Low fat basic chaff advice, please!

T

trottingon

Well-Known Member
Joined
18 December 2009
Messages
1,072
Visit site
My section A is overweight, and I am wanting to feed him a general mineral/vitamin supplement in just a handful of feed and would like some advice or ideas of what to give him - all the horses at the yard get fed at the same time and he loves his food, so please don't suggest he gets nothing at mealtimes.

He is regularly wormed, teeth checked etc, he is not clipped, has a thin rug on only when it is particularly cold/wet, he is on restricted strip grazing, he is muzzled and has minimal soaked hay overnight when stabled. He was backed over the summer but unfortuntely I have no lighting or facilities so he is only lightly ridden or lunged at weekends at the moment with a bit of ridden or in-hand roadwork.

What do people consider to be the lowest calorie base feed which I could use? Do they make polo-flavoured Slimfast or a Special-K 2 week challenge for equines?????
 
Have you considered an equine balancer feed - contains just vitamins & minerals and some extra protein and oils. As he is muzzled, get rid of the strip grazing so that he can run around; be a baby pony and keep his weight down naturally. My young welshies would go for walks at the weekend and after school and were out, hay only in the winter and no covers, got a tad tubby in spring but the walks out kept that under control.
 
Agree with Evelyn, leave him out unrugged ( why is he rugged at all?) muzzled for part of the time and let him run around with others, he should lose weight naturally over winter. You'd be suprised how much they move about given the space and time
 
We feed ours Top Chop Lite and Top Spec Anti Lam balancer to make sure they get all their vitamins and minerals.

I would be giving him ad lib soaked hay, not just a small amount of it. Daft as it sounds you may find he will lose more weight by doing that as at the moment his body could be in starvation mode and hanging on to any available fat.
 
If you want something low calorie to put a supplement in then try Allen & Page Fast Fibre. Because you soak it (takes about a minute), it expands and makes a little feed look more than it is, plus is easy to mix a supplement into. It has a low calorie count of 8 MJDE/kg and is very low in starch and sugar as well. You should only need to use a very tiny amount every day.
 
What about something like Happy Hoof (or Dengie Healthy hooves/Mollichaff Hoofkind are all simialr alternatives), it's a complete chaff like feed which is suitable for good doers/laminitics, you could always add a balancer if you wanted to just feed a small amount of it, or add a few high fibre cubes for taste.
 
i'd use a tiny bit of fast fibre :) a soaked feed is great for hiding stuff in ;)
alternativly - if you'd prefer a chaff - maybe try the new dengie no mollassed hi-fi :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top