just out of interest

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nervous nelly

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what do you feed your horse, we have always fed our standard own brand nuts/ mix and chaff maybe a bit of sugar beet and old horse was given calm and condition because she was so poor when she arrived. But all i see on diffrent facebook groups and other horsey people is "ive tried him on x amount of diffrent feeds" all seeming to cost a fortune per bag.

are we all being conned by big feed companies into buying expensive products that dont actually make a diffrence, or are these feeds worth their weight in gold as some seem to suggest?
 
My horse has hifi original and TopSpec balancer. He has devils claw for joints and is on cool calm and collected. He is a 17.1 hanxtb, rising 18, looks wonderful and is going beautifully. Will be sticking with what he is on.
 
Retired wb and old mare are on hay and grass and are looking good
Lami is on hay, grass and fast fibre with hi if molasses free to get his metformin into him.
Tb is on hay, grass, alpha beet, alpha a molasses free with some fibre nuggets dinner then a small amount of that for breaky, a bucket of his chaff and a ball of nuggets and he looks fab.
 
baileys topline conditioning mix has made a huge difference to my big lad and my veteran. it's not cheap but it's worth the money because it works.

one of ours gets basic chaff and mix, and the other two get Alfa a oil, baileys conditioning mix and Alfa beet.
 
All 5 of mine eat fast fibre, they are a 20yr old TBxWelsh in medium to hard work, a NF, a 2 year old, a yearling & a Shetland. Those in work also get linseed & Alltech Elite & the yearling has spillers grow & win :)
 
1/2 mug speedibeet, 1/2 mug L mix and Pro Balance supplement for mine :-D This is what he was on plus rationed soaked hay, barley straw and rationed grass when we did a 20mile ride and the associated training. Only difference was he got a good slug of sunflower oil in the week leading up to it.

When had the old mare looked into the various veteran feeds and got so dis-illusioned with the volume I was supposed to be feeding her as a field ornament (and subsequent costs) that I went to feeding 1/4 of recommended amount of fast fibre and loads of hay and straw with oil for extra if needed.
 
I feed four of mine (aged 9, 13, 20 and 21) Oats, Barley, Sugar Beet and a general vit/min supplement - they are in regularly work and compete every week.

My old boy (aged 31) gets oats and Veteran Vitality - he's retired :)

They all look fab, but obviously I'm biased!
 
Mine gets healthy hooves chaff and a few grass nuts, extra oil as gets an itchy coat, then an added vit and min. Not exactly ideal sort of fell on it by accident but he eats it-very fussy, is a lamb on it and is in lovely condition. So if it's not broke don't fix it.
 
My 15.3hh 9yo cob Who is in medium work and is just the right weight, can comfortably feel his ribs and see when moving. but not thin. He gets small double handful alpha - a original, small scoop handp mix (or stay power museli night before work), small scoop bran and small scoop spedi- beet. he has monday and tuesday off so doesn't get stay power sunday or monday night. he has 2 wedges of good meadow hay morning ad night, soaked. he is in over night from about 7.30pm until 6.30am.
 
I think the current feed market is way too complicated and over produced.

Years ago there was no such thing as a balancer, or the variety of supplements, some of which I think are designed for the owner more than the horse! Also the quantities advised to be fed seem verging on ridiculous, as well as the feed very expensive.

I have always tried to keep hard feed simple, and feed the best quality forage I can afford, as see this as the most nutritional and natural product to feed. If my horses drop weight, I increase the forage and not hard feed.

I am currently feeding Rowan Barbarry fibre mash. It is a one bag feed, fully balanced, and resaonable priced. The only addition they have is salt and oil and are looking very well on it. Both our horses are in full work at this time of year as hunt weekly, but gain the majority of their energy and nutrition from good grass and quality forage - as nature intended!
 
I have recenly had a rethink. She was getting a scoop of forage and fibre and some fast fibre each day plus haylage, she is also in at night rugged and unclipped and can be a bit of a madam. When I bought her she was fully clipped living out with a rug and a net a day and was fine. I think feeding has got far more complicated than it needs to be
 
I would be quite interested to know if the ones who's horses are on more complicated diets were tried on bog standard feed first and if not why didn't you try it first I often think horses are on expensive complex feeds because that is what is fashionable now days.
 
In a large chest freezer, we mix in Mollichaff with high fibre nuts and basic mix, turn it all over with a fork and feed that. Done that for YEARS....all horses doing well and all live out 24/7.

The only one who has extra (16+) is our Anglo, but he has cancer and is getting on in years. The 16+ did the job well last year after he wintered badly the year before, hoping it does well for him this year too. :)

Mineral licks are in paddocks for horses to get what they need if lacking, and the only ones with supplements are the oldies for their joints (arab still moves like a dream, nowt wrong with his joints, so he doesn't get any!)

All coats look lovely, don't have to add anything there either.

We also use feed top notch hay, they seem to inhale it, the sod's...it's so light and nice.....!
 
