New horse - what feed to use?

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surreygirl17

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I have my new horse arriving next weekend and need to think about hard feed. He has been out at grass since broken last year with no hard feed so nothing to go on there. He is obviously a good doer as was out without a rug and just grass/hay over last winter which was pretty harsh in mid-Wales!
He is a welsh D gelding and will be on grass livery with ad-lib hay in the winter, grass only in the summer. I need to get him some hard feed for when he is ridden but I have no