Frozen morning feeds

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MissMincePie&Brandy

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What would you do...

This morning I was up at the yard first. First person feeds all. The majority of the feeds were frozen. Some feeds were solid, those being the ones which are obviously quite sloppy when made.

I wasnt really sure what to do, and I had 25 horses kicking the doors at this point! i couldnt get through to the YO, but we do have hot water in the yard kitchen, so I filled up buckets of hot water and tipped it into all the feeds as I put them into the stables. This helped with most of the feeds, apart from the ones which were solid, and it took ages to do, and there were some rather wound up horses by the end.

What are people doing in this weather regarding frozen feeds? Some of the feeds with sugar beet or fast fibre are soaked beforehand, so it isn't possible to just make up dry feeds the night before to be wetted by the person who feeds in the morning.

I'm a bit worried about what will happen if I'm not there first, and someone else just chucks frozen feeds into the stables. I imagine this could cause a risk of colic?
 
Hi,

Prob not an option for you but we have big old chest freezers we use to lock up our belongings in but at the moment we're using them to store mixed up feeds in so they won't freeze (ironic I know). The first one up always feeds everyone and we all know if the feeds aren't out they'll be in peoples' freezers.

Could cool boxes be an option?

If I'm going to be the first one up I take up a bottle of warm water up to wet any dry or frozen feeds - can't stand feeding dry feeds.
 
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Probably best to ask owners not to add sugar beet or water or whatever makes the feed sloppy and let the person who feeds add it in the morning.

Which ever way you do it, be it heating up feed or adding beet etc it will take time, just like everything else at the moment!!
 
TicTac said:
Probably best to ask owners not to add sugar beet or water or whatever makes the feed sloppy and let the person who feeds add it in the morning
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Agree.

All last winter I had my bucket of soaking sugarbeet, covered by another bucket and put in an old wardrobe in the tack room, and it didn't freeze at all....had it started to freeze I would have also padded around it with straw. So maybe the owners can do something like this so whoever adds the sugarbeet in the morning doesn't have to battle with frozen sugarbeet?

If not then maybe put up a note asking whoever feeds first thing to add warm water to frozen feeds.
 
i had the issue this morning of making up the feeds (calm & condition) with warm water but by the time it had soaked & i had weighted their hay & broken several carrots off the giant carrot popcicle for them the feeds had started to ice over on top ended up feeding them C&C slushys.

brrr roll on spring.
 
I've been taking a bottle of fairly warm water up with me and thawing the sugarbeet. Doesn't take me too long as I only have 3 to feed. If it's really too frozen to thaw which it has been this week I soak some Alphabeet as it only takes 15 mins in warm water. I get on with my other jobs and it's all done ready for me to mix in their feeds when I'm finished. Again, not so easy I suppose with many horses demanding to be fed.
 
What a pain when you have 25 horses waiting on you! Can you ask the owners to leave out the sugar beet, (freezing type) feeds for now in the mornings, and just feed the chaff and mixes? Better that than colic? Then they can warm up their suppers with sugar beet themselves?

I'd rather leave it out of their breakfast than it be fed frozen, I don't suppose many people have thought about it or the extra time it's taking you.
 
I boil the kettle, have my breakfast and bring it down when it's cooled slightly, mix it through the feeds. Friggin water in stables is frozen again, so wheelie binning water from house down to stables. They drink so much water!!!!!!!!!!
 
The Snowman said:
What a pain when you have 25 horses waiting on you! Can you ask the owners to leave out the sugar beet, (freezing type) feeds for now in the mornings, and just feed the chaff and mixes? Better that than colic? Then they can warm up their suppers with sugar beet themselves?

I'd rather leave it out of their breakfast than it be fed frozen, I don't suppose many people have thought about it or the extra time it's taking you.
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^^ this ^^ - just add some water to it in the morning if they need it sloppy
 
I only have 3 to feed in the am. The dry feed is made up so I either boil the kettle & add water or use said water to defrost sugarbeet before feeding.

I've been taking my alfabeet, joint supplement & oil home but can't fit the dogs and everyones feed in the car...so the kettle is my friend :)
 
I have been making the sugar beet and fast fibre at home.....generally pouring some hot water over it just before I leave, so it is warm when the horses get it!

Probably not an option for 25 horses though!
 
I actually quite dislike making feeds damp until I'm just about to feed them, so I wouldn't be making them wet beforehand in the first place.

Anyway, I'm bringing bottles of warm water from home to mix into mine. Can you get a water drum and bring warm water from your house? I know it's a pain for doing 25, but isn't everything in this weather!
 
I have to soak my AM feeds the night before and my PM feeds in the morning so that all feed (inc chaff) is nice and soft so that my old pony with bad teeth can eat comfortably. I am making the feeds up and keeping them in my feed bin where I keep my chaff. That has worked so far.

However, Sugarbeet is frozen solid so have temporarily given up feeding it.

Water in stable (which is inside a barn and has no outside walls) has frozen the last couple of days as temps have been down to -11, so I have had to place her waterbucket at the back of her bed and surround with shavings.

Agree, roll on Spring :D
 
I have 6 to feed in the mornings and use speedibeet as it only takes 5 mins to soak in hot water, although I do leave it longer to cool down. I am making all my feeds at home at the moment in the trailer due to everything being frozen solid, 25 frozen buckets sounds a right pain.
 
I make my feeds up the night before and damp them down ready for the morning, I put their made up feed buckets in a bin and put an old plastic feed bag over them and they haven't frozen up once in this cold weather- I was quite surprised as I thought they would! (mine don't have sugarbeet though)

Poor you though with 25 to feed! -I think if I was feeding 25 horses and a lot of them had sugarbeet- I would ask if it would be ok (until the cold weather goes) for the horses not to have it in their a.m feeds. If owners wanted their horse to have it that much -then they should get to the yard early enough in time to feed, armed with a flask of warm water, if there is no running water available.
 
Could you ask them to omit the sugarbeet from the prepared morning feed for you to give, if they want them to have sugarbeet they could always give it to them as a 2nd breakfast when they arrive at the yard to deal with their horse.
 
It would drive me absolutly bonkers with that system!!!

Theres god knows how many horses on our yard - some have breakfast, some don't. Nothing gets bolshy when another has its breakfast as it knows it gets what it gets with its owner gets there.

Plus, some, like mine, don't get breakfast for good reasons...!

Can't you just feed yours and have done with it - it takes too long to do everything for other people who take the pee by leaving you to drag water for 25 horses breakfasts....!
 
I have been making up morning feed and putting out in front of stable as normal but leaving off the water - dry but not frozen - she has water in her bucket so can drink if mouth gets dry. Not ideal but prefer to D & H lolly!
 
I would tell people to not put in sugar beet etc in this weather and perhaps increase some other fibre they are feeding, spillers high fibre cubes or bit more alfa etc then take bottle of water with me if you taps are frozen and wet them with that
 
We have all our feeds dry at the moment until we arrive

the sugar beet is in a normal bucket but we have a dimplex panel heater (costs around £33 to buy) costs 1p per hour to run and just keeps everything from freezing even carrots never over heats either we have seen the yard dog and cats next to it though once the feed room door is open!

We've made labels for feeds for those that need sugar beet or warm water adding to them

Horses all happy and fed and no colics other yards around haven't been so lucky :-(
 
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