Feeding for Fitness

[AmyMay]

Can people offer me some advice on feeding my lad for fitness.

Currently hacking fit (not much fast work done). Rather round - with a grass belly. Stabled for part of the day - although increasing this to all day.

He is being fed only ad lib hay (last year's) and a scoop of Formula 4 feet with Hi Fi.

His workload is about to be increased to really concentrate on fittening him up. I'm keen to keep away from anything potentially heating.

I don't find it a problem in winter - but managing the balance between weight, summer grass, and feeding for energy in the summer is a challenge.

All help and suggestions gratefully received. Thanks.

 

[TGM]

What about trying him on something like Spiller's High Fibre Cubes to start with - I've found them to be completely non-heating and you can soak them to a mash if you are worried about choke. Then, when he is fit and in full work, if you think he needs a bit more condition and/or energy then you could upgrade to higher energy feed if necessary. (My daughter's pony is fed on these cubes and is in quite hard work at the moment and does very well on them!)

 

[AmyMay]

Yes, this what I've always fed him actually and he does very well on them. You remembered the choke!!! Thanks.

When to start them do you think - when he really feels as if he needs some more umph - or straight away in anticipation of more work????

 

[TGM]

Always feed for the work done, not the work anticipated! So wait til you feel he needs more umph or condition.

 

[sillygillyhorse]

Well put TGM I was going to post to say that IMO you dont feed for fitness, you work the horse and feed accordingly, it is then the work that creates the fitness.

 

[KatB]

I find for my "good doer" I have to feed a more heating feed in small amounts so he isnt getting a huge amount of quantity to increase his waistline, but enough high umph stuff to just help him with the work done. I base all of his feed on fibre though, so he currently gets all day out on grass, 3-4kg of soaked hay overnight and approx 1kg of high energy comp mix and about 1.5kg of Alfa A oil a day

This is for PN eventing, and I am really pleased with his energy and muscle tone this year

So dont be afraid to feed "heating" feed but just in the relavent quantities to support but not cause them to boil over!!!

 

[SpottedCat]

You only need to up/change the feed if they lack energy for the work being done - mine novice evented last season on half a scoop of pony nuts, and at the moment isn't being fed at all (out 24/7). When he was competing it was on half a scoop of winergy medium energy. So until he lacks oomph, don't change his feed, it's pointless, expensive and might result in a spacko horse!

 

[stencilface]

Mine gets 24/7 grass at the mo, and a small amount of light comp mix - gives him a bit more va va voom, without the extra pounds!

He is a good doer to, and generally very relaxed. I don't change his feed unless the weather changes (winter/summer), he is losing energy or weight.

Will be doing our first PN in Sept - just need to kick more to make the time, ned is fit enough and fast enough - but we both enjoy just tootling round!!

 

[stencilface]

[ QUOTE ]
So until he lacks oomph, don't change his feed, it's pointless, expensive and might result in a spacko horse!

[/ QUOTE ]

hee hee, well said and great use of words!

 

[AmyMay]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So until he lacks oomph, don't change his feed, it's pointless, expensive and might result in a spacko horse!

[/ QUOTE ]

hee hee, well said and great use of words!

[/ QUOTE ]

You guys.....

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

I'm afraid I disagree with TGM....... there is no point in feeding for work done & not anticipated

You wouldn't set off in uor car to drive 200 miles with only half a gallon of fuel in the tank. You need to feed according to the work they are doing or going to do. If you don't your horse will run out of steam & be unable to complete wh\tever task they are doing

 

[SpottedCat]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm afraid I disagree with TGM....... there is no point in feeding for work done & not anticipated

You wouldn't set off in uor car to drive 200 miles with only half a gallon of fuel in the tank. You need to feed according to the work they are doing or going to do. If you don't your horse will run out of steam & be unable to complete wh\tever task they are doing

[/ QUOTE ]

But equally you wouldn't put jet fuel in your Corsa to potter round town would you?!

Feeding for work they haven't done/might be doing in the future is the quickest way to get your horse tying up IMO.

Better to realise your horse lacks energy and ride accordingly then up the feed than to say 'we're doing X so he might need more energy', up the feed and get it totally wrong - at best you end up with a horse which is hyper with too much feed, at worst you end up with issues like tying up. Just my take on it.

ETA - of course there are limits to this - I will do things like add in a handful of oats for 3 days before an event, then cut it out again after the event. But I wouldn't add in half a scoop of oats in anticipation of the horse going from hacking and schooling to hacking, schooling and an ODE say. And I wouldn't add anything in until I knew the horse was lacking energy either - so one event I might finish and feel there wasn't quite enough fuel in the tank, the next time I might add in something for a few days before hand - not sure I am making any sense anymore!

I guess this just reiterates the point I made somewhere else about being able to feed by eye and what the horse is telling you being a dying art and people being too quick to feed what the companies say on their bags/helplines.

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

If that thought was adopted then no horse would ever have the energy to do any work. Sometimes circumstances alter & for some reason you cannot do the job you have prepared your horse to do,(Ready for an event & injury/ lorry breakdown prevents you going). When this happens you have to deal with it. But not to prepare for an anticipated amount of work is foolhardy. You are advocating doing work with insufficient fuel in the animal

[ QUOTE ]
you wouldn't put jet fuel in your Corsa to potter round town would you?!

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously not but then I wouldn't send a Corsa to race at Le Mans either, no matter what fuel it had in the tank.

 

[KatB]

Feed should be part of the overall fitness plan. Horses shouldnt be overfed, but neither should they be loosing condition/struggling with the workload they are expected to do. Its finding the happy medium

 

[SpottedCat]

No, I'm saying that if your horse is eventing say twice a month, I consider that to be work it is doing, and would feed accordingly. Clearly it isn't eventing every day, but I would feed for the workload. If the horse was moving from say PN to Novice then until it had proven that it needed more or different feed either through lacking energy in the fittening stages or by not quite having enough in the tank on the day, I would not up the feed. I wouldn't assume that because the workload had changed or was about to change, that different feeding was required.

Equally, I wouldn't up feed if I thought next week I was going to hack 4 times instead of two - same principle applies. Until you know it needs more feed why would you up 'in anticipation' of it needing more feed? It might not....

 

[Miss Tipps]

My feeding routine takes on board a number of the points made in this thread. Firstly I feed a number of different feedstuffs; lucerne, TopSpec CC cubes and balancer, grass nuts, oats, linseed. This ensures that my horses will not be adversely affected by the sudden addition of a different type of feed. Then, almost on a daily basis, (the 'feeding by eye' that SpottedCat mentions) I can adjust up or down the levels of each that I feed if I think one is looking a bit round or a bit lack-lustre or I have a competition coming up.

To answer your question AmyMay, I would perhaps start to add a very small quantity of TopSpec CoolCondition cubes, these are not cereal based, so non-heating. See how he goes on them and then just start to up the workload and monitor his condition. If he's maintaining weight, building muscle and aerobic condition and not lacking 'oomph' then stay as you are. As I do for mine you can just start tweaking the levels up and down to find what works, but obviously you will only know this once he is actually doing the work.

I personally tend to stay away from all cereal based mixes with my horses as I find they cause unpredictable behaviour. But thats just me.

 

[kick_On]

I follow the old saying 'feed for what you've done NOT for what you going to do....' and it does work cos there's not worst than have 'fat, unfit horse blowning it's brain out when you ask for simple canter work' - IMO that's when things go bang!

And i'm sure your aware about having to build fitness slowly. I find 'canter fitness work' is only thing that sort my horse's grass belly out....

Need to find some hills

as for food go with what you normally feed in winter, but build it up as fitness comes. IMO kept it simple