Naf Haylage Balancer?

Pearlsasinger

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Does any-one use this?

We normally feed haylage and Pink Powder to our 3 but the feed store didn't have any just before Christmas, so I got the Haylage Balancer, instead. I checked the ingredients and as far as I could tell (the print was small and my eyes are not what they used to be, lol) they were pretty much the same.
We fed it for about 5 days until we went for a hack on Tuesday and they were both quite silly. My sensible Draft horse was threatening to canter on the road! On the hack the day before, they'd been a bit 'on their toes' as well. The retired cob had also seemed more anxious/agitated recently. We thought about it and all that had changed was the balancer.
We then thought about the fact that the Appy hasn't been quite herself this Summer and realised that they'd been having PP all summer. We started feeding it when the Draft horse came last Jan and got a runny tum from changing to haylage.
We've stopped feeding the balancer and are hoping that now that they are eating haylage from the same supplier all the time and are used to it, we won't need to add anything else.
Has any-one else had any problems? Or has any-one any thoughts?
 

Pearlsasinger

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Thanks, I have seen discussions about Pink Powder before but tbf, it did seem to do the job for ours without ill effects. Although we are now wondering if the Appy's loss of performance was linked to it.
We can't think of anything else which could have caused the change in behaviour this week.
 

Oberon

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The only way to be sure is to see how your horses manage without.

The benefits you were hoping to gain from PP can be gained from brewer's yeast (keeps the hind gut's microflora happy) and magnesium (I won't patronise you by going on about magnesium, I'm sure you know) at a fraction of the cost of PP.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BREWERS-Y...ar_Equipment&hash=item415bde5a39#ht_970wt_952
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/85-MAGNES...r_Equipment&hash=item3f10dc198c#ht_1217wt_952

I get very confused by the term 'balancer'. I don't understand what it is supposed to be balancing?

If they need 'more' than the haylage, then please consider a mineral supplement.

Without a forage analysis, it is guesswork as to what your horses may need, but there are two products on the market that are the closest you'll get. The benefits to the horses are often astounding. They were with my elderly horse.
 

Pearlsasinger

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Thanks for your replies.

They do all have access to a Himalayan salt lick overnight. The Draft horse was very enthusiastic about hers at first. She doesn't go through them so quickly now. She was the one who we felt need some support for her gut when we first got her and swapped her onto haylage from the hay she had had with her previous owners. The retired cob also seemed to find the haylage a bit rich, when we changed supplier at around the same time as we got the Draft horse.

We have certainly stopped giving the Haylage Balancer and definitely won't give the Appy PP again - the others seem to have been ok on that.

Fingers crossed that their guts have become used to the haylage, if not it may well be that Brewers' Yeast is the answer.

TBH I should know better than to bother with supplements, we've had endless trouble caused by various ones over the years.
 

coss

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i won't feed anything from NAF - partly due to all the fillers and partly because something as basic as seaweed from NAF upset my horses yet other brands are fine!
 

Pearlsasinger

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A long, long time ago we bought some unbranded seaweed to feed to our horses, who were all used to seaweed. We had to lead them from their field, across another biggish field to the yard, which we did every night to fee them in the stables. One evening we had dreadful problems with them all leaping about/generally being awkward to lead, quite dangerous in one case.
We spoke to the vet about it and after investigating the water supply in the field, and a few other things, said that he could only think that they had been poisoned by mould in the seaweed.
We've avoided seaweed ever since!
 

cptrayes

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I feed Naf haylage balancer to 3 barefooters with no problems. My friend feeds it to 4 more and another to another 1.

I use it because it balances the acidity of haylage and because it has pre-biotics and yea-sacc in it, and it is easier and cheaper to feed than pre-biotics and yea-sacc sourced separately. I promptly unbalance it by adding both copper and calmag to counter the heavy manganese and iron in my grazing :) but all the horses are doing very well on it, especially the two laminitic prone ones, after a bad spell when I couldn't get them to eat the new batch of brewers yeast I bought.

Seaweed shouldn't really be recommended unless you know that you are light in iron and iodine. It can cause an overload if your land is already heavy in either and a lot of land is high in iron.
 

coss

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I feed Naf haylage balancer to 3 barefooters with no problems. My friend feeds it to 4 more and another to another 1.

I use it because it balances the acidity of haylage and because it has pre-biotics and yea-sacc in it, and it is easier and cheaper to feed than pre-biotics and yea-sacc sourced separately. I promptly unbalance it by adding both copper and calmag to counter the heavy manganese and iron in my grazing :) but all the horses are doing very well on it, especially the two laminitic prone ones, after a bad spell when I couldn't get them to eat the new batch of brewers yeast I bought.

Seaweed shouldn't really be recommended unless you know that you are light in iron and iodine. It can cause an overload if your land is already heavy in either and a lot of land is high in iron.

i let my horse tell me if he's had enough :p - he'll go through a phase of not eating his feed, i reduce additives... from time to time build them back up and if he stops eating i cut it down again. Made a huge difference to his hooves.
 

Pearlsasinger

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I use it because it balances the acidity of haylage and because it has pre-biotics and yea-sacc in it, and it is easier and cheaper to feed than pre-biotics and yea-sacc sourced separately.

Just what I thought, when I originally bought the PP, then the HB.


I promptly unbalance it by adding both copper and calmag to counter the heavy manganese and iron in my grazing :) but all the horses are doing very well on it, especially the two laminitic prone ones, after a bad spell when I couldn't get them to eat the new batch of brewers yeast I bought.

.

Interestingly, the Draft horse, who was the one who I thought was most in need, wasn't keen on eating HB mixed with a handful of Graze-on and left it until she had nothing else to do. I think I should have taken notice of her!
 

Zebedee

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I feed the NAF haylage balancer to my old mare who is now in her late 20's. Can't comment on whether or not she's become sharper as she's retired & has always been a bit of a livewire anyway! What I can say is that since she's been on it her dung is more solid & now holds some shape instaed of just being a splat pile.
 

Zebedee

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A long, long time ago we bought some unbranded seaweed to feed to our horses, who were all used to seaweed. We had to lead them from their field, across another biggish field to the yard, which we did every night to fee them in the stables. One evening we had dreadful problems with them all leaping about/generally being awkward to lead, quite dangerous in one case.
We spoke to the vet about it and after investigating the water supply in the field, and a few other things, said that he could only think that they had been poisoned by mould in the seaweed.
We've avoided seaweed ever since!

Seaweed needs to have been sourced from outside of British waters due to the high levels of Mercury found in seaweed from our waters.
 

Pearlsasinger

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I feed the NAF haylage balancer to my old mare who is now in her late 20's. Can't comment on whether or not she's become sharper as she's retired & has always been a bit of a livewire anyway! What I can say is that since she's been on it her dung is more solid & now holds some shape instaed of just being a splat pile.

Thanks for that!

We've been giving PP to our always well-mannered 30 yr old (who has been with us over 20 yrs) for about a year now and certainly her droppings have been much firmer than when we first gave her haylage. Then she's had HB for almost a week. She started banging on the door at feedtime recently, we stopped giving her either supplement 2 days ago and she wasn't banging today.

I must admit, i was hoping that some-one was going to say, 'oh yes it turned mine loopy'. No-one has, so perhaps it's just ours. It's odd though that all 3 of them seem to have been affected.
 
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