Feeding big buckets of fibre

S

sonjafoers

Well-Known Member
Joined
11 May 2009
Messages
2,107
Visit site
Over winter my girls will be in for a fair bit of the day for feed/haylage.

One of them struggles with condition over winter and she won't eat big meals of hard feed, I've tried fibre feeds such as Winergy and the typical conditioning cube type feed. She will only eat 1 scoop of Winergy at any one go and if I switch to cubes she eats less than half a scoop in one go. It seems she gets either very full or fed up and leaves the hard feed in favour of haylage, which does mean she drops condition in the depths of winter.

Over summer I've been experimenting and for some reason she will eat 1 scoop of alfa and 1 scoop of readigrass mixed together if I put it in a trug bucket, which is a lot more in terms of volume than she will eat of Winergy even though it's a similar texture.

I've been thinking that I will give her this with some hard feed mixed in and do it 3 times a day which should help her hold her weight - alongside her haylage of course. Is this too much for her stomach and therefore will she just pooh out all the goodness I'm trying to get into her? My idea is that she will eat it very slowly but of course there's no guarantee of that :D
 
Micronised Linseed (from Charnwood Milling) will increase the calories without having to increase feed.

You can't feed 'too much' fibre like you can hard feed :)
 
Thanks Erin, she does get an oil supplement all year round which I increase in winter.

I agree that you can't feed too much fibre, I like mine to have as much as they can. My concern is that by mixing the hard feed into 2 scoops of fibre means it's quite a large meal and maybe it won't get digested - or does the fibre content not count in terms of volume?

I must admit I'm a bit confused. I know that if I fed her 1.5 kg of hard feed in one go it would be too much for her to digest (plus the fact she wouldn't eat it anyway!), but if I was to feed half a kg of hard feed mixed into the fibre so it would total about 1.5kg per feed would her digestion cope with this?
 
HAve you gone through all the usual routes as to why she won't eat - teeth etc? What does the vet say?

One thing I found with one particular horse was that he was terrible to get food into and as a result always light in condition. His problem was his neck, he had vertebrae out of alignment and it hurt to graze and to eat from the feed bowl on the floor.

Have you tried feeding her in different places, on the floor, in a manger at chest height, manger fixed to the door so she can see out.

If she will eat Haylage I would be inclined to give her this ad lib I wintered mine out one winter by feeding just haylage ad lib. They came through like little porkers.
 
You say its a lot more in termsof volume - but thats not really what nutrition is about is it? Is it equal or greater than the energy contained in 1.5kg of Winergy? Im not familiar wih winergy but I would gues its not.

The 0.5kg of concs in 1kg of fibre would be fine - just make sure she is actually getting enough energy as 0.5kg of concs is very little really. I would add sugar beet to the mix too to keep the weight on.
 
Evelyn she has all the usual checks regularly so I don't think it's anything to do with that. If I feed her in a round feed bowl she seems to spin it round on her nose so that the feed just sprays everywhere, or she tips it upside down, so now I tip her feed onto the floor and she eats it from there. Her haylage is fed from the floor too.

I was surprised she ate from a trug type bucket as I imagined that being thrown everywhere, but she seems to eat the alfa/grass happily from that.

Erin I am thinking of Saracen ReLeve - no cereal, low starch but reasonably conditioning. I will try half a scoop 3 times a day mixed in with the fibre and if that works I'll up it to 3 quarters each meal. She doesn't cope well with high starch feeds which is why I tried the Winergy but she just wouldn't eat it.
 
How about soaking some sugar beet with lots of oil in it? If she's not willing to eat volume, then you need to find ways of upping the calories in whT she is eating. I can highly recommend dodsen and Horrell build and grow...but (as someone else suggested) linseed has the highest oil content (at about 35%)
 
Fast fibre has worked wonders for my little TB who turned his nose up at chaff :p I mix a bit of happy hoof (just because it's low starch/sugar and high fibre to slow him down a bit) Might be worth a try? Adding brewer's yeast has helped a lot too :)

J&C
 
Agree with previous poster.

I used to feed Winergy Low Energy. Partly because mine gets choke and partly because I wasn't convinced Alfalfa suited him - which winergy is - I changed to Fast Fibre.

He gets only a little bit - less than the Winergy, and in spite of the fact it is low starch, low protein and low sugar, he is plump on it.

I did see someone said that if the feed suits their digestive system they improve, and mine certainly has on Fast Fibre.

Can't rate it highly enough, hides supplements in it well, is soaked so no risk of choke and just really good stuff.

Calm and Condition might be another one for you to try. Also Allen & Page, but higher starch.
 
If my TB has to be in for a day during winter, or when there is heavy frost or snow I leave him a trug full of Dengie Hifi with a few apples and carrots sliced up and the odd mint hidden in it to top up his normal rations. He nearly always eats it all up as well as his hay net and 'proper' dinner. He held his condition really well last winter and is already having a couple of scoops full of Hifi twice a day as our grass is pretty much al gone!!
 
Thanks everybody, I think the sugarbeet or Fast Fibre is a good idea as I think she will eat that. Maybe I'll mix her hard feed with it and then feed the grass/alfa mix in the tubtrug as a separate feed alongside her haylage. I always dampen it and add some fruit and she has eaten it so far, I'm just concerned that adding the hard feed to it will stop her eating it somehow.

I will have to judge how much of the fast fibre or beet she will cope with when it's mixed with ReLeve - from past experience I know that if I overface her with food it just gets thrown everywhere and stood on.

Anyone want a horse :rolleyes:
 
glenruby said:
You say its a lot more in termsof volume - but thats not really what nutrition is about is it? Is it equal or greater than the energy contained in 1.5kg of Winergy? Im not familiar wih winergy but I would gues its not.

The 0.5kg of concs in 1kg of fibre would be fine - just make sure she is actually getting enough energy as 0.5kg of concs is very little really. I would add sugar beet to the mix too to keep the weight on.
Click to expand...

Glenruby she would get this 3 times a day, so assuming she eats it she would be getting 1.5 kg of hard feed a day alongside about 3kg of fibre and her haylage. If she does eat this it would be a lot more in terms of energy than she's ever managed of Winergy.

I also feed an oil supplement with this to try & boost the calorie intake but I'm definately going to take a look at speedibeet or FastFibre as I think that may help.
 
Haven't read all the replies but when I got my TB she wouldn't eat a large meal. I tried her on a supplement called Fenugreek which you can get off Ebay for about £6 for a months supply, it's an appetite stimulant and has worked wonders for Millie. You only feed about 50g a day.
 
I use Fast Fibre for most in my yard but I have two that will not eat it,one is a fussy oldie,the other a greedy eventer.
Everything else is very happy with it but those two have Speedy Beet instead.
I just thought that if yours is picky that you may find the same problem.
 
Try putting different feeds in seperate tubs so she has a choice. My friends mare (now sadly deceased) had a haynet, a bucket of readigrass, a bucket of hifi senior, a bucket of either fast fibre or veteran vitality (both brilliant feeds, I can't rate them highly enough) and a bucket with some chaff + mix in. She loved having all her feeds and we can't of been going far wrong as between us we got her to 37!
 
katie_southwest said:
Ill swap you for one that needs no hard feed and comes out of winter fatter than she goes in :) :)
Click to expand...

Lol - you wouldn't swap her for the world! Actually I'm not sure which is worse - a fattie or a thinnie and I've got one of each :)

Thank you for your post be positive and it's something to bear in mind, although she isn't fussy as such she just doesn't seem to like having a large volume of heavy type feed in her tummy.

Supertrooper I do think that's a great idea, it was suggested previously too and it would certainly stop her getting bored. Mind you I don't think I could cope with another 30 winters with her so let's hope it doesn't work quite that well :D
 
Haha your right I wouldnt swap her :) Dont envy you though, I do prefer having one that will eat literally anything!! Done a post as thinking about getting a hay bar but I think shel just eat it wayyyy too fast :(
 
Mine used to eat like a sparrow when we 1st had him, tip his head over, generally be a very fussy eater. I now give him a feed bucket that clips on his stable door, and have taken out the garlic (dont no if you feed yours that?!) and he eats no problem know! Infact he's always looking for more!
 
I can't feed on the stable door ellie_e as my doors are too thick for those type of feed bowls to clip on to. I did once have a corner hay manger that had a bowl on top so it was about chest height and when she had eaten enough she used to spend ages flicking the rest of her feed out with her nose.

I don't feed garlic, the only supplement is an oil based one which she will eat. I think it's more that she doesn't like a large volume of feed filling her up rather than any particular taste.
 
Why not add a performance balancer to the bucket of fibre then she's getting everything she needs, this has worked for my friends TB who gt veryight of condition, he gets this and added linseed and look fab coming into last spring :)
 
I have tried that NikNKia but although she gets all the vitamins she needs it doesn't give her enough calories. She really needs bulk conditioning type feed but this is the exact thing she won't eat!

I'll try and fill her up with fibre and hide her hard feed in it, so maybe she will graze on it whilst in rather than seeing it as a big heavy meal. I'm hoping this way she will eat the hard feed without realising it!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top