Forage Balancers

[AdorableAlice]

Having enjoyed the recent online equine nutrition course, listening to the lectures the advised use of forage balancers came up time and time again. A balancer is being recommended across the whole spectrum of keeping horses from an overweight lami pony to the next gold cup winning racehorse.

All mine thrive on adlib haylage and hay with very little in the way of bucket grub. The yearlings (carthorse types) have Dodson and Horrell suregrow as does the in foal (June) mare. The others are teenage and beyond and they have benevit in a handful of non mollassed chaff with sugarbeet pulp. I have had the 15kg sack of benevit that long it must be nearly, if not actually, out of date.

My question to you learned people, is which forage balancer is the best, not neccesarily the cheapest, but the most effective and useful for feeding to leisure horses that range between light work, bone idle, growing 2 yr olds, aged box rester and a soon to be lactating mare.

Thank you in advance for any thoughts and guidance.

 

[TwoStroke]

Imo it depends entirely on the mineral profile of your forage.

Various parts of the country will have differences in the levels of minerals in the grass, hay and haylage you feed, therefore which balancer is best for you depends on which is the best fit for your particular forage.

To find out you could either have a grazing analysis done, and either use a bespoke mineral supplement service, or pick an off the shelf balancer which matches well to your mineral profile. Or you could use trial and error, and try each balancer in turn to see which works best. If you do that, it would be helpful to make notes and take photos so that you can compare them accurately.

Not the easy answer, I know!

 

[AdorableAlice]

Food for thought, excuse the pun !

I could have the ground analysis done, but doing the haylage/hay would be tricky as I buy in each year from the same contractor but he mow's all over the place. My remit to him is dry haylage rather than mega wet and heavy plus long stemmy hay and after 20 plus years of supplying me he gets it right everytime.

I probably won't make any changes to how I feed now, but the nutrition course has got me thinking about what and how I feed.

 

[amandap]

I am certainly not learned. lol But, the best balancer is one that is based on analysis of your forage. Many of us can't go this route for various reasons so I have chosen one based the average of many analyses from around UK. There are common deficiencies and excesses so imo that's a good starting point.
I use Forage Plus but many have great results with Pro Earth and Equimins products. I chose FP because I was having a few problems mainly hoof related so wanted a high spec one.

Improvements I have noticed are better hooves both in horn quality and form, changes to coat colour ie. deeper, richer colours and black is now very black. Change in general demenour, brighter eyes etc. Improved footfall (heel first landing and lengthened stride for one Shettie with a previously persistent short, choppy stride), less thrush in all and itching in one with mild sweet itch. My laminitic pony is going great guns.
In the past I have used Top Spec anti lam and comprehensive and not noticed these changes but I must stress I have moved location since then so grazing is different and here it seems to be a big problem so my lot have very restricted grass.

ps. For horses that graze a lot/daily it may well be worth getting grass analysed even if hay etc. is variable.

 

[pines of rome]

I am certainly not learned. lol But, the best balancer is one that is based on analysis of your forage. Many of us can't go this route for various reasons so I have chosen one based the average of many analyses from around UK. There are common deficiencies and excesses so imo that's a good starting point.
I use Forage Plus but many have great results with Pro Earth and Equimins products. I chose FP because I was having a few problems mainly hoof related so wanted a high spec one.

Improvements I have noticed are better hooves both in horn quality and form, changes to coat colour ie. deeper, richer colours and black is now very black. Change in general demenour, brighter eyes etc. Improved footfall (heel first landing and lengthened stride for one Shettie with a previously persistent short, choppy stride), less thrush in all and itching in one with mild sweet itch. My laminitic pony is going great guns.
In the past I have used Top Spec anti lam and comprehensive and not noticed these changes but I must stress I have moved location since then so grazing is different and here it seems to be a big problem so my lot have very restricted grass.

ps. For horses that graze a lot/daily it may well be worth getting grass analysed even if hay etc. is variable.

I am really pleased to read this as I have just ordered the FP one and what you have said is very positive!