Help please! barefooters can you tell me what your feeding your horses?

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rosie-ellie

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I thought i got my cob's feed sorted....

Ive been giving my mare Energest 16 for a bit more energy but i've noticed shes getting a bit footy so I'm putting it down to too much starch in her diet. Its catch 22 the food was working and she was fantastic but now her feet are a bit tender. So please can you tell me what your feeding your horses so i can re-look at her feed. Ive done alot of research and found that aflalfa is no good for barefooters.

At the moment shes on:

Equimins Advance Concentrate - 50g
Biotin - 15g
Rosehips dried - 5 whole ones
Pegasus Chaff with added garlic - 4 handfuls
Energest 16 - 500g

I was thinking about reducing her Energest and adding Flax oil and use oil rather that hard feed for energy. God its a mine field and i'm doing my head in looking at all the options!!!

Thanks alot!
 
I've had a forage analysis done and balanced minerals to that.

Hard feed consists of Allen & Page fast fibre, bran, micronised linseed

Seems to be working well so far but she has only been on this diet for a month...
 
Big Lad
Grass (muzzled, approx 11 hours per day)
Soaked hay, double netted
200 g bran
300 g Fast Fibre
160 g Micronised Linseed
Bespoke minerals balanced to my forage by Forage Plus

Little Lad
Grass (muzzled, approx 11 hours per day)
Soaked hay, double netted
200 g HiFi Lite
2 mugs Lo Cal


Energest 16 is 36 % starch! I wouldn't touch it for either of mine. Calories are energy and Energest 16 is 16 Mj/kg so you are providing 8 Mj with it. You could replace it with 666 g of unmollassed sugar beet which is around 12Mj/kg or 533 g of Copra which is around 15 Mj/kg and has a good oil content. You will, in using these high fibre, low carb feeds lose the fast release energy that you get from your current feed.
 
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well we have no grass at the mo-otherwise it would be just grass!
atm she gets a little bit of healthy hooves and a scoop of hoof first supplement made by horse first.
native so usually good feet but her's finally started to go bad during the really dry spell. now i also apply carr&day martin hoof oil and have seen a good improvement :)
 
Ali2 said:
Big Lad

Energest 16 is 36 % starch! I wouldn't touch it for either of mine. Calories are energy and Energest 16 is 16 Mj/kg so you are providing 8 Mj with it. You could replace it with 666 g of unmollassed sugar beet which is around 12Mj/kg or 533 g of Copra which is around 15 Mj/kg and has a good oil content. You will, in using these high fibre, low carb feeds lose the fast release energy that you get from your current feed.
Click to expand...

Thanks i'll have a look at the Copra havent heard of it before....:)
 
Sparse but green grass and vit min lick for 12 hours a day
Haylage (lo cal as poss) in stable
There is big old chap(18, mostly retired) and Haflinger girl (8), mainly long strenuous hacks up hills and moors!

Big old chap gets a couple of scoops of healthy hooves and a scoop of Spillers horse and pony nuts (evening only in summer), but the Haflinger doesnt get anything other than grass/haylage in the summer.

In the winter when we can have 4 months of snow big old chap has feed morning and evening (same makeup as above): she might get a small bowl of healthy hooves in the stable. When theres snow on the ground that is too deep to dig they get some haylage out in the field(we are in Cairngorms!)

Nowt else!

Both have great hooves, coats, manes etc. If anything they are carrying too much condition! : I cant get any more lo cal haylage till Aug and hay crop isnt in yet.
 
Grass, mineral licks and ad-lib hay (20% alfa), plus oats and timothy/alfa cubes in winter.

Maybe I am lucky but none of mine are shod and I never have any problems, some are just hacks but three are rodeoing every weekend and they are all fine.
 
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