I know it's been done to death... But weight gain feeds!

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Always-Riding

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So I have a very good doer and a poor doer, well I say poor - he's just doesn't gain weight!

Ex-racehorse who is lean. He's been out of racing for a few years and happy in his new life. But he's just not an 'eater'. We've swapped from hay to haylage and there is a bit of an improvement in the amount he eats (gets through equivalent to a small/medium haynet a night).

We've tried baileys no4 but this sent him crazy, Bluegrass cool 'n' condition which seemed to maintain his weight instead of adding it, condition fibre which he won't eat and allen and page calm & condition. Oh and countrywide conditioning cubes which didn't seem to do anything for him, but he didn't lose any weight.

Our main issue is he just won't eat a lot although he loves calm & condition so hoping to keep that as a base to make sure he eats. He also won't eat a chaff and, what we think, anything that doesn't smell nice.

What should we try and/or what have you had success with feeding?
 
The racehorse I have here, now ex but was in full work p2p in the spring and needed plenty of food, loves linseed mixed with his feed, if you soak it in with the calm and condition he should be happy with it, they can be picky as in training they tend to have a high energy cube and very limited forage so are not used to getting much going through them unlike how we keep our horses generally with high fibre low energy based feeds.
I had an event horse on C&C and added alfalfa pellets to give him a bit extra when required I just put them in without soaking, he didn't like chaff so it worked well for him.
 
I had a tb ex racer just like yours and one winter I spent so much money on feed it was stupid, in the end I was advised to feed fast fibre base but u could keep the calm/condition and add micro linseed ( mug full in each meal) and the full amount of equimins advance complete, I now have a fat tb who needs little feed. The equimins works so well they have put a full money back guarantee on it if u see no improvement and believe me its bloody fab stuff for adding condition. I work with the feed companies but I advise this product time and time again and everybody has been v impressed it really is very high spec
 
My ex racer thrived on blue chip, Calm and condition and redi grass. Key to feeding for weight is feeding enough. And keeping them warm. So many are shivering off the weight. Also look at the work load. Maybe ease up until condition is achieved. Lots of small feeds and if you haven't already check his teeth
 
You could look at adding something like Baileys Outshine. It's packed full of calories. I've used linseed before, and it did nothing. You could see results from the Outshine within two weeks.
 
Another vote for micronised linseed. Also what about good old Speedibeet? Great for weight gain but non-heating.
 
just put my horse on micronised linseed and he looks better already, he's a great weight all summer, verges on a tad chubby if I don't watch it ! but as soon as the temperature drops he looks like one of the racehorses my farrier shoes- so he tells me! For some reason he's gone super wimpy this year, already in a heavyweight and a bit cold in it, currently has a grown out clip and needs doing again so I'm panicking to keep weight on him. Only been on the linseed 2 weeks and he does look better, speedibeet did nothing for weight gain, I thought it was quite low calorie? he has a lot of it in his food, 1/2 bowl full before the other stuff is chucked in. The plus side is that it's also kept him calm as he is easily fizzed up
 
I've had my ex racer for 3 weeks and apart from being now stabled at night with ad lib hay she has been getting 1-2 feeds a day of Alfa-A, Baileys No.4 and a splash of veg oil and she is much better looking now than when I picked her up, much less 'pointy' and boney!
 
i think I would be looking down the lines of as much good quality haylage as he will eat combined with fibre beet (great for weight gain) and a balancer like topspec cool combined with baileys outshine.
 
Forage all the way... linseed and alfalfa chaff with molasses free beet if he really needs a hard feed. I would even consider swapping haylage to hay. Mine isnt keen on haylage at all and has plenty of grazing but if I need to bring him in he will put away nearly half a small bale in a night. In the 4 weeks since he arrived he has gained a good amount of weight, although this will be in part due to sorting his ulcers.
 
My old mare looks great after a few weeks Topspec UlsaKind cubes - She is very fussy but loves having these in her treat ball and we haven't had to feed a huge amount to get the right amount of condition on her, and they definitely haven't fizzed her up
 
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