Readigrass, own-brand conditioning cubes & speedibeet. Only supplement is magnesium - for calming and feet.

Plus ad-lib, very decent hay.
 
I also feed chaff, speedi beet, fibre nuts and if needed a bit of mix. 2 of mine only get token feeds to ensure they get their supplements/drugs & my recently bought bag of mix is only cause I wanted to put some weight on a horse.
 
I would say that there is a huge difference between feeding good ingredients and cheap junk. That doesn't mean that the most expensive is the best though.
The most important element of feeding, for me anyway, is matching the right diet to each horse, keeping it simple and taking into account the grazing/forage they have access to.
And also not believing that any feed will give you a shiny, fit horse without good forage, good exercise and lots of fresh air.
 
I feed calm and condition- I know it doesn't work for everyone but does for me! I feed about 3kg a day as a bag lasts me a week, then 1kg of ers pellets and 500gm of linseed a day. On top is MSM for joints/windgalls and Pro Hoof for her feet- though I will prob switch down to the pro balance one now her feet are stronger.

Yes I have tried all the possible feeds over the 13yrs I have had my madam, starting with triple crown base pellets and blue chip (never again massive reaction to the soya in blue chip) to where I am now.

My biggest issue is that she is a fussy eater and can go off feeds but so far and fingers x she loves this set up!
 
kelsey+tom said:
are we all being conned by big feed companies into buying expensive products that dont actually make a diffrence, or are these feeds worth their weight in gold as some seem to suggest?
Click to expand...


Yes!

Sidney said:
I think the current feed market is way too complicated and over produced.

Years ago there was no such thing as a balancer, or the variety of supplements, some of which I think are designed for the owner more than the horse! Also the quantities advised to be fed seem verging on ridiculous, as well as the feed very expensive.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more.

Ours, aged from 2 to 20 (and until recently 31), get a basic diet of dried grass chaff, grassnuts and if necessary Speedibeet, in differing quantities. We only feed single ingredient supplements, according to the individual horse's needs, along with a mineral lick, as in the past we have had horses react very badly to commercially marketed supplements. I'm convinced that the feed companies have jumped on the fibre bandwagon as owners have become wary of feeding molassed cereal mixes. Funnily enough our grass nuts don't have VAT on them as they are not marketed specifically at horses owners.
 
My lad gets alfa a oil, ERS pellets, alfa beet and a stud balancer. He has EPSM so need to keep his diet very low sugar and starch, but he is fussy and won't touch oil in his feed, linseed (including things like Outshine!) or eat enough beet to cover his energy requirements (poor doing TB doing reasonable amount of work). So I had to resort to branded feed.

I use the balancer as I find in the summer he does well on the grass and needs less energy, so this is a good base feed for him with chaff. I use stud as due to EPSM he requires extra protein for his muscle problems. I can then increase the ERS pellets on an as needed basis, kind of like I would with oats with my last horse, and add beet during the winter.

For me, branded feeds just suited what I needed more than straights. However, I still feed like I'm feeding straights - chopping and changing amounts depending on workload and condition - however I couldn't do that if he wasn't on a balancer.
 
I don't think there is a black and white answer to the question! Yes, there are so many new feeds and the feed company marketing can be very confusing and sometimes misleading, but that said, some of the products are very useful for those horses with 'special needs'.

I have three horses at home, all of whom are fed very differently. They all get plenty of good quality haylage, but the the pony (who hunts, Pony Clubs, competes etc) just gets a token handful, sometimes just cheap pony nuts, but at the moment a mug of soaked Fast Fibre.

The two horses both hunt regularly, so need quite a high calorie intake to maintain weight. One is easy and just has own brand condition cubes and the other needs a low starch, high oil diet and so gets ERS Pellets. The easy one I have tried on straights but he is a messy eater and chucks straight barley or oats everywhere and waste them, which doesn't happen so much with the cubes. Plus for some reason he seems to hate linseed! I have tried the other horse on various diets but he is not too keen on plain oil in his feed, so the ERS Pellets have worked out best for him.

Expensive feeds are a waste of money though if you are not feeding enough good quality forage, and that is where so many people go wrong!
 
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Depending on needs at the time, molasses free beet, molasses free hifi or alpha chaffs or pellets. If I need to get more weight on, they come in for extra haylage and I increase the forage feed. Through the summer they get nothing but grass.

I stick firmly to the keep it simple sweet approach, I'll never use a mix, there is often too much in them that horses were never designed to eat. I don't feed carrots or apples either.
 
i've started to look into feed a lot more the past year. so many cubes are basically made of compressed left over powder, like 'wheat feed' and 'oat feed', but they can charge a fortune for it! so i am trying to feed more straights and they are doing well. it is a bit more tricky to get the balance right, as lets face it having a bag of cubes and feeding the recommended amount of scoops is much easier. mine have unmollased sugar beet, oats, alfalfa, and micronised linseed. but in the summer on great grazing they just have a bit of beet and sugar free chaff
 
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