Hello & can I have some advice feeding new horse!!

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dapplepink

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Hi there!

I've just bought a new horse, he's not my first but i've been out of the horsey world for about 10 years and seem to have forgotten a lot!!

The big fella is a 17.2 dapple grey ISH. He has been out of work for approx a year and I've had him on sort of part loan the past couple of months so have been slowly bringing him (and myself!) back into work. He will officially be mine as of next week and I cant wait!!

He is 10years old and has only ever really been used as big pet and for hacking with his previous owner, however he has had some schooling and is coming on well with myself albeit slowly for us both!-I'd forgotten how much you ache from not using certain muscles!

I'm struggling a bit as to choosing a new feeding programme for him though and there seems to be a lot more do's and dont's and new ideas out there than there was 10 years ago!!

He has basically been fed a few handfuls of cool cubes and some carrots twice a day with pleanty of haylage and turned out most days (living out over summer) for the past few years with his old owner. Now that I am going to be doing more work with him and hopefully some dressage and a little showing I want to change/increase his feed but unsure what to.

His current overall condition isnt too bad but could do with improving. The only real thoughts i've had is giving him garlic and brewers yeast supps as he does suffer from a little sweet itch. I used to feed one of mine blue chip years ago and really liked the results, just wondering if its still generally thought of as a good feed and looking for any other info/ideas/advice for my new man!

Thank you in advance and sorry for rambaling a bit!
 
My advice would be to drop and email to all the feed companies (i.e. D&H, Baileys, Spiller etc.) and ask them for their advice.

We use D&H feeds for ours and I am always emailing them for advice, they quite often call me back and chat about whats been feed past and present and then advise on future. they aren't shy about suggesting other peoples products too, which is nice!
 
Oh.. and hi too, sorry.

Erm, and my first post wasn't an attempt to 'pass the buck' so to speak, sorry if it come across like that - when I first asked for advice, I got different feed advice from many different people; this got confusing.... then one of them said what I just said to you.... ;)
 
DON'T FEED GARLIC!!!!!
It will make his sweetitch 100 times worse.
Sweetitch is a horses immune system overreacting to midge bites, and garlic boosts the immune system, hence making the reaction greater resulting in an itchier horse.
My boy is on brewers yeast and marmite for his sweetitch. Seems to make a difference.
Someone also mentioned linseed to me for it, so might be worth a go.
 
was just about to say dont feed garlic to a sweetitch!!
I have a 16.3 ID x gelding who is hacking and schooling everyday for approx half hour to an hour - or at least lunged walked in hand everyday if not ridden, he is fed, Alfa A mollasses free, Equilibra 500 balancer, veg oil, garlic (doesn't get sweetitch) and carrots occasionally. - so what I am trying to say is...a good quality chaff and balancer is all you need really and perhaps a good joint supplement if doing lots of schooling work....
 
Great stuff, thanks for that!

I read somewhere about calling the feed companies direct but kind of thought they would just want to sell me their own stuff which might not neccessarily be best for my boy, nice to know they're not all like that so i'll definately be giving that a go!

As for the marmite, how much do you feed?

Thanks!
 
I've never met an ISH that needed much feeding! My two get dengie lite and D&H pasture mix, and they event on that, and not much of it either!

Speaking to feed companies is a good idea, but don't get too bogged down by it - keep him on what he is on, and see how he goes on. You may find that the extra calories from the summer grass are more than enough to allow him to cope with more work - especially if its only dressage and showing...
 
He gets 2 sandwiches a day (well large sandwich crackers, so they don't go stale!)
Smother the crackers in marmite and then cover that in brewers yeast. Not an exact ammount, sorry! Maybe a tablespoon a day?
Some horses don't eat marmite like that though, if your horse won't you can boil it up in hot water and mix it into feed.
 
assuan said:
My advice would be to drop and email to all the feed companies (i.e. D&H, Baileys, Spiller etc.) and ask them for their advice.

We use D&H feeds for ours and I am always emailing them for advice, they quite often call me back and chat about whats been feed past and present and then advise on future. they aren't shy about suggesting other peoples products too, which is nice!
Click to expand...

Absolutely ditto this - I had some real problems keeping weight on my mare with a foal at foot last summer so I called D&H and the lady was fantastic. Even if you start like that and then alter a bit here and there you will find a happy level for you both. It is very difficult - I was out of it for 10 years too and my god has it all changed!!

I actually quite like the look of Equilibrium Winergy and am planning to move over once I have used up all my current feed - I also like the look of Bluechip to put some much needed showing condition on.

Good luck!
 
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