Low cost feed

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nag123

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Has anyone fed hilight feeds?

I'm currently feeding Alfa A, hilight high fibre nuts and ad lib hay.
horse looks good , currently stabled and on limited turnout in light work 5 days a week hacking/ schooling

I know the saying is if it ain't broke don't try and fix it... My horse looks and feels great just wondered if anyone had any feed back on the hilight feed range
 
One of my liveries uses it, she started as they had run out of her normal conditioning cubes, the horse did well on that last winter this year he has gone onto the high fibre ones and has remained looking good, he is a 16.3 ex racehorse in very light work, daily turnout and ad lib haylage overnight, I think his condition is more due to the haylage but the feed seems to be fine, he gets a scoop twice a day with nothing else added.

Hilight produced by Baileys so as far as a compound feed goes it should be ok, no worse than any other and at a reasonable price.
 
I've fed the flaked barley and the high fibre cubes before, both are good.

The budget feeds sometimes have less vitamins and minerals added that's partly why they're cheaper, but I've never fed enough of anything to get the optimum levels of vitamins and minerals anyway. I feed a handful to half a scoop not the 3scoops daily which is often recommended on the bag to get the vitamin and mineral requirement. My horse would die if I fed that much. I use a separate vitamin and mineral supplement instead.
 
wench said:
Nothing wrong with cheapo feed!
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Well, within 2 weeks of cheap bagged feed my boy lost his sparkle, that was before I stripped the feed down, to micronised linseed, minerals [365 days per annum], and sugar beet with a handful of chaff.
No molasses, wheatfeed, maize, soy, and other rubbish.
I don't like barley for normal horses, though OK for oldies.
Oats are the only cereal I would feed.
Minerals are expensive, so the recommended rates of feed can work out quite expensive, with the result that the average owner rarely feed to recommendation, indeed they would be far too heating for many equids especially ponies.
A cheap feed for many is Fast Fibre.
 
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nag123 said:
Has anyone fed hilight feeds?
Click to expand...

It was included in the livery package of a yard I was at. Mine didn't do well on it at all and the mix was too high in sugar for his sanity.

I've gone back to straights which works out reasonably cheap. I have at various times fed unmolassed sugarbeet, alfalfa pellets, oats, bran, micronised linseed and Copra. The last two cost a bit more per bag but a little goes a long way. I do add minerals based on a forage analysis and as Bonkers2 too said minerals can be quite expensive.
 
due to a change in finances at home, i'd a thread here recently (and got some great advice) to find the lowest cost feed possible - and i've a complicated herd of preggers mares, youngster, skinny xracers and oldies and good doers.

I ended up switching to sugar beet, oats and oat balancer (that included biotin and oils). Horses all look great on it, and it gives me the flexibility to switch ratios of beet and oats as needed, while the oat balancer means they are getting all the vits. It allowed me cut out my hoof supplement and oils as balancer has them.

I tried cheap bags of mix, but found it was costing me more, they were too full of sugars and i wasn't happy pumping that much cereals into the poor doers, while i was worried the good doer cobs weren't getting the recommended vits as they were chubbing up too much so i had to cut the mix. It's much easier knowing the balancer is making sure they get all they need, and i can add beet and oats as needed.
 
I feed Oats, Alfa A, NAF General Purpose and Limestone Flour. Its £40 for the Oats,Alfa A and NAF General Purpose, it lasts me 4 weeks so its about £1.43 per day to feed her over 28 days.

I bought a huge tub of Limestone Flour for about £10 and it will probably last me through next winter too. (Bought it 2 months ago, its a huge tub and even with feeding the reccomended amount there is barely any gone!)

My horse looks fantastic.
 
Something to consider if you need something to bulk out feeds is oat straw chaff, i've previously used this and a bag will last my two small ponies nearly a year and costs £7, its incredible how much is in a pack and its not molassed

I have also fed sugar beet, the old fashioned cubes that take ages to soak, if you are organised then this can save lots of money, I always rinse sugar beet in clean water before feeding to cut sugars

Both very cheap feedstuffs
 
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