Following on from sugarbeet .. chaff?

Montyforever

Montyforever

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What chaff for a 13yr old native x that doesnt keep weight well in the winter.

Also would be a bonus if i could feed it to lami prone welsh a too as i dont have any more space for more feed bins! :p

She has been on a handful of hifi and nuts & 6lb of hay a day (no grass) all summer and kept weight ok.

But was on 3 scoops of cherry chaff, 1 scoop of nuts and oil. Split into 2 feeds in the winter and rugged with 10lbs of hay a day and didnt keep weight well at all. :confused:

So what chaff is best? and would conditioning nuts help?

Thanks :D
 
Alpha a oil is good, depends on if your lami prone one is a fatty? If so then I would use something lower cal (topspec topchop lite is great as it has no added sugar!). If not then alpha a is great as it also doesn't have molasses added to it.
Many conditioning nuts are mainly sugar beet and balancer and fat - you pay alot for pretty packaging! I would stick to speedibeat (kwiki beet is slightly lower sugar so better for your lami prone one), then add a powder balancer and oil (linseed is fab) if needed.
 
you can feed hifi to laminitics but alfa oil would be good or even alfa a. but i wouldnt recomend feeding it to your lamanitic.
 
Happy Hoof is great for laminitics and can be fed on it's own or with other feeds.It contains all the vitamins and minerals a horse/pony needs when fed according to the instructions. I also fed it to an underweight tb mare and found it helped along with sugarbeet and a conditioning mix. If you are just looking for a normal chaff then avoid anything with oil or molasses for the laminitic pony.
 
spike123 said:
Happy Hoof is great for laminitics and can be fed on it's own or with other feeds.It contains all the vitamins and minerals a horse/pony needs when fed according to the instructions. I also fed it to an underweight tb mare and found it helped along with sugarbeet and a conditioning mix. If you are just looking for a normal chaff then avoid anything with oil or molasses for the laminitic pony.
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My laminitic has this feed in the summer. Atm my boys are all on Hi-Fi lite then in winter sugar free chaff for minis and big boys alfa a oil x
 
Remember most chaff is made from mainly chopped straw with other things added unless its something sold as choped hay or alfafa. Unfortuately the makers do not a pecentage of straw to alfalfa/hay etc and the average DE is about 8.5 to 9.
So you can be paying a whole lot for packaged flavoured straw.
I would cut out the chaff all together unless you are using it as a hay replacer and feed a balancer with either unmollased beet pulp and increase the oil.
Also weight tape the pony and give it a least 1.5- 2% of its body weight , 10lbs of hay may just not be enough
 
I use mollichaff extra as it contains loads of extra minerals and vitamins and for some crazy reason is about 50p more expensive than other chaff, for an extra 5kg

I mix this with speedibeet and give it twice a day (sometimes 3 times if he's lucky) to my colt, who was very thin when I bought him. He's currently stabled and only gets his 2 feeds and constant hay and he's putting weight at a good speed.


I had him on conditioning cubes, but they didn't seem to be doing much.

This website compares the nutritional benefits of chaff

http://www.friendshipestates.co.uk/vmchk/mollichaff/mollichaff-extra.html
 
I agree with what some others have said that it might be the hay you would want to increase. At some points during the winter your pony may need access to ad lid hay even in the field.

Something else to think about would be to feed smaller but more feeds per day, what you say he got last winter split between two feeds sounds a lot for one small tummy to deal with at one time and he may not be getting the benifits of all the nutrition in that feed, try splitting it between three feeds a day and keeping a good amount of sugar beet in it. If you are looking for an different chaff to try I can recommend the spiller conditioning fibre, but i'm not sure how well the lami pony would do on it.

Is the pony rugged in winter, it might be worth putting a wee rug on him to save using as much energy keeping warm.
 
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