Birker2020
Well-Known Member
My horse is one of 50 that has been accepted onto a free feed trial with a top equine feed manufacturer to trial their feed which is currently on the market. They were looking for horses with digestive problems, and my horse is very colic prone so it seemed an ideal thing to try, especially as I am being made redundant on Friday and the trial means free feed. However on reading the description of the trial it appears that the trial covers 30 days and I will be given 6 bags of feed to give my horse during the duration of the trial. I rang the person who is dealing with the trial thinking that the bags of feed would be little pocket sizes of feed and she told me they were 15KG per bag!!
My horse is a 17hh warmblood who is a good doer, is only out for four hours a day due to his colicy problems, is ridden approx 5 times a week for about 30 mins a time and competed lightly every other weekend. He is currently on a couple of handfuls of molassed apple chaff and pasture mix twice a day. Now he will be having 7lbs of hardfeed on this trial per day (if I have my sums right). Although it is low cal and low energy I am concerned that this is too much for him and I am also concerned about the risk of laminitis and colic and weight due to introducing such huge amounts. The feed is chaff and nuts mixed apparently. I said to the lady on the phone (who was very nice and also very helpful) that no one in their right mind would pay £70 every 30 days for hard feed and she said they will for this as it will save on supplements and chaff. My chaff is £5.50 and lasts me approx 2 months and my pasture mix is much the same so it is hardly a cost effective exercise if I were buying it myself. We have agreed to keep him on the pink powder that he is on at present. Obviously I am not going to risk the health and well being of my horse as the very reason I've put him on this trial is to help try to eradicate the colic problem to some degree so I will not be shoving 90KG of food down his throat in 30 days, I will have to carry some over which the lady agreed to also.
Has anyone on this forum ever had their horse on this trial or any other feed trial and is anyone else on here on this particular trial and what are your thoughts.
The manafacturers name begins with S and the feed is W.E.
