Fibre Beet?

[tilly49]

Hi, I have won a bag of Fibre Beet for my horse. She is 6 yrs old (7 in may) and has lost weight this winter in a good way as she was a little chunky when i brought her last March. With this bag im not entirely sure what it is for as there are so many mixed views. Does it provide extra fibre or energy ie will it make her put weight on? She currently has 20-24lb of hay a day of which sometimes some is left. she has 5 hours grazing a day with 2 feeds made up of 1/2 stubbs scoop HiFi lite and 2 handfuls of nuts, with globalvite, mint and garlic and dash corn oil in her evening feed. She is 16.2 vanner cob/Clydesdale cross. She doesnt need to loose anymore weight now but maintain. With the spring grass through in a few weeks i was reluctant to add in Fribe beet and was thinking of keeping it (date providing) for next winter as i feel she may loose weight fairly easily if allowed. I have recently upped her HiFi lite from 1/4 scoop twice a day to 1/2 scoop. Any advice will be appreciated

 

[Sugar_and_Spice]

Upping HiFi Light by half a scoop daily will make little difference to anything, unless its a laminitis prone horse you're struggling to keep weight off. HiFi Light is lower energy than hay and a large round scoop only holds a few hundred grams (there's 1000g in 1kg). If you think the horse is likely to put on weight over summer, then you're right it doesn't matter if she's a little thin now. FibreBeet is a blend of unmolassed sugar beet and alfalfa. It provides fibre that is higher in energy than hay and I've found it very good at keeping weight on poor do-ers over winter or gaining weight on horses that are too thin. As long as its stored somewhere dry so it doesn't go mouldy there's no reason not to keep it until next winter. If you think it may go off and you want to avoid wasting it, then when your current lot of nuts and chaff runs out you can use the FibreBeet as a replacement (remembering to change the ration gradually and not go straight from one feed to the other). Assuming you feed something like half a scoop of low energy nuts, you could replace this with half a cup (not scoop) of FibreBeet soaked in about an inch of water and add your vitamins to that.