Help with feeding for my TB please :)

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ellieplatt

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Hiya everyone, would like some advice on what to feed my TB on,

Firstly what do you feed yours and why? Just out of interest,

He's stabled at night and currently has 2 large nets of hayledge a day and fed on Mollichaff, Sugar beat and build up mix (only because when i bought him in march he was very very thin and wanted the weight on him), the sugar beat is starting to send him alittle loopy and now he's in i'm having to bandage his back legs as they're swelling (never used to before I fed sugar beat when he was in, so i'm guessing the protein in doing it?)

Id like to feed something that will keep the weight on him throughout the winter, as if there is supposed to be snow at the end of the month wont be much grass! But at the minute he's lucky to have a good amount of grazing.

I'd say he's in moderate work, 2/3schooling sessions of an hour a week other days divided up into hacking (lots of trotting up hills and canter work) and lunging. I don't want a feed that will make him fizzy as he's fizzy without the sugar beat so to hack him out at the moment is lively and spooky x10 than he normally is.

So what would you recommend?/whats worked best for you?

Thank you for taking the time :)
only have oken yogart apple and mango on offer i'm afraid!
 
I would consider swapping the sugar beet for soaked grass nuts, perhaps consider barley rings, great for the weight gain but can make them fizzy. Im a big fan of oats and have never found them to make any of the horses ive ever worked with fizzy if they are getting enough exercise, swear by them infact
 
Personally, I'd take him off the Build Up Mix - D&H feeds can send a lot of horses loopy. Go for something with more fibre and oil - Spillers Response Slow Energy Cubes for instance? I feed them to my loopy horse and he's pretty relaxed on them but keeps condition despite them being marketed as a competition feed. I only have to feed 1/2 scoop twice a day at the moment with 2 haynets at night.

Do you feed Speedi Beet or the normal 12 hour soak pellets? You could try Speedi-Beet instead (less sugar).

Mollichaff I believe has high sugar content and is mostly straw so try a Dengie product, Hi-Fi first, then switch to Alfa-A if you need a bit more oomph...

Hope this helps. I've been through most of the feeds on the market over the years and would definitely recommend high fibre, low starch even for a hard working horse.
 
I think horses can get overload from their diet - I was told by the vendor never to feed my boy beet as she reckoned it went straight through him. Funnily enough he was "runny" at the best of times even without beet - once I took him off all cereals and gave him a high protein, low starch forage based diet his guts got a lot better!

Beet is not high in protein. Protein gets a bad rap because it IS indicated on bags of feed, starch is not. It just so happens that starch and sugars are the bad boys, and feeds high in those have historically been high in protein as well, hence the fear of high protein feeds.

There are SO many options for non-heating feeding - look at companies like Top Spec, Pure Feeds, Simple System. Once you have an understanding of why and how to feed low starch the world is your oyster and you'll KNOW what is good and bad when you see it.
 
jenni999 said:
Personally, I'd take him off the Build Up Mix - D&H feeds can send a lot of horses loopy. Go for something with more fibre and oil - Spillers Response Slow Energy Cubes for instance? I feed them to my loopy horse and he's pretty relaxed on them but keeps condition despite them being marketed as a competition feed. I only have to feed 1/2 scoop twice a day at the moment with 2 haynets at night.

Do you feed Speedi Beet or the normal 12 hour soak pellets? You could try Speedi-Beet instead (less sugar).

Mollichaff I believe has high sugar content and is mostly straw so try a Dengie product, Hi-Fi first, then switch to Alfa-A if you need a bit more oomph...

Hope this helps. I've been through most of the feeds on the market over the years and would definitely recommend high fibre, low starch even for a hard working horse.
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Brilliant thank you! Think i'll try him on Slow energy cubes with a different chaff and see how that goes, I feed speedi beet, never tried the 12 hour pellets.

