feeding- moving to hot climate- NO HAY!

[tinker88]

HI
Im thinking of moving to tenerife with my 2 horses.

The feeding and heat bother me.

The journey will take a while but ive found a few livery yards on the net.

they all have lovely tracks to ride on, many arenas, shows etc etc.

nice big stables with a small paddock/yard attached and a personal horse shower, but because it is a volcanic island the land is rock. So no grass or hay and its hot.

Some hay is imported (limited supply 2kg a day?)

How do horses cope with no hay???
i can supplement the diet with fibre beet, grass nuts etc. They can have about 1 pad of hay a day and some straw.

The main feeds they have there is sugar beet, oats, bran and a complete mix/nuts i think??

Luckily my horses are laid back so oats are ok.

Haa anyone else had similar experiences?

 

[dressagespain]

I don't believe there is no hay in tenerife!!! There should be some! Or even straw - alot of spanish feed straw instead of hay. Have you been out there and gone to find a Ganaderia to ask them properly. Don't believe the first thing you are told. Luckily we didn't or we would have really been ripped off by English yard.

Asides from that, if you are to take them, you will need to either go NOW or wait till nearly the end of summer till its cooler there but before it gets too cold in UK. They will aclimatise themselves fine. You may need to invest in good fly masks and a fly rug.

If there really is no hay, you could supplement their diet with chaff/cut grass (Readigrass).

Don't overdo the hard feed if you are not giving enough fibre. The Spanish feeds are really heavy and without sufficient hay, they could end up with a colic.

Stay well away from Sugar beet in heat, it ferments too quickly with the heat and again can cause colic.

Make sure they have plenty to drink and always something to nibble on, even if its those fibre blocks you can get!

 

[tinker88]

hi,

there is very little hay. Very expensive and hard to get hold of.

I was thinking of maybe getting ferry to cadiz to get some supplies evry couple of months (ie- readygrass etc, grass nuts)

I take it your in spain then?
What is the feed like? Is there a good variety?

Thanks for the info. I forgot about the sugar beet going off!!

 

[dressagespain]

I am about 2 hours from Cadiz and if you are planning to get on the ferry you will be able to come over and get Dodson feeds, Spillers, Badminton and the Spanish ones, some of which are ok - ACC is very good and some of which are really crappy!! Stuff in white sacks should be kept away from!!

You may be aswell coming over and buying hay if you are planning to do that but cos we ahve had no rain, hay is quite expensive at the moment anyway!!

If you want some contact details of the UK feed suppliers out here, let me know!

 

[Weezy]

[ QUOTE ]
Stuff in white sacks should be kept away from!!


[/ QUOTE ]

That has REALLY made me laugh - it is so so true

You know, when I was over there (OMG I have been here 10 years this year, cannot believe it) all we had was Purina, absolutely NO UK feed readily available at all!

 

[tinker88]

oh,

At least that there are some uk stuff.

Thanks for all the help.

It will probably be end of summer when we manage to get horses over.
Me n my mum are hopeing to get to tenerife to check all the horsey stuff out.

So i could probably stock up on the way over. Im just a bit worried about the ferry crossing. Approx 2 days maybe longer. Ive tried contacting some airlines but no luck yet!

 

[dressagespain]

Tinker - whatever you do, don't stock up too much, remember its hot and molassed food goes off very quickly in the heat!!

 

[tinker88]

oh yeah!!

Theres so many things that you dont think about like that!!

Probably best just stocking up on nuts, grains and alfa etc.

Iv had a few emails from some livery yards there. The prices vary from £35 per week part livery to £70 for top notch full livery. There also seems to be loads of shows!!!

 

[PapaFrita]

No hay in Argentina either!! Horses live on oats and alfalfa and, I might add *phew*, do extremely well on them!
PF is a bit hot and I've been feeding her soaked oats for over a year now and she's doing fab. Honestly, don't worry about feeding straight oats and alfalfa (I know I did, but I'm fine with it now

)