Feeding high-fibre cereal-free diet - how much per bucket?

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AshTay

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How much is it sensible to feed per bucket when feeding a fibre-only (no cereals) diet? I know little and often is best but if this isn't possible, or to maximise intake, what's the max you would feed in one feed?

This is for a cereal-free, low starch diet, high fibre diet.

For example, would 1.5kg topspec cool condition cubes + 3 handfuls soaked inmolassed sugarbeet + 2 handfuls hifi lite + a balancer and a splash of oil be too much?
 
if the horse can be left with it - then essentially there's no limit as he'll regulate his intake himself.

if you have time pressure (i.e. feed then turnout) then no more than you can fill a rugby ball with! Ideally no more than 2kg per feed was what I was always taught.

my boys are on fibre only (and Ron's hunting twice a week), and when they are in (and getting 'hard feed') then I give them anything up to a 1/3 full tubtrug of alfa a and speedibeet and a mug of balancer, and they just work their way through that overnight! Plus up to about 1/2 a bale of haylage each in the depths of winter!
 
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My old horse is on veteran vitality, fast fibre and haylage. He has a half scoop of VV in the morning (which is soaked so makes more) as I am time limited - before work and have to put him in with his mates.

Evening, he has ad lib haylage. He also has a scoop of VV which is soaked, and a scoop of fast fibre which is soaked. This will increase as the weather gets colder. He can have a large amount as he has all night to get through it.
 
What's the weight in your scoop, Brandy?

My horse isn't "left with it" but he's not hurried along with it either. I do other stuff while he's eating and usually he eats it all within about 25 minutes (not big mouthfuls like my other boy, this one tends to "nibble") and then he has a bit longer with his haynet (which he tucks straight into afterwards) before he goes back out.

The water in the sugar beet makes it loads heavier than it really is. But does water weight count towards total weight?? It would weigh less than 2kg without the weight of the water but more with it...
 
Mine gets 1/2 scoop A&P Calm and Condition & 1/2 scoop speedibeet - soaked together, and a (large) scoop of Alfa-A. This fills 2/3 of his feed bucket (tubtrug) once soaked. He gets this twice a day. Feed any less and he will lose weight.
 
AshTay said:
How much is it sensible to feed per bucket when feeding a fibre-only (no cereals) diet? I know little and often is best but if this isn't possible, or to maximise intake, what's the max you would feed in one feed?

This is for a cereal-free, low starch diet, high fibre diet.

For example, would 1.5kg topspec cool condition cubes + 3 handfuls soaked inmolassed sugarbeet + 2 handfuls hifi lite + a balancer and a splash of oil be too much?
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I think the concern here would be that 1.5kg of conditioning cubes plus the average daily helping of balancer (500gm) puts you at the 2kg limit - ie the 'never more than 2kg of hard feed at once' rule some go by.
 
Puppy said:
I think the concern here would be that 1.5kg of conditioning cubes plus the average daily helping of balancer (500gm) puts you at the 2kg limit - ie the 'never more than 2kg of hard feed at once' rule some go by.
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Does the 2kg rule apply when the feed is completely cereal-free and low starch though?
 
JenHunt said:
if the horse can be left with it - then essentially there's no limit as he'll regulate his intake himself.

if you have time pressure (i.e. feed then turnout) then no more than you can fill a rugby ball with! Ideally no more than 2kg per feed was what I was always taught.

my boys are on fibre only (and Ron's hunting twice a week), and when they are in (and getting 'hard feed') then I give them anything up to a 1/3 full tubtrug of alfa a and speedibeet and a mug of balancer, and they just work their way through that overnight! Plus up to about 1/2 a bale of haylage each in the depths of winter!
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I'm with this! My boy gets 1 and a half stubbs scoops of alpha a oil, plus half a scoop of speedibeet and 2 large haynets. I chuck them in on a night and he picks between them and by morning they are gone. He was on more alpha a oil but was piling the weight on. I don't feed him in the morning as there's no time/need at the moment. :)
 
YasandCrystal said:
I would say it does as it is all about what the horses stomach can cope with in one sitting. Hard feed whatever it's content is different to a horse munching on hay leisurely.
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You see, i thought this but then read in a recent magazine that you can feed much more fibre-feed per sitting than traditional cereal-based "hard" feed but with no indication of how much.

