Help - TOTALLY confused about feeding. ANY help appreciated.

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FrankieBoy

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I've had my 17.1 warmblood gelding for 5 months now, and have recently moved yards. He is in light to medium work as we are both getting to know each other, and untill the move has been fed a morning and evening feed of ready grass, high fibre cubes and sugarbeet...
The folk at my new yard all seemed shocked that I was feeding ready grass mixed in with his feed and I have since been warned not to as he may choke? He is not badly under condition but could do with gaining a little more weight however the last thing I want to do is fizz him up as he is not in particually hard work as it is.
There are thousands of different chaffs etc out there Im just confused about which to feed.
Any advice you guys have would be greatly appreciated!
 
I have fed my old horse on buckets of ready grass and never exerienced a choke, I did dampen it down a bit.

I feed it all the time with beet and it's fine.
 
i give bracken mollichop(1 scoop), baileys economy mix non-heating(1 scoop) and dodson and horrell barley rings(1 scoop) of an evening and 1 scoop of mix with carrots for breakfast. she looked like a hatrack last year, this year she has a nice covering over her!! she is not in work at all and non of this feed fizzes or heats her up! obviously every horse is different so this combo may not help your boy but after trying so much stuff last year to get the weight on bracken i have found this combo works a treat
 
How about Hi Fi Original for your chaff? And a bucket of readi grass "on the side"

Another thing you could try is fibrebeet, which is mixture of unmollassed beet and alfalfa, looks disgusting but they all seem to love it. That should not fizz him up, I've fed that to a sugar intolerant pony without "consequences", so hopefully you'll be OK too.
 
i give my boy 2 scoops of veteran chaff,1 scoop of d&h 16 plus and 1 and a half scoops of speedybeat,he has this twice a day in the winter and a big hay net at nite,he is a 17hh warmblood
 
Thanks,
Up untill now he's been fed on ready grass mixed and has had no problems and If I can avoid having to change his feed I will, but it seems to be common knowledge around here that mixing readygrass with ANYTHING can cause real problems.
I wonder why I have never heard/experienced any problems with this before?
Is this something other people have heard of?
 
If I were you I would ring/email the a feed company (i've found baileys fab) eg baileys, D+H, dengie and get some advice about what you should be feeding your horse for condition and work level that way you know what you are doing is right and you don't have to worry about what ppl at your yard say.
Sorry no redigrass experience. Surley if its damped down enough it will be ok?
 
Choke is caused by food swelling in the osophagus, or becoming lodged due to gulping or lumps of food (eg. carrots). So I don't see how readigrass can be a specific cause unless, as someone already said, it's fed dry. And even then, the cause would be the consistency, not the feed itself.

A really good feed for putting on condition without fizz is Alfa Oil - as it provides medium energy (same as a basic pasture mix), but with no cereals to cause silly behaviour. The high oil content provides slow release energy, increases condition and gives a lovely glossy coat.

Good luck!
 
used to use ready grass, and tbh i had forgotten it existed!lol is is very dry as is just dehydrated grass, but unlike alfa and molly hasnt the added sugar/molases so less heating but more nutritional value thn hifi chaff i should think.
do dampen ive experienced choke a few times and it never pleasent, and doesnt necessarily happen the first time u feed a dry feed, after working for a very experience eventer with a yard of 30 stabled horses that were all fed dry feeds i continued along this route with my own yard until my own horse had terrible choke and needed the vet, he was very distressed by it! hadfos makes good point - sugar beet or speedi(less molases again) will dampen whole lot.
all these chaffs etc along with contributing nutritionally to feed are there to increase mastication of food, improve digestion of feed as whole. sorry this is a novel, and hope ramblings are not those of a mad woman but i cant sleep tonight!lol
 
Feeding questions always bring a mass of different answers & in my mind with all the different views given you tend to be more confused after reading the replies than you were before.
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You may find the best thing to do is to contact one of the feed companies, as someone else has mentioned, Dodson & Horrell, Spillers, Baileys etc. Tell them about your horse, breed, size, age, what you do with him, any problem you feel you have regarding feed & what you are feeding at present. They will all give you impartial advice. They will not rubbish another companies feed that you may be feeding either. They reply fairly promptly & you will get professional advice that you can rely on.... Good Luck
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My mare who 1 have owned for 10 years choked last night on wet HappyHoof, her feed since I have owned her.

She had nothing else added.

Luckily because it was wet she eventually cleared it herself, just as the vet arrived!
 
I soak all my feeds now (not just damp them), to avoid the risk of choke. If you think about it, a horse's natural diet is grass which is full of water so it is not natural for them to eat dry food.

In my experience I have known more horses choke on cubes though, than on chaff type foods.

If you feel that the current diet is working well for him then keep it, but add plenty of water to the feed and give it time to soak in.
 
I have known a few horses that have readi grass instead of the conventional chaffs that are out there and they have never had any probs with it.
My mate used to give it to her old mare instead of hi fi as she has trouble chewing and she coped fine.
I would defo dampen it down though as it is very dry.
If yor horse has'nt had a problem with it and you and him are happy with his feed then I would just stick to what you are giving him and sod everyone else
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Never heard about redi grass causing choke, I had always associated choke with greedy horses gulping down nuts etc. I use Ruff Stuff which is Simple systems dried aut mature grass so fairly similar. I cannot see how redi grass would be any more likely to cause choke than any other chaff.
 
TBH I've never heard of ready grass but my TBx is very prone to choke but she is fine on Dengie hihi original. Her feed does resemble soup tho I have to wet it so much (nuts etc have to be fed soft). There have been occasions where Ive run out of nuts so she's just had a scoop of hifi for tea tho and she had no problems.
 
Nothing wrong with what you are feeding. Sounds very sensible to me. Just make sure you wet the feed well before feeding, and perhaps add speedi beet to feed to add bulk and help keep weight on, whilst upping the water content
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