How feeding horses has changed

cava14una

cava14una

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Was talking to a friend who also had horses in the 1960's about how feeding has changed, I don't remember many choices of manufacturered foods.

My boy was 15.1HH lived out all the time never wore a rug and was fed Spiller's Pony Nuts and hay. The only supplement was a round block that went in a metal container I think it was called a Keep block does anyone remember it?
 
1960's [early]
We made our own chaff in a chaff cutter, timothy hay from The Carse of Gowrie, oat straw on the sheaf from adjacent farm, bruised oats with our own bruiser.
Salt came in a sack, lumps of rock from Cheshire, molasses in a 40 gallon drum, they got a tablespoon in their water, galvanised buckets. The horse were nearly all in stalls all winter tied with a log [round wooden ball]
1970's [early]
A sack [1cwt] of broad bran from a mill in Carlisle which milled in the traditional way, it was fluffy and scrumptious. Oats from a local farmer fed whole, a measure of Equivite minerals and that was it. Hunting days: a linseed mash with salt after a day in the field [the hunting field] Spillers racehorse nuts when feeling affluent.
2000
Haylage for racehorses, mixes, to specification of a nutritionist, alfalfa mix chaff, boiled barley on Saturday night [phased out]
2010
Hay and haylage, big bales, conditioning nuts / D&H Mare and Youngstock mix, molassed beer nuts, salt on on a rope from Eastern Europe.
2015
Hay and haylage, non molassed beet, minerals, micronised linseed, Dengie non mol chaff, salt from Screwfix [special offer]
 
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Hmm, I do miss using the following:
Boiled Barley on Sunday nights or after hunting (from the wonderful baby Burco)
Boiled linseed
Broad bran
Flaked maize
Flaked barley
Oats, either crushed or rolled.
Fresh cut chaff

Used to use all the above regularly, till D&H got me into trying their 'new fangled' mix on a few when as a trial in the 80' before the 16+ was brought out - that did wonders for a pair of 5 yr olds had in during that time :D

Things I dont miss at all is soaking sugarbeet nuts, cleaning the Burco out or scrubbing the cooker from the linseed pan after it had invariably boiled over :rolleyes3:
 
1980's
Bran
Oats
Spillers pony nuts

Flaked Maize winter only
Full Fat Sugar beet winter only
Linseed cooked yourself
Local feed mill made the own mixes, I used a Hunters Mix when my pony was in hard work. Probably a blend of the ingredients above though did have milk pellets as we used to pick them out and eat them..
Turned out on many acres of old leys with varied hedgerows.
Hay but Haylage invented at a farm up the road and tested on a couple of the yard's ponies who had COPD

2000's
Mollassed chaff (nicknamed psycho chaff after its effect on my horse)
Alfalfa based chops
Lots of branded feeds either mixes or nuts
Hay or Haylage depending on yard
Commercial multivits
Grazing on pasture with too many horses, sometimes ex dairy, divided into small plots with no hedgerows.

2015
Oats
Bran
Linseed (but Charnwood kindly cook it for me)
Copra
Minerals according to forage.
Hay or Haylage depending on availability and yard.
Grazing on reasonably varied pasture with hedgerows
 
Well indeed, we have come almost full circle in the last 50/60 yrs.

Sis and I rode at a RS in the 60s, where horses were fed on hay/grass, bruised oats, bran and linseed as required. The ponies lived out all yr round, except over the weekends when they were working, some of them spent the weekend nights in stalls. The horses hunted as well as working in the RS and were stabled in winter.

When we got our first horse (early 70s) we were delighted to find that Spillers made Pony Nuts, which made feeding easier for first time owners. He had nuts and ad-lib hay/grass.

In the 80s we had the really unpleasant experience of having a mare who was intolerant of all cereals and refined sugar in all its forms. She became very, very ill before we understood what was causing her problems.

Since then we have tried to keep feed as simple as possible but have had to put weight on elderly horses/ get weight off an obese horse/ deal with horses with various illnesses and used various mixes and cereal-based feeds.

We now have 4 mares, one has skin problems if she has wheat in any form, one is super-intolerant of alfalfa and carrots, one reacted badly to a bag of grassnuts recently and we can't find out what was in them. As far as I can tell the cob hasn't met a calorie that disagrees with her.
Our basic diet now for any-one is fibre-based; Graze-On grassnuts, dried grass chaff (not rye-grass exclusively), linseed oil, salt, with Speedibeet for any-one who needs something extra. We add aloe vera/limestone flour/biotin for those who need them. We have fed haylage until a few years ago because of the difficulty of getting good quality hay but have now found a reliable supplier and we will be sticking with hay because the horses do better on it.
 
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Its quite scary really isnt it? My first pony (late 1970s) had a choice of pony nuts, coarse mix or bran + hay, straw to sleep on, 1 string sweat rug, 1 jute stable rug and a green turnout! Im not sure how he managed to survive until he was nearly 40!! Nowadays the choice is mind boggling and tbh, unless you really know your stuff, a bit daunting.
 
I'm still pretty much feeding what I fed my first pony in the mid 80s - ad lib grass/hay, sugar beet, salt, although I add minerals these days.
 
Mine get grass / and or hay adlib. Chaff with a good multi min/vit and salt and I add oats only if I need condition. The hunt and compete on this no problems and are BF.

I got confused by the baffle marketers (myself being one however I have ethics / morals) spin while I was working as a feed rep and got lost when I found my way back to simple and basic feeds wow the results were glowing.
 
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