Would the chaff (hi fi lite) and sugarbeet component count towards the 2kg (or whatever) limit? People feed happyhoof which, when fed at recommended levels is one hell of a bucket, especially when wet.

The biological reasoning behind not feeding too much is that if there's too much in the stomach it gets passed through more quickly and so doesn;t get good access to the digestive juices and so isn't digested efficiently. But cereals get digested in the small intestine which is after the stomach so I can see why this is a problem but fibres are digested in the hindgut by bacteria (I think) so isn't such an issue?

Sorry to bang on about this. Just trying to figure it all out.
 
AshTay said:
You see, i thought this but then read in a recent magazine that you can feed much more fibre-feed per sitting than traditional cereal-based "hard" feed but with no indication of how much.

Would the chaff (hi fi lite) and sugarbeet component count towards the 2kg (or whatever) limit? People feed happyhoof which, when fed at recommended levels is one hell of a bucket, especially when wet.

The biological reasoning behind not feeding too much is that if there's too much in the stomach it gets passed through more quickly and so doesn;t get good access to the digestive juices and so isn't digested efficiently. But cereals get digested in the small intestine which is after the stomach so I can see why this is a problem but fibres are digested in the hindgut by bacteria (I think) so isn't such an issue?

Sorry to bang on about this. Just trying to figure it all out.
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I am unsure now. I feed my WB A & P cereal and sugar intolerant feed and a scoop of carob and cup of micronised linseed too - but at £13 a sack (A & P feed) I think I will still with the no more than 2kg rule, but it may not matter. I would give someone like A & P a call or Dengie Feeds helpline - then please post and let us all know!! I know you can ride immediately after feeding a forage feed :)
 
The 2kg per feed doesn't apply to fibre feeds, they are able to be fed by the bucketful as hay replacers, I often use beet pulp/fast fibre/chaff as hay replacers and feed kg's at a time.
 
AshTay said:
Does the 2kg rule apply when the feed is completely cereal-free and low starch though?
Click to expand...

I *think* that the cubes would still count as 'hard feed' even though they don't include cereals. Topspec are notoriously useless at telling you what is in their feeds, but I do know that there is soya and linseed in those cubes so they would still not count as 'fibre' quite like say hay/chaff/fast fibre that you can feed in larger quantities.
 
So I emailed TopSpec...

Dear TopSpec

I feed my horse TopSpec Cool Condition along with 4 dry handfuls of unmolassed sugar beet (then soaked), a handful of hifi lite, a balancer and a cup of oil. Going into winter I want to feed a larger ration of the Cool Condition but this then means that, combined with sugar beet and chaff, the meal becomes quite large both volume and weight-wise, especially because the sugarbeet is soaked. And I'm worried that this will become ineffective as feed will go undigested.

Given that this is a fibre-only diet, what would be the most you would recommend (i.e. 1.5kg topspec plus the sugar beet and the chaff) in one "sitting"? (I understand that more "sittings" are always preferable). My horse is a 15.3hh TB x sec D poor doer who's probably in "good" condition but is likely to drop weight if feed not increased as weather deteriorates.

Many thanks and best wishes

They replied:


Thank you for your e-mail.

From everything you have said I expect your horse weighs about 500kg which means that the largest feed he/she can digest efficiently is 2kgs per ‘sitting’ and the sittings should be at least 4 hours apart.

Providing you are using a conditioning balancer then the diet you are feeding equates to approx 1.85kg per sitting so you have just a little room left for manoeuvre. Although the diet is fibre-based which removes the worry of starch overload, you still want to allow the vitamins, minerals and protein in the balancer to be digested thoroughly in the small intestine and not be pushed through too fast by an overlarge feed.

If your horse is not a fussy feeder and you cannot feed three times a day then the best thing you can do is increase the nutrient density of the diet by increasing the oil to a maximum of 200ml (you may be near that).

Changing your chop to a more nutritious one is unlikely to make any significant difference as you are feeding so little.

If nothing above helps then I cannot resist saying that if you use a highly effective balancer e.g. TopSpec Comprehensive Feed Balancer, then you will maximise the amount that your horse can utilise from all his feed.

If you would like to discuss this further please feel free to either e-mail me again or phone me on 01845-565030 (10-6 Mon-Fri) and I will do my best to help.

Meanwhile, if you would like to send me your postal address I will arrange for full product information and copies of some relevant articles I have written to be forwarded to you.

With best wishes,
 
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