Feeding for more 'OOOMPH'!

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maisie

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Have managed to get a fair bit of weight off my cob and have changed his hay to some late cut seed hay which is of a lesser feed value than the early seed hay he has had over the winter - have also increased his exercise and cut his hard feed down. He is absolutely fine health-wise, but just needs a bit more 'sparkle' - not sure what to feed as I don't want to send him loopy (have just spent a year doing the opposite!). He also has a molasses intolerance and mild EPSM (he's not on the oil diet, but is on restricted grazing and low starch) Any ideas? (He currently has 100g pure alfalfa stalks, brewers yeast and 25g (dry weight) speedibeet twice a day, plus ad-lib hay at night.) Thanks!
 
**whispers** have had a bag of that in the feed room for about 3 weeks, but too scared to try it
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Do you know how much I should be feeding a 15.1 MW cob? Saracen have recommended 2kgs daily, but I thought it sounded quite a lot!
 
My 15.3hh warmblood mare is on about 1.5kgs as I was like you did not want to feed too much, she seems fine on it. I have to admit to bulking it out with a pasture type mix
 
She is very sane on it, in fact she is almost horizontal! We have done XC, sponsored rides, comps and no bucking or high spirits!
 
I'd try feeding a balancer, something like bailey's low cal, along side what you are already feeding, as I would guess that his diet is not balanced as you are only feeding small quantities for weight control.
 
I used to feed Re-leve on the recommendation from Saracen, as my horse has a cereal intolerance and whatever I fed her, she`d go nuts, even on the calm and condition and the coolest mix. The only thing that she was ok with, was pony nuts but then I wanted to give her more vits and mins so I e-mailed Saracen. The re-leve kept her calm and gave her the stamina, but then as she got a little older and more calmer, I decided that a normal mix would be ok, so I tried pasture mix, which was fine, but now with jumping more BSJA I needed more energy, so someone on here suggested performance concentrate, so we have been on this for a week as it doesn`t contain oats and I think that this is the intolerance. She hasn`t come out in bumps yet like she did when I tried the competition mix, and she seems to have more energy again.
I did like the Releve at the time tho and it is unusual looking!
As she has the intolerance you will have to check what is in the bags. I did this by looking on the internet at all the feeds.
Sorry this is long.
 
Saracens are the leaders in designing feed for EPSM horses (they have a group of well respected scientists helping them currently). I would really recommend that if you have an EPSM horse you contact them and let them help you design a feed programme for you. They are lovely and helpful too.
 
Hi
As Aran said, Saracens are a good company to contact. If you are after a few more calories but don't want to go down the extra oil / starch in feed route, how about Equi-Jewel? Its also made by saracens and is a balanced rice bran high (and I mean high) oil feed supplement designed to be fed with Re-Leve, i.e. its not a complete feed but can be added to increase oil/fat content. Great for horses who can't tolerate lots of sloppy oil. It now has extra vitamin and selenium in it too. It maybe worth checking out. Can I just ask if EPSM was diagnosed by a biopsy? Just that quite often it can also look like tying up (which EPSM horses suffer with).
Sx
 
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