Full Livery - bucket feeds
- Thread starter wiglet
- Start date
If it is a large yard with say 30 horses all having different feeds that the YO has to order in and then bill the clients according can be time consuming and also can take up more space as you get so many feed bins. I can see why YO's don't want to do this. I think either people order their own feeds in the same way they do supplements or YO supplies a range of feeds that people can use included in the price. If they bulk order they may be able to get discounts and pass on some of the savings to liveries.
I'm curious about this high calorie straw that you have. Personally my straw isn't high calorie (and yes I have tested it and my hay in the past).
I'm also not sure why you are picking on esther, or what basis you have for saying her horse is fat. Pretty sure she said he was a good doer and therefore is on a careful diet, presumably with the outcome that he is not fat. Okay you can argue that barley / oats are in the grass family but when we say "grass" in the context of horses we are generally not including cereals so I think its fair enough for esther to say that her horses lives mostly on straw and beet so doesn't get much grass.
I do agree that a lot of the branded mixes and nuts are basically the same and owe a lot to clever marketing, but not all grass-based products are the same. My cob is quite happy on certain (expensive) branded high fibre / timothy haylage but gets itchy skin, the runs, gassy colic and turns into a monster on most standard haylage. Luckily I now keep him at home so don't need to bother with haylage or arguing with YM's, but I don't think it is fair to say "all feed is basically grass so it doesn't matter what you feed".
I'm also not sure why you are picking on esther, or what basis you have for saying her horse is fat. Pretty sure she said he was a good doer and therefore is on a careful diet, presumably with the outcome that he is not fat. Okay you can argue that barley / oats are in the grass family but when we say "grass" in the context of horses we are generally not including cereals so I think its fair enough for esther to say that her horses lives mostly on straw and beet so doesn't get much grass.
I do agree that a lot of the branded mixes and nuts are basically the same and owe a lot to clever marketing, but not all grass-based products are the same. My cob is quite happy on certain (expensive) branded high fibre / timothy haylage but gets itchy skin, the runs, gassy colic and turns into a monster on most standard haylage. Luckily I now keep him at home so don't need to bother with haylage or arguing with YM's, but I don't think it is fair to say "all feed is basically grass so it doesn't matter what you feed".
I don't know how you can really think that all feeds are the same. Sugar beet is the not the same as chaff. Copra is made of coconuts. Some feeds contain soya, peas or other things like linseed. A lot of companies do similar ranges of feeds eg high fibre, molasses free, or competition or conditioning feeds is that what you mean, rather than the feeds regardless of if they are low in DE or not being the same all containing the same ingredients and being made of grass.
I think all you owners have been bought into the marketing!!! 
All feed if you look closely enough is THE SAME!!!
Get over yourselves and unless you have a severely malnourished or undernourished horse, a grass based feed would do you all nicely.
All feed if you look closely enough is THE SAME!!!
Get over yourselves and unless you have a severely malnourished or undernourished horse, a grass based feed would do you all nicely.
I do understand the storage space issue, there are 10 of us and we manage that ok and I guess I partly presume a yard of 30 would account for that and be bigger everywhere.
We have also done it differently and we all phone in our order and pay for it over the phone and it all gets deliveredin one, just saves people driving round the countryside
We have also done it differently and we all phone in our order and pay for it over the phone and it all gets deliveredin one, just saves people driving round the countryside
That
And I would say it's the yard managers as much as liveries blinded by hype. I've managed to negotiate with yards by showing them how much cheaper the straights I wanted to feed were than the branded mixes or cubes they were supplying.
If yards supplied some basic straights like sugarbeet, straw chaff, grass chaf or nutsf, alfalfa chaff or even cheaper pellets (all unmolassed versions) and possibly oats, they could offer a variety of tailor made blends for different horses from some cheap raw ingredients. After many chaffs are alfalfa/straw blends just in different proportions,
And I would say it's the yard managers as much as liveries blinded by hype. I've managed to negotiate with yards by showing them how much cheaper the straights I wanted to feed were than the branded mixes or cubes they were supplying.
