Hay replacers for a shitland

[Chinchilla]

Our old Shetland's teeth were done last November and were fine, some sharp spurs were removed and the EDT said he actually has good teeth for his age, but that he did have some missing so may struggle to eat hay. Then his hay consumption, just after Christmas, began to decrease so he was put on the high fibre horse hage (think it's the blue one!), which for the first bag, he loved. Upon the purchase of 3 more bags the perverse pony has decided that it is poison.

I looked up "hay replacers" online and came across a couple of options; there's simple systems hay care, fast fibre (which he already gets in small quantities but I don't think he is terribly keen on it), or Dengie's grass pellets which all looked OK. Has anyone used any of these? What did you (or rather your horses!) think? Which would you recommend? What else is there that he could have - with as little sugar and as much fibre as possible and preferably soaked?

Thank you

 

[Sussexbythesea]

May have too much sugar for you but the Baileys high-fibre nuggets plus or complete are absolutely loved by my friends 33 old Shetland. In fact I’ve never met a horse that doesn’t love them. He’s on Prascend but he’s gone off everything else but eats these and actually prefers them dry. I think there comes a time when you feed them what they’ll eat as if they’re not eating anything then they’ll die from colic probably anyway.

Up until he went off it he loved Spillers Veteran Vitality for quite a long time and the little mini shetlands my friend looks after have this as well.

 

[ester]

FF has too much selenium to be a real hay replacer. I think I'd go for a soaked hay cob, there are a few out now. agrobs, Thunderbooks, kramer, zooplus do some too that I am sure someone on here said they use.

 

[Chinchilla]

FF has too much selenium to be a real hay replacer. I think I'd go for a soaked hay cob, there are a few out now. agrobs, Thunderbooks, kramer, zooplus do some too that I am sure someone on here said they use.

How do I know which is best though? (Though to a certain extent given his age perfect nutrition doesn't matter- so long as he eats something !! )

 

[ester]

do you test your normal hay? on the basis that this is just hay cut up and in pellet form

Personally I have started F on the agrobs one as his feed as he was struggling with the aspero chaff but coping with hay ok currently and is can be fussy about feed. But I would suspect one of the other options would work out cheaper. I would probably do a bit more hunting to see if I could get a sugar/starch on them but it seems not to be a routine requirement for their packaging like we normally have it and will probably be a bit variable.

 

[Diddleydoo]

Halley's do a range of high fibre options

http://www.halleysfeeds.co.uk/equinehighfibrechop.html

also have blocks available that can be soaked

http://www.halleysfeeds.co.uk/equinehighfibreblox.html

 

[Chinchilla]

do you test your normal hay? on the basis that this is just hay cut up and in pellet form

Personally I have started F on the agrobs one as his feed as he was struggling with the aspero chaff but coping with hay ok currently and is can be fussy about feed. But I would suspect one of the other options would work out cheaper. I would probably do a bit more hunting to see if I could get a sugar/starch on them but it seems not to be a routine requirement for their packaging like we normally have it and will probably be a bit variable.

Lol. Didn't think of it like that....it's true though. that's pretty much what he needs, though, just hay mush!

I am actually seriously tempted to just scrounge for a bunch of samples and go with whatever he likes best tbh, regardless of actual nutrition: our hay varies chunk by chunk never mind by the bale, so testing seems pointless unless I'm going to get every single chunk done (which is not happening!)

...Horse food shopping blows my mind, there's far too many options now D:

 

[SEL]

I got given a bag of the Thunderbrooks hay cobs last year and they soak down into a mash which both mine loved - esp if it was with warm water. If we had a more reliable supply near here I'd probably have carried on buying them.

 

[frankster]

Allen and Page Fast Fibre has been good for ours, not an attractive feed to look out but thoroughly recommend it.

 

[ester]

see post above about selenium content for use as a total replacer, I generally like A+P but wish they wouldn't advertise it as such.

 

[Puzzled]

When one of our oldies went off fast fibre I added a little veteran vitality to it or sugar beet to encourage him to eat it...assume any food you could soak could be added to it to encourage him to eat it....our vet who is a dental expert highly recommends it for horses with teeth problems rather than using hay.