Keeping weight on with a fibre-based diet

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AshTay

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As the title says. I'm currently feeding my gelding 2 handfuls chaff (ossi chaff garlic), 2 handfuls sugarbeet (speedibeet), splash of oil (vegetable oil from supermarket) and balancer (lo cal). He's living out so fed once a day. I realise I should be better measuring the amount of oil and sugarbeet. When the grass gets much worse he'll have some hay out in the field.

Just wondering who else maintains weight on a poor doer with a fibre/oil only based regime (i.e. no "hard" feed, maybe because of ulcers, etc) and the amounts they're feeding. How much oil do you feed?

Thanks!
 
Yes, he's not as bad as some but he's certainly not a "fat on thin air" type. I've only had him 6 months and noticed that he dropped weight easily if the grass quality deteriorated in the summer so am preparing for the worst. He's an ok weight at the moment, I'd like a bit more on him in preparation for the winter but he's not underweight.
 
PERFECT time for you to get in touch with the Pure Feeds Company!! My horse is a poor doer and I;ve had to drop her down to their laminitic feed as she looks so well! They give you a free feed plan and at the moment they have a 50% off offer. Everything in it they need (balancer etc) so means you dont have to mess around with different feeds/supplements etc eg. cheaper!

Horse LOVES the food too (she had got fussy)
 
ive got a poor doer whose laminitic aswell.he has adlibs hay-4 medium nets per day/2 double handfuls of speedibeat per feed (dry weight) and 2 scoops per feed per apple chaff.he is a windsucker with possible ulcers and doesnt have hard feed but will have bit of veteran mix or vitamin balancer soon.He has put weight on.He is 17 and on limited grazing and is a pet/light hack.
 
My cob is not a conventional good doer cob, so he gets ad lib hay/haylage mixed. I feed him as hi fibre a diet as I can as he has sugar intolerance.

Feed is split between 2 meals, 1 cup of Lo-cal balancer, 1 scoop of veteran chaff (he's not veteran but it's low molassas) and for winter I add 2kg of alfalfa pellets. I have ordered some of the Pure Feeds Working mix as its on half price offer so will replace the pellets for that. ;)
 
feeding more than once a day helps maintain weight, if he has already started to drop I'd give him hay now, not wait until the grass gets poorer. It is much harder getting weight back on than it is loosing it, and going into winter that battle will be even harder.
 
AshTay said:
Yes, he's not as bad as some but he's certainly not a "fat on thin air" type. I've only had him 6 months and noticed that he dropped weight easily if the grass quality deteriorated in the summer so am preparing for the worst. He's an ok weight at the moment, I'd like a bit more on him in preparation for the winter but he's not underweight.
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In that case start off now with ad lib haylage - made available freely thoughout the day and evening, and a feed based on high fibre cubes and Alfa A or Alfa A Oil, correctly measured, once a day.
 
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All mine are on fibre diets, they get ad lib forage, depending on their good doerness it's oat straw/hay/haylage, then they get freeze dried grass chaff like Redigrass or Just Grass, Baileys Lo-cal balancer and if they need extra calories, I add Outshine (I can't be doing with oil, way too messy for my liking :)). Their bucket feed is mixed with unmolassed sugarbeet.
 
I have also had a report back from Pure feeds - looks good although for now I am sticking with Fast Fibre, Oat chaff and Benevit (as I have 3 months+ worth) because it works out cheaper than Pure feeds and that includes the 50% offer!
 
team barney said:
feeding more than once a day helps maintain weight, if he has already started to drop I'd give him hay now, not wait until the grass gets poorer. It is much harder getting weight back on than it is loosing it, and going into winter that battle will be even harder.
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He hasn't - he put a load on when I moved him into a "new" field and since then has remained fairly constant on the feed i mentioned and what i would describe as "fair" grass.

Martlin - agree it's messy. I need to figure out how much messy oil I'd have to add to convert my chaff to outshine-style chaff.

Amymay -would a high-fibre cube provide more calories than chaff (I know there's different sorts) - so if I wanted to up the calories contained within feed of a set weight, swapping chaff (and/or sugarbeet?) for fibre cubes would be the way to go?

To add - he's welsh sec D x tb, 6 years old.
 
If I had a poor doer then I’d probably just double check teeth and do a worm count, worm again, then if the grass sparse then I’d probably dump a few small bales or a large one so they can pick away, although if the hay is newish hay then I’d only offer smaller amounts rather than them gorging themselves.

