Feeding practices?

[emmad96]

I have just changed my mare over to some different feed that friends use, mainly because everything they own from weanlings to racehorses to their riding horses get it (in varying amounts of course) and every single on of them looks stunning. However, they just feed the cubes straight, with nothing else, and mainly just feeding them straight off the ground. All of the horses get at least two slices of hay twice a day. They told me to just cut out my mares beet, copra and chaff and just up the amount of cubes. I'm not going to do this as I don't feel that pellets should be fed straight by themselves because of choke/possibly causing ulcers.

My main question is, am i alone in this school of thought? Everything Ive ever read says that you should always feed cubes/nuts/pellets with something to avoid any issues.

This is the product: http://www.prydes.com.au/horse-feeds-supplements-australia/biomare-cubes-horse-feed

TIA

 

[be positive]

Apart from the fact I would not feed this feed to my horses I am more than happy to feed pellets with nothing added, as long as they don't bolt the feed, feeding directly off the ground makes perfect sense for this reason, there is no fear of choke, in my many years dealing with many horses I have only had 3 choke and two of those were eating hay not feed.
The risk of ulcers is actually less feeding dry as they will chew more and produce plenty of saliva to do so which acts as a buffer to the stomach acid, there is no reason to add chop to encourage chewing as long as they don't bolt it but they can still choke on chop or anything else if they are inclined, in fact I think the trend of feeding sloppy soaked feeds can contribute to ulcers rather than help prevent them.
That said I feed very little in a bucket so do give soaked feeds as it suits most of mine although it is given as dry as possible to encourage some chewing, the ingredients in the feed you linked to would put me off, far too much cereal and molasses for my liking, although it does not seem to give the % of sugar and starch I would guess at them being rather high, they talk about extrusion to get full benefit from the starch, I would prefer to avoid it if possible.

 

[tallyho!]

The soaking thing is, from what I've read here and online, is a UK thing. In America for example and hot countries, everything is fed dry from the floor. I guess soaking spoils the food and makes it harbour bacteria/fungus?

Even speedibeet is fed dry. Not huge amounts like we feed in this country.

I feed grass pellets and I give these dry as a treat or in a wide bucket on the floor. I soak in winter as I need to add other bits in.

I think the yard is very sensible. I'm not sure what the pellets are, assuming they are suitable for your horse, I'd give it a go.

 

[Auslander]

My lot get a token 1/2 scoop of high fibre cubes in the morning. I lob it over the fence in their general direction, and they spend ages hunting down every last cube. As ong as they don't bolt them, it's not an issue.

The chaff thing came about when horses were primarily stabled and given limited amounts of hay at set times. Nowadays, people tend to feed plentiful ad-lib fibre, so it's not so important to pad out the hard feed with bulk.