Grrr TBs!!

I had a tb type mare and she was a nightmare on haylage but fine on hay. I would switch to hay instead of haylage and you can give him more of that then. Agree with needing more feed, just be careful with conditioning mixes, I found that fizzed her up as well. As someone else said try alfa a.
 
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Why are people so crazy about feeding sugar beet? it does absolutely no good for them at all- its not bad for them as such,apart from prob causing loose bowels, but has no more benefit than hifi.

[/ QUOTE ] That's not quite true - in terms of digestible energy Dengie Hi Fi Lite has only 8 MJ/kg whilst speedibeet has 12.4 MJ/kg - so it supplies significantly more energy than Hi Fi. It does not have an awful lot of protein though, which is why it is often recommended to be feed alongside alfafa, which does.
 
re: sugar beet - i think people are keen on it because horses are, and because it supplies slow-release energy. and if it keeps their whole gut happier (loose bowels etc) then great... this is how horses' guts are meant to be, you don't get impactions when everything's nice and sloppy. horses in the wild have droppings like cowpats, so i believe that that is how they are supposed to be, not having to cope with very hard, dry droppings. having had a couple of impaction colics to deal with over the years, i am a big fan of horses with loose bowels... to a point, obviously, but sugarbeet won't make them scour.
 
I would recommend Blue Chip to put condition on him - even the fussy eaters seem to like it. I would also recommend changing the cool mix to a conditioning mix until he has put on a bit of weight.
 
Id definately take him off the cool mix - that'll do nothing for weight.

The only way you can tell if it heats him up is to try different feeds as some things blow one horses mind but not another! Id try the alfalfa route first - Alfa-Beet and Alfa A Oil or something, along with a Conditioning Cube. And Id definately feed the max recommended rate.

If the haylage makes him fizzy then Id change to normal hay if possible and feed it to him ab lib.
 
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Why are people so crazy about feeding sugar beet? it does absolutely no good for them at all- its not bad for them as such,apart from prob causing loose bowels, but has no more benefit than hifi.
Think adlib top quality hay, 3 feeds a day, feeding a non heating conditioning cube such as spillers Max one scoop in each feed. Top Spec feed balancer, Saracens equi jewel, alfalfa and brewers yeast.

The most important thing is the hay- if they are eating that all the time then they all should put weight on- if he doesnt want to eat much of it, then its not good enough quality.

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I don't agree with that at all. I find beet pulp very good for a lot of things and have never had one get loose movements wiile eating it.

It's another source of fibre. That's a good thing.
It's a good way of bulking up a feed for something that can only have a token feed.
It's another way of getting water into them.
It can mask additives to the feed (sups and such)

I think you get my point!
 
aaagghhh... because a horse is underweight doesn't neccessarily mean he should be fed more!

he should have foliage available at all times while he's in his stable, i agree with an earlier post - change to hay if you need to.

in a 24hr period he should be turned out for a larger percentage than he is kept in. exercise doesn't count.
how much turnout does he get?

i have lots of experience of poor doers, thoroughbreds, anglo's.. . it's not that they need to be fed more, they come to me with problems and the majority of them are ribby and described as poor doers... when their state of mind improves so too does their weight. i've seen it time and time again...

unless you are starving the beast, upping his feed won't do jack.
is he actually prone to being 'fizzy'?

my anglo was a poor doer - he hasn't been in a stable in over a year and right now he's naked, not having any hard feed at all and looking fantastic and chilled! (chilled out i mean
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the middle pic in my sig is him when i first started training him(as a poor doer) he use to get a lot thinner than in the pic, i'll have to take a pic of him now for comparison!
 
Sugar Beet sent mine mad when i put him on it..
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Alpha-A has done wonders for his condition, when we first got him he had 2 scoops Alpha A, half a scoop chaff, and a few pony nuts, he was a different horse within a few weeks!
 
replace the half scoop chaff with at least 2 scoops of alfa a oil as already suggested. It is now widely agreed that horses need to be fed the bulk of their feed as fibre rather than using it to slow down the eating of cubes/mix.
 
Mine is the same age and size and does about the same work, he gets 1 round scoop of Baileys comp mix, 1 round scoop of molichop, 1/2 round scoop of speedibeet and a 1/2 cup of Baileys Stud Balancer, twice a day, he also gets adlib hay I have no grazing in the winter so he is just out in the menage with hay. It has taken me about 2 years of experimenting to get him looking ok during the winter, I wouldnt say its cheap either, I did the feed regime on www.manage-my-horse.com and he worked out at £611 per year in hard feed alone (my other TB costs £348!!!). Maybe add some hay as well as the haylage it will slow him down and it doesnt fizz them up like haylage can.
 
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