If there a poor doer due to lack of appetite (say a horse on their own) then it’s good for them to have grazing buddy, bit of competition for th food usually gets them eating more seen as its social thing, but also adding some apple cider vinegar into the feed will help to increase their appetite.

Naff Pink Powder, or similar will also help them get all the goodness out of their food, healthy gut = healthy horse, so you should see the weight creep on after a month of being on it, if that is you are offering good quality forage.

BHF Speedibeet, Allan & Page Calm and Condition or the Fast Fibre along with a chop from the Dengie range (I like the Hi Fi and the Alfa A Oil which I mixed together) with the above along with the pink powder works well, if that is your horses have access to ablib hay/grass during the day.
:)
 
Kenzo said:
If I had a poor doer then I’d probably just double check teeth and do a worm count, worm again, then if the grass sparse then I’d probably dump a few small bales or a large one so they can pick away, although if the hay is newish hay then I’d only offer smaller amounts rather than them gorging themselves.

If there a poor doer due to lack of appetite (say a horse on their own) then it’s good for them to have grazing buddy, bit of competition for th food usually gets them eating more seen as its social thing, but also adding some apple cider vinegar into the feed will help to increase their appetite.

Naff Pink Powder, or similar will also help them get all the goodness out of their food, healthy gut = healthy horse, so you should see the weight creep on after a month of being on it, if that is you are offering good quality forage.

BHF Speedibeet, Allan & Page Calm and Condition or the Fast Fibre along with a chop from the Dengie range (I like the Hi Fi and the Alfa A Oil which I mixed together) with the above along with the pink powder works well, if that is your horses have access to ablib hay/grass during the day.
:)
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He's just had teeth done. His appetite is certainly not the issue - he'll eat anything! It's BHF Speedibeet that he has. I'll have a look at the Dengie chops (are these same sort of thing as chaff?).
 
My mare is on grass nuts, speedibeet, alpha a oil and suregrow balancer. She is a TB so not the worlds best doer but she is looking good on this.
 
The existing diet he has appears to be appropriate, but I would add salt and ensure free access to a pure salt lick (horses don't tend to get access to the amount they need even just for maintenance and it's important).

I would add micronised linseed (replaces the omega oils when the grass drops off, provides gut muculage, good for joints and coat condition).

If he needs more energy, straight oats are fine and easy to digest (soak or sprout to reduce starch level).

If he needs more weight, add more of the ossichaff and speedibeet with more hay.

I'm not a fan of anything containing alfalfa.
 
There is a livery at our yard who has 2 thoroughbreds and they both drop weight in the winter, one more so than the other. Last wimter they bought Fast Fibre and wow, what a difference, they both looked great. The only other thing they were fed was fibre nuts and ad-lib hay.
 
AshTay said:
He's just had teeth done. His appetite is certainly not the issue - he'll eat anything! It's BHF Speedibeet that he has. I'll have a look at the Dengie chops (are these same sort of thing as chaff?).
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Depends what is you are feeding, if it’s the basic chaff then it’s literally chopped straw with a molasses coating so yes there is much better chops (as I call them) out there that you can feed as a forage replacer, best thing to do is ring a few feed companies (or email) for some expert feeding advice, it’s free and they will talk you through a recommended feeding program specifically for your individual horse and no doubt send you some samples too. ;)
 
I would second the micronised linseed, it really keeps the weight on and with the high oil content means that you can cut out the veg oil. More economical than switching the lo cal to outshine which is the other option.
 
My 30 yr old TB is looking great now, recently changed his feed to the following:

Allen and Page veteran vitality
A & P fast fibre
Alfa oil

Instant linseed (from Simple systems)
total eclipse (also simple systems)

ad lib hay/haylage
 
We have quite a lot of grass (been saving the winter grazing) so even the poor doer won't need admin this year. Managed to have her looking great on haylage last year. This years it's hay but she gets grass nuts, speedibeat and just grass split over two feed as well as her hay rations.
 
Should add that my poor doer lives with a good doer which is why I switched to hay. She is the alpha though so I give her the extra calories she needs in her bucket feed rather than adlib haylage as the other one would explode.
 
The best thing to do would be to call one of the feed companies, Spillers, Baileys etc and they can help you but personally I would be feeding ad lib hay - now and 2 feeds of Fast Fibre on it's own. You can add a pink powder or Brewers Yeast if you want but a lot of feeds nowadays have all the vits and mins you need. Take him off the Lo-cal, won't need that and the basic chaff you are feeding will be doing nothing at all. All that is, is a bulk out to stop them wolfing their feed and make you feel better. There's bugger all in it. You can add oils, lotions, potions but with todays feeds are mostly not needed.
 
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