Hard feed versus hay for young stock

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Rollin

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I notice lots of questions on feeding foals post weaning and youngstock. It appears a lot of people feed stud mix and balancer.

Friends of ours have a home bred 3/4TB. They fed what was recommended in terms of pre-prepared mix and he grew too quickly..their vet said Stop as he started to develop OCD. They were horrified as they fed what was recommended by the manufacturers!!

So what do experienced breeders feed after weaning? Have other forum members experienced difficulties with young horses growing too quickly?
 
We feed weanlings haylage and a SMALL ration of Bailey's Stud Balancer +extra Sure Limb in their first winter. After that they have plenty of haylage and Sure Limb. I DID make the mistake of feeding a bit more from the bag in the past - OCD is an expensive problem to rectify!
 
Stud cubes and balancer to top up if not getting the recommended amounts.
So often mine will get 6lbs of stud cubes and 250gms of suregrow.
Mine are early maturing types but we havnt had any problems with OCD but then i personally believe that there is a slight genetic disposition to it .
 
My own youngsters are small Quarter Horses, so I don't feed them much to be honest. As foals I fed them approx. 1lb of 50% naturals mixed with Grow'n'win each. As yearlings they now are fed just naturals, 2lbs per youngster. They all have ad-lib top quality hay and I think the hay works wonders for my little ones. I have other youngsters of larger breeds here, and they are fed different amounts and different types of feed, according to what their owners/nutritionists wish.
 
The thing to remember is that feed suppliers want you to buy hard feed.... My youngsters get ad lib hay (in the winter) and are out 24/7. I have facilities to barn store/stable if any started to drop weight but have only had one that needed to come in and she was a native!
 
thank you all for your advice. I smiled at Fleur's only problem was a native. I have a Highland who is more of a big girls blouse than my Shagya Arabs!!
 
It's the same as with dog food, if my dog had the quantities recommended on the bag she'd be waddling!! Saracen do a good feed called level grow or something, this is designed to prevent rapid growth. Other than that I would feed a balancer to ensure correct vitamin/mineral levels as grazing in certain areas are defficient in some essentials but the baulk of the feed being roughage/hay/haylage.
 
My filly has been on box rest with OCD for the last 9 months and has cost in excess of £4000 in vets bills in that time because of it. I will never feed hard feed to a baby again. or certainly nothing with the high levels of nutrition in it that the stud feeds have.

My vet said that in the UK the hay is rich enough to sustain a growing youngster without any problems.

p.s my filly was on topspec and a small helping of Alfa-a - in hindsight a problematic combination.
 
We've got our weanling in at night and out by day, and he is on haylage plus a small amount of alfa A and Saracen level grow dampened with some speedibeet. I also put them on a probiotic when first weaned and eating hard food, then once they are around 8 months until they're three with nothing more than good grass or ad lib haylage. I stick mineral blocks in the fields to ensure they get the correct balance and they all appear to thrive.
I don't like stuffing feed into youngsters and mine have all reached the expected sizes with good dense bones.
This foal I am being careful with because I had to wean him at 4 1/2 months to ensure he didn't grow too quickly, as it was he had to be box rested for a month to straighten up his limbs, because he was so young he has had more feed than normal, but carefully thought about.
I rang Saracen and asked their advice which is why he is on levelgrow, at the moment he looks fine, rounded but not fat which was my aim.
 
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