Feeding foal - difference between a mix or balancer?

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ems_123

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Hi guys,

I've recently bought a 6 month old colt, shire x tb currently standing at about 14hh (huge i know!!) and is expected to make about 17.2. I was originally advised by a feed company to feed a balancer due to the native in him and it being lower calorie so bought grow 'n' win... Problem is he won't touch it and after trying for a few weeks he still wasn't eating his hard feed so switched him to Dodson and horrell foal mix (because stud were giving him a course mix before he came to me so it was similar consistency and he obviously wasn't used to the pellets) and he loves this... My question is what is the difference between the two? Is the mix a higher calorie feed therefore he would need less? And will he still be getting everything he needs from this mix? I'm feeding about 2/3 handfuls of this a day mixed in with a handful of chaff, is this enough/too much? He is currently living out 24/7 and the grass is still pretty good so we haven't started with hay in the field yet (although he does have access to a haynet everyday when he comes in for a feed).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! This is my first baby so want to get his feeding right so he will grow properly and at the right rate! Thanks in advance!
 
To get the full quantity of vital vitamins and minerals you would need to feed the mix at the full recommended rate on the bag which I guess is a lot more than what you are giving at the moment. This will also add up to a lot of calories.

If he doesn't need those calories a balancer would be better as he would get all the important bits without unnecessary calories.

If he's use to the mix then I would gradually introduce the balancer with the mix and then reduce the mix until he's happy with the balancer.

I don't have experience with that balancer so don't know about its palatability but my youngster happily has baileys stud balancer with a little chaff.

Other option would be to continue with what your feeding and just add a youngstock supplement at recommended amounts to make sure they are getting everything they need. You can then adjust the amount of mix according to whether he needs more or less calories.
 
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