If yards supplied some basic straights like sugarbeet, straw chaff, grass chaf or nutsf, alfalfa chaff or even cheaper pellets (all unmolassed versions) and possibly oats, they could offer a variety of tailor made blends for different horses from some cheap raw ingredients. After many chaffs are alfalfa/straw blends just in different proportions,
Thanks Ester I go to huge lengths to make sure he has access to forage 24/7. He has a wheelie bin feeder filled full every day with mainly straw and the haylage mixed through it. Its also low calorie high fibre haylage, thats nutritionally analysed to make prove its lower calorie/sugar than hay. I've managed to source some oat straw chaff now as well, so he will be getting a huge trug of that as well. He also has 24/7 access to very, very poor grazing, means he can wander about picking at whats there. It costs me a fortune to feed him, probably more than it would cost me to feed a poor doer, but I've accepted now that any horse is just a money pit :lol:
I go to huge lengths to make sure he has access to forage 24/7. He has a wheelie bin feeder filled full every day with mainly straw and the haylage mixed through it. Its also low calorie high fibre haylage, thats nutritionally analysed to make prove its lower calorie/sugar than hay. I've managed to source some oat straw chaff now as well, so he will be getting a huge trug of that as well. He also has 24/7 access to very, very poor grazing, means he can wander about picking at whats there. It costs me a fortune to feed him, probably more than it would cost me to feed a poor doer, but I've accepted now that any horse is just a money pit :lol:
Also that! If I allowed him to graze on decent grass and fed him ad lib hay/haylage and gave him grass based feeds then he would be heading for huge metabolic problems. I've just had to move him from a full livery yard that gave him limited hayalge in a small holed net, a small feed of pony nuts, occasional turn out on grass and worked him hard. He ballooned and got LGL
I think that yard owners should provide a reasonable choice of feed, sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of the horses in their care. I buy in molasses-free chaff, speedibeet, linseed and high fibre cubes - and adjust the individual horses diet to suit its needs. If owners want to feed a supplement/balancer/something else, then that's fine - they provide it.
We pay 30 for hard feed, on offer are basic pellets, an oat free mix and oats. Anything else we need to provide ourselves. Mine only needs token feed at the moment so I provide my own oats ( he gets a handful when the others are fed) and I feed him once a day with a small amount of kwikbeet, prohoof, salt and linseed. without the prohoof it does not cost me 30 a month so I definately save by providing my own.
We have 80 horses on the yard, can imagine you would need an indoor school size feedroom if the YO needed to stock different feed for everyone
We have 80 horses on the yard, can imagine you would need an indoor school size feedroom if the YO needed to stock different feed for everyone
I think all you owners have been bought into the marketing!!!
All feed if you look closely enough is THE SAME!!!
Get over yourselves and unless you have a severely malnourished or undernourished horse, a grass based feed would do you all nicely.
All feed if you look closely enough is THE SAME!!!
Get over yourselves and unless you have a severely malnourished or undernourished horse, a grass based feed would do you all nicely.
We get a choice of basic nuts, mix, variety of chaffs (plain hifi lite type, Alfa a type and a molichaff type), sugar beet and carrots. supplements and balances supplied by each owner if needed.
I would agree with the suggestion that you all get together first and write a list of what you feed and see where there is overlap. Some people might have to change brands, but it also shows you have thought about it and are reasonable people!
My current yard has basic chaff, mix, nuts and SB. But will provide some other feeds if needed. When I first moved my girl was a bit trim and I was feeding her calm and condition which they were happy to provide. Now she has filled out we decided to try her on there standards and she still looks great. A lot of the owners at my yard don't know a huge amount about feeding and they leave it up to the YO. All the horses look great and are fed according to their own needs. There is an oldie with almost no teeth who gets a token amount of haylage, but 5 mushy feeds a day.
Also they feed haylage or hay most of the horses are on haylage with the little ponies and my girl on hay as haylage upsets her stomach.
My current yard has basic chaff, mix, nuts and SB. But will provide some other feeds if needed. When I first moved my girl was a bit trim and I was feeding her calm and condition which they were happy to provide. Now she has filled out we decided to try her on there standards and she still looks great. A lot of the owners at my yard don't know a huge amount about feeding and they leave it up to the YO. All the horses look great and are fed according to their own needs. There is an oldie with almost no teeth who gets a token amount of haylage, but 5 mushy feeds a day.
Also they feed haylage or hay most of the horses are on haylage with the little ponies and my girl on hay as haylage upsets her stomach.
I used to work on a full livery yard when I was younger. The full livery feeds consisted of
Readigrass
Beetpulp
Oats/barley if required
Cool mix
Fibre nuts
That was it of you wanted anything more specific then you asked for it and paid for it when your livery bill was due. Livery was £55 per week and that was everything so I'm not sure many could complain about that price even back then.
Readigrass
Beetpulp
Oats/barley if required
Cool mix
Fibre nuts
That was it of you wanted anything more specific then you asked for it and paid for it when your livery bill was due. Livery was £55 per week and that was everything so I'm not sure many could complain about that price even back then.