How long before I see a difference?

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Jericho

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Have been feeding my boy (TBx 16.1hh 12 yr old) the recommended amounts of Top Spec Cool and Condition cubes and Balancer plus alfa beet and oil and linseed flakes plus 24/7 turnout and ad lid haylage for about 4 weeks now and NOTHING seems to put weight on him. I physically dont think I could feed him anything more - he struggles with the amount of hard feed as it is and I thought I got a really good diet for him - no cereal, lots of fibre, all the vits and stuff he needs from the balancer but still no improvement and all at vast expense. He is in very light work so dont want to blow his brains. Oh and he hates Alfafa A Oil!!

What else can I do to give him any extra calories? I dont think he would tolerate any more oil and also I am finding the Top Spec balancer just so expensive (£36 a bag here!!!!!) so would appreciate any ideas as an alternative........... I am tempted to put him back on normal hay and Build Up or Baileys No 4 again (he was on this before) because it has made no difference. Maybe add some Pink Powder ....

Worm counts are very very low but the vet is due in Jan for jabs so I will get his teeth done and was also maybe thinking I would get his bloods checked. What else could I do????
 
I would give the pink powder a go! My mare really picked up after 3 weeks of the higher dose!!! helps them to digest their calories effectively.

If you can afford the pennys I would get his bloods checked but if things are a bit tight wait and see the response to Pink Powder, depending on how much oil you are already feeding you can I believe give up to 100ml which is quite a lot - and this is calorific so would help.
 
My friends TB never did well until he moved yards with very good grazing. She feeds Haylage, Alfa A, Speedibeet and calm and condition and he never looked better. He also needed loads of rugs as dropped weight very easily if it turned wet, cold or windy and spent most of the summer rugged!
I may have got the wrong idea but with you saying he has 24/7 turnout, could it be that he needs to come in at night? Sorry if he already does.
 
I would go for the conditioning flakes either instead of or as well as the cool and condition cubes(they relly don't heat horses up - my ex racer gets up to 2.5kg a day and they don't blow his brain at all and if anything he is worse on your bog standard h and p cubes strange animal!),go back to alfa a as it is less bitter than the oil version and you can always add a glug of veg oil if needed and I found an endurance mix worked well for my ned but everyone is different. Loads of hay and other forms of fibre if he will eat it - readigrass realy helped my ned as well as le brick (pm if you want to know about this as it it hard to describe! )
 
Why don't you talk to a feed expert at Baileys/TopSpec/Spillers/dengie etc.

I've always found them most helpful when I get a bit stuck. (And they're free)
 
Mollichop do good alternatives if Alfa A oil is not liked by your neddy...although I have found that when mine goes of her food a mug of well brewed Tetley pepermint tea perks her up and gets her tucking in again
 
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