Feeding Posts Cont'd.......

[Ravenwood]

I've been reading the feeding posts with great interest - its coming up to that time of year!!

My two are still quite fat from summer grazing and still living out (standing in a for a few hours during the day with a scrap of hay to keep them occupied). They are exercised for about 1 hour a day and hunted once a week (not a full day yet - not fit enough!!)

I have also been considering feeding top spec balancer but the price is making me baulk. Last year they were fed chaff, sugar beet and pasture mix and looked very well so am not sure if the huge increase in price of feeding top spec would achieve relevant benefits?

What is the benefit of feeding something like Dengie Alpha type foods (v expensive) when most stabled horses would have a constant supply of haylage/hay anyway?

 

[eekmon]

I feed TopSpec balancer! I have a 14.2 so only give him a pint measure a day, a bag lasts a few months. It has all the relevent vits and minerals in ( we have crap grazing) also I first got it recommended to me for his feet as it has 15mg of biotin per measure. If your neddies are fat you can just feed them this on its own or with a bit of chop! Drop them an e-mail to describe what your horses do/eat ect and they will reccomend a product, they are very helpful!

 

[PapaFrita]

Oats! Oats oats oats oats! Plus alfalfa. GREAT feed and cheap. NOT heating if they are soaked for 12-24 hours. PF who has been a skinny arse since I've known her is now ridden 6 days a week (quite hard) and thrives on 3kg of oats per day (3 scoops). Before I started her on oats I just couldn't get the weight on and she had 2 bouts of gassy colic in 2 weeks (vet blames cubes which some horses have difficulty digesting)
And I'm not the only oat convert here either!

 

[Ravenwood]

PF - yes I remember a lot about people converting to soaked oats on this website and I agree it would be very cheap. But why add alfalfa? What benefit would this have over a constant supply of haylage?

Would a diet of pure oats give a stabled horse all the vits and minerals they need?

PS I have to confess that I bought a bag of top spec balancer today - just cannot believe I have spent £30 on a bag of horse food!!! I am the sort of person that watches a TV advert for shampoo and runs out to buy it expecting my bushy, dry, curly mop to look luxurously sleek next morning!

 

[PapaFrita]

Ah, well, the alfalfa is in addition to a good supply forage, not instead of it. Oats are low in calcium and the alfalfa helps balance it out. You could equally use limestone flour.