of fast fibre. It is low cal, but is balanced for vits and minerals. If I were you I would start with that, with extra hay if at all poss and work from there. Since you say you don't want her to gain alot of weight I would just try that for a couple of weeks and then reasses her. If after that you feel she needs more then I would add linseed (micronionised is the easiest and most beneficial way to feed it, the oil is easy to feed but the ''goodness''(!) in it isn't as available for the horse to absorb) so she gets more calories from fat not sugars and starch, also does great things for the coat!

 

[SmartieBean09]

Just to clarify that Sugar Beet is not made of Sugar but is a by product of the Sugar Cane. I would always go for Speedibeet which is unmollassed Beet and contains no starch and is only 5% sugar and so is a great digestable fibre source for any horse along with being high in calories.

 

[TGM]

Presumably you will have to bring her in to feed her anyway, so why not utilise this time to give her some more hay as well. As bucket feed, I would look at a dried grass product such as grass nuts, or a grass chaff, such as Readigrass or Graze-On. These will have more calories than most other chaffs and more than Fast Fibre, which may be important if you are limited to how often you can feed her. As said above, some form of oil source would be useful as fat is very dense in calories - options are straight oil (which is what I use but some horses don't find it palatable), micronised linseed or commercial oil-rich supplements such as Outshine and Equijewel.

To give you an idea, below are listed some of the calorie counts of the products that are mentioned in this thread:

Northern Crop Driers Grass Nuts 10-11 MJDE/kg
Readigrass 12-13 MJDE/kg
Graze On 10-11 MJDE/kg
Fast Fibre 8 MJDE/kg
HiFi Lite 8 MJDE/kg
Micronised linseed 20 MJDE/kg

The higher the number, the more calorific the product.

You might also want to think about adding a vit/min supplement or a balancer to the ration.

 

[JenHunt]

Just to clarify that Sugar Beet is not made of Sugar but is a by product of the Sugar Cane.

not quite true. sugar beet pulp that we feed to horses is a by-product of the sugar extraction industry in the UK. the sugar is extraced from Beet (a turnip-like plant that has a very high sugar content.)

unmolassed sugar beet (like speedibeet or eurobeet) is a great way of increasing a horse's fibre intake.

 

[SmartieBean09]

not quite true. sugar beet pulp that we feed to horses is a by-product of the sugar extraction industry in the UK. the sugar is extraced from Beet (a turnip-like plant that has a very high sugar content.)

unmolassed sugar beet (like speedibeet or eurobeet) is a great way of increasing a horse's fibre intake.

I knew it was something along those lines. Thanks for clarifying JH