just brought a new horse , not sure on the feed he has been on

B

Bomberbeamish

New User
Joined
11 August 2015
Messages
4
Visit site
hi all,
im new to this forum , but not new to horses ,
but just got a 5year old stallion, the food is on is Moles high fiber light , and bran, i have no issues with his behaviour, but to my horse knowledge bran giving daily is not good, and he has a scoop twice aday with his high fiber , if im not right does this not cause brittle bones , i dont want him on any fancy food , i dont need him going loopy on me, he is cob section d , many thanks
 
Hi, and welcome to the forum.

http://www.horsechannel.com/horse-health/feeding-bran-3151.aspx Here is why Bran isn't a good food source for horses.
You can feed him on a light chaff as you are doing and a pasture mix if his work load isn't great. This shouldn't send him loopy but will have a better balance of minerals and vitamins than bran.

Good luck with your horse I hope he turns out to be your forever friend.
 
thank you ,
i had come across that artical, just not sure why he is on that , but he is from a well knowledge man, but a driving man, not a rider, as that what was the horse was bread for, but just didnt take to it , in your opinion would you be feeding bran ,
thanks ,
 
Personally I would never ever feed pasture mix, it is full of starch and sugar! I also wouldn't feed bran, historically it was fed for various reasons but now we know more about it and we feed differently anyway it is not such a suitable feed. Probably your horse's previous owner fed it because he is more traditional in his approach.

For the best chance of keeping your horse in great condition and nice and sane, stick to low starch, low sugar feeds. The ideal basis for feeding any horse IMHO is a good quality balancer and then forage based feeds with that.

Personally the balancers I would choose from are Equinatural Equivita, Forage Plus, Progressive Earth (available on Ebay) and Equimins Advance Concentrate. IMHO these have the best balance of minerals for UK soil. They are all powdered balancers (Equimins do a pellet version also), which means you cut out the fillers, and you just need some fibre based feed to add it to. I feed the Equivita and it works out very good value too, about £20pm for a 16.3hh horse, that is with some added extras rather than the basic version.

For your fibre feed you have lots of options, something like Allen & Page Fast fibre is super easy, or unmolassed beet, both are soaked feeds so easy to mix a powder into. Or go for an unmolassed chaff such as Dengie Hifi molasses free.

Remember if you are going to change your feeds to change them gradually, so get the new feed while you still have some of the old and gradually reduce the old as you increase the new.

Good luck with your new horse!
 
Fuzzypuff said:
Personally I would never ever feed pasture mix, it is full of starch and sugar! I also wouldn't feed bran, historically it was fed for various reasons but now we know more about it and we feed differently anyway it is not such a suitable feed. Probably your horse's previous owner fed it because he is more traditional in his approach.

For the best chance of keeping your horse in great condition and nice and sane, stick to low starch, low sugar feeds. The ideal basis for feeding any horse IMHO is a good quality balancer and then forage based feeds with that.

Personally the balancers I would choose from are Equinatural Equivita, Forage Plus, Progressive Earth (available on Ebay) and Equimins Advance Concentrate. IMHO these have the best balance of minerals for UK soil. They are all powdered balancers (Equimins do a pellet version also), which means you cut out the fillers, and you just need some fibre based feed to add it to. I feed the Equivita and it works out very good value too, about £20pm for a 16.3hh horse, that is with some added extras rather than the basic version.

For your fibre feed you have lots of options, something like Allen & Page Fast fibre is super easy, or unmolassed beet, both are soaked feeds so easy to mix a powder into. Or go for an unmolassed chaff such as Dengie Hifi molasses free.

Remember if you are going to change your feeds to change them gradually, so get the new feed while you still have some of the old and gradually reduce the old as you increase the new.

Good luck with your new horse!
Click to expand...
I can never get my head around the fact that historically bran is fed to horses following colic. Considering horses should have new food introduced over a period of 7-10 days I would have thought that any new feedstuff is bad for them unless the change is gradual. The ratio of calcium to phosphourous in feed should be correct and from what I remember years ago, bran has a different ratio so if you feed more than 2kg of bran to a horse you should feed calcium as it contains too much phosporous.

I use pink powder which is an excellent balancer, and contains yeasts and live probiotics to help with gut function. Ideal for my colic prone horse. My horse is also on Dengie Hi Fi light as he is a WB and prone to weight gain.
 
thank you all , i still dont know what to do , im most concerned its going to cause brittel bones, as he only five, but i just dont know if ive read to much into it ,
 
Its a cob! Whats it need feed for? Is it an actual working cob? Or is it like what most cobs do... decorate the english landscape?

Welcome by the way :)
 
I have my stallion on fast fibre and chaff with a scoop of redmills 14% protein in it. Hes not eating much fodder at the moment with the mares and doing his business but he never fails to eat all this dinner so i make sure it has a lot of fibre in it.
 
Like Tallyho says, I'm wondering why he needs feed? Tbh I would cut out the feed and just try him on good quality grass and hay. Cobs don't generally need fussy feeds as they're usually good doers with few problems.
I was in a riding school years ago where none of the horses ever had hard feed and they were all in fab condition. I think we're all too easily suckered into the advertising of feed companies so we think our horses really need feed.
If you really want to give him a daily feed, or he's working hard and starting to lose condition I'd suggest then getting a rep out from one of the feed companies to assess what he needs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top