Feeding Straights - Making sure everything's in balance!

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AppyLover1996

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Hi Guys,

This time I'm posting on behalf of a friend who doesn't have an account on here :)

She is a big believer in feeding straights and has always had horses that are 4 years old up to 29 years old. The base has always been alfalfa pellets, with some copra added dependant on the condition of the horse and workload of the horse, grass chaff to help slow down the ones who inhale the feed quicker than a black hole and then she's used a suitable vitamin and mineral balancer alongside any supplements (turmeric, rosehips, boswellia and garlic are her main four). Sadly her last horse died a few years ago so she's been horseless for a while. She's always fed ad lib haylage from a round bale in the field and the same ad lib haylage in the stable from either a hay feeder ball or free choice on the ground.

Rather excitingly she has taken the plunge back into the horsey world and has brought a lovely youngster who is about 1.5 years old and she is currently at a loss for feeding him. She was going to go with her old way of feeding straights (exactly as I've described above) and ad lib haylage, but she's worried about the calcium to phosphorus ratio for her youngster. She wants to stay away from commercial feeds and space isn't a problem so she can have as many feed bins as she wants.

I've said that I'll pop a post on here for her and let her read the responses once there have been a few - she has asked dietary professionals but they all seem to push their own products which are normally commercialised feeds which she wants to avoid.
 
Oats would balance things with the alfalfa, but I'd not expect one that young to need bucket feed. Surely ad-lib hay/haylage would do the job? Unless she wants to add in a vitamin and mineral type balancer, in which case I'd use plain soaked grass nuts to carry it.
 
Alfalfa is high in calcium and copra in phosphorus so they balance each other out but make sure you are comparing dry weight when checking how much you are feeding.

However those two with the grass chaff are all reasonably calorific so debatable if a yearling needs this or even the haylage especially this time of year when there is lots of grass.

Why not just a balancer designed for young stock on it's own if pelleted or with a grass chaff as a carrier if it's a powder balancer.

Both forageplus and progressive earth do youngstock balancers if she want to stay away from the big feed companies.
 
IrishMilo said:
It wouldn't even cross my mind to feed straights to a horse that young tbh. Is there a reason hay isn't sufficient at this stage?
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Hiya,

She is buying him from a person who has been bucket feeding him since he was weaned from his dam and she's wanting to taper off the bucket feed slowly and then increase the amount of hay etc that her youngster is getting, so it won't be a permanent thing, but as the breeder of her youngster she is buying has been feeding him (and pretty much feeding very small quantities of straights) she is wanting to follow suit for a small while until youngster settles in. By which point she'll start phasing out the bucket feed :)
 
KittenInTheTree said:
Oats would balance things with the alfalfa, but I'd not expect one that young to need bucket feed. Surely ad-lib hay/haylage would do the job? Unless she wants to add in a vitamin and mineral type balancer, in which case I'd use plain soaked grass nuts to carry it.
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Thanks for the advice re oats - are there any particular ones that are most beneficial? As previously mentioned the bucket feed is only going to continue for a short while until the youngster has settled in and she's then switching onto as much ad lib forage as the youngster wants to eat :)
 
criso said:
Alfalfa is high in calcium and copra in phosphorus so they balance each other out but make sure you are comparing dry weight when checking how much you are feeding.

However those two with the grass chaff are all reasonably calorific so debatable if a yearling needs this or even the haylage especially this time of year when there is lots of grass.

Why not just a balancer designed for young stock on it's own if pelleted or with a grass chaff as a carrier if it's a powder balancer.

Both forageplus and progressive earth do youngstock balancers if she want to stay away from the big feed companies.
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Hi criso,

I'll be sure to let her know about the dry weights, from what I remember she tended to use alfalfa as the main base for her prior horses and then topped up with suitable amounts of copra - for example she'd do roughly 1kg of dry alfalfa pellets and add roughly the same amount of copra and then once soaked it would make roughly 4 or 5 feeds (her guys got fed morning and night so roughly last 2 ish days).

She's not set on feeding grass chaff as her youngster doesn't bolt his feed, she's mainly wanting to make sure all nutritional bases are covered and her youngster is getting a high fibre, but low in sugar and starch diet. There's not a lot of grass as her fields are still recovering, hence potentially feeding straights until her youngster has settled and the grass has recovered sufficiently.

I'll let her know about those two companies thank you :)
 
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