Have you tried Spilliers feed balancer (i think thats the name of it) been recommended it as it has lots of vitamins compared to a mix but i'm unsure?
 
sbloom said:
I think horses can get overload from their diet - I was told by the vendor never to feed my boy beet as she reckoned it went straight through him. Funnily enough he was "runny" at the best of times even without beet - once I took him off all cereals and gave him a high protein, low starch forage based diet his guts got a lot better!

Beet is not high in protein. Protein gets a bad rap because it IS indicated on bags of feed, starch is not. It just so happens that starch and sugars are the bad boys, and feeds high in those have historically been high in protein as well, hence the fear of high protein feeds.

There are SO many options for non-heating feeding - look at companies like Top Spec, Pure Feeds, Simple System. Once you have an understanding of why and how to feed low starch the world is your oyster and you'll KNOW what is good and bad when you see it.
Click to expand...

Hiya, - i've had a hardy pony who lived out off not much feed was an extremely good doer and my mums old boy who was on a special diet so I'm afraid I don't know my feeds and whats in them ect too well yet, but i'll learn.
I will have alook at those brands when i'm in the feed store tomorrow and see what might work well for him.

Thank you :)
 
:)I agree with jeni 999 about the molichaff it's full of mollasses (sorry for spelling). When i started working for one of my clients she had yearlings on buckets of it and they were fairly loopy. I would definitely use either a hi-fi or alfa -a product instead. When working with race horses we would use the alfa- a oil to try and help with weight gain and condition. :)
 
It's more likely to be the build up cubes that are causing his legs to swell, and the silliness down to him feeling generally very well.

I hate mollichaf - evil stuff. My preference would always be an alfa based forage, and I really like Alfa A Oil for condition, that with good old fashioned high fibre cubes and sugar beat fed in good rations will probably do the trick - along with plenty of hay. But if you need more energy just start adding oats by the handful, rather than scoopful.
 
I Feed the Spillers Original balancer to my tb and he looks great on it! I really rate it as you only feed 500g for an average tb (mines 16.3 and about 550kg and I was told by Spillers feed line how much to feed)
I also give mine Alpha A oil and Speedy beet. (The speedy beet is really just a top dress to moisten the feed so I don't use a lot and make it very watery) He's looked great all summer but just now as our grass has all gone he's dropped a bit of weight.
I'm changing him slightly onto 250g of the balancer and about 1.5kg of Spillers Conditioning cubes and am giving him some hay in the field over night and with his breakfast.
 
ellieplatt said:
Hiya, - i've had a hardy pony who lived out off not much feed was an extremely good doer and my mums old boy who was on a special diet so I'm afraid I don't know my feeds and whats in them ect too well yet, but i'll learn.
I will have alook at those brands when i'm in the feed store tomorrow and see what might work well for him.

Thank you :)
Click to expand...

You won't find much of those in too many feed stores - the best thing you can do is continue what you have started here - search for "starch" on this forum, and then go onto google and look into forage based or low starch feeding. Definitely look at the websites of those companies. I had to learn about food as I had a tricky horse to feed (the very same one I mentioned above) and I fast became more knowledgeable than most, and ended up running a feeding sub forum on another board! There is so much to know, I'm a little out of date now since saddle fitting took over from feeding (though I was an amateur at the latter!) but the low starch thing has yet to be bettered.

Balancers - imagine they are like a good protein meal replacement shake - you could feed them alone in the summer, as they contain all the vits and mins and important proteins that horses need, then as a horse loses condition you add forage straights - low starch and sugar, natural, but they supply energy in a good way. They're just bulkier than cereal feeds, so you have to sometimes adapt how you feed. Some people find feeding just the balancer before turnout is better as it is more likely to get eaten, being a small feed, and then feed a huge trug of soaked forage when the horse comes back in and spends time in its stable. There are "denser" low starch feeds if you need them - horses out 24/7 can be trickier to feed this way!
 
My mare is on 1 stubbs scoop alpha a oil, 1/2 x midlins, 1/2 x grass nuts, 1 ½ x speedibeet and a mug of suregrow twice a day. She is living out and will start to get hay in the field soon.
 
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