Feeding dressage horses

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Spiderpig2009

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Hi there,

I have a Belgian Warmblood with a lovely temperament (lazier if anything).
He is a very big horse 17.2 who is 16 and I am doing elementary dressage so posted in here to see what are feeding your bigger dressage horses for a really good coat and condition.

He has a few haynets a day and I am paying full livery but decided to take over his hard feed as felt he needed more condition. I am trying to identify the most effective way of getting his coat shiny.

We don’t have much grazing unfortunately..
He currently is getting fibre beet, showshine mollichaff, conditioning cubes and linseed mash in variable ratios.

He looks great but the cost is killing me on top of his full livery fee. I would always if it isn’t broken don’t fix it but I could do with reducing the cost of the topspec linseed mash.

I have used outshine before with excellent results but in horse his size he would go through a bag a month..I am doing a bag of linseed mash every 2-3 weeks.

Is micronised linseed as good or are there other options for the really good coat shine?

Thank you
 
I understand you to be saying you are now purchasing your horses hard feed yourself, but you are paying for full livery, forgive me if I am misunderstanding your post, but surely your livery bill should be reduced?
That would help you cost wise, as otherwise you are paying twice?
 
Marshpiper said:
I understand you to be saying you are now purchasing your horses hard feed yourself, but you are paying for full livery, forgive me if I am misunderstanding your post, but surely your livery bill should be reduced?
That would help you cost wise, as otherwise you are paying twice?
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That is a matter for the owner and the yard. Full livery diets will be very basic normally. Chaff and nuts so no huge savings to be had or money made.

If the horse is lacking in coat condition and on limited grazing he probably needs Vit E alongside his linseed or copra.
 
I feed linseed pellets. Incredible shine on my boys coat. You can feel the oils it in his coat from feeding it.

Just a small handful mixed in his feed. Tend to buy a 1kg bag from our feed merchant for £1.50. Lasts ages.
 
IME (and my sisters- we both have sporty light framed dressage horses that tend to lose weight quickly) linseed oil works better than micronised linseed and doesn't add bulk to the bucket feed.

mine also looked well on the linseed mash but was eating a bag every 5 days ££££££

he is now on sugar beet (cheap as chips approx a bag a month), flaked barley (also cheap as chips approx a bag per month) and spillers ulca power cubes-these are 25kg bags so great value and a bag lasts him about 10 days.

olly june.jpg
 
If he's getting lots of hay then you could ditch the chaff - unless that's part of the livery deal.

I'd second adding linseed oil to whatever the yard are providing. Is he getting any kind of balancer in the yard provided feed or is it very basic?
 
AdorableAlice said:
That is a matter for the owner and the yard. Full livery diets will be very basic normally. Chaff and nuts so no huge savings to be had or money made.

If the horse is lacking in coat condition and on limited grazing he probably needs Vit E alongside his linseed or copra.
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I ran out of VIt E for my old TB, but I thought that being summer and at grass 24/7 he wouldn't miss it. Wrong. I can definitely see the difference after a few weeks, so I guess at his age he really needs that extra Vit E.
 
If he is getting enough good long fibre and doesn’t need a grass replacement you're wasting a lot of money on fibre (chaff and beet).

Mine is on a cereal based feed and I have kept 3 completely different horses on this diet with success for all of them. He has the same dimensions as a 5 bar gate and is working very hard (schooling baby GP).

I’ve recently changed from havens slobbermash to the performance 14. It’s slightly more calorie dense and more protein based. I’ve been able to reduce feed quality by around 1.5kg and he eats up better than ever and is more interested in his haylage now he’s not got a monster feed.
 
Not saying that this is happening where you are Make sure they really are getting what they are supposed to. I had mine on a full livery yard and she started to lose weight, the yo shrugged it off. Turns out she was feeding them very little of anything to save money (one small haynet at 5pm for a tank of an id) so lack of food was reason for dropping weight.

Happened to a friend of mine on an unrelated yard too.
 
mariew said:
Not saying that this is happening where you are Make sure they really are getting what they are supposed to. I had mine on a full livery yard and she started to lose weight, the yo shrugged it off. Turns out she was feeding them very little of anything to save money (one small haynet at 5pm for a tank of an id) so lack of food was reason for dropping weight.

Happened to a friend of mine on an unrelated yard too.
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I’ve taught at a yard that has done this… horses losing weight, getting ulcers, starting cribbing & weaving… I suggested what was happening was happening… was poo pooed until an owner turned up late unannounced and all nets had been removed by midnight…
 
Marshpiper said:
I understand you to be saying you are now purchasing your horses hard feed yourself, but you are paying for full livery, forgive me if I am misunderstanding your post, but surely your livery bill should be reduced?
That would help you cost wise, as otherwise you are paying twice?
Click to expand...
Nope. Full livery yards generally dont reduce the bill when you provide your own feed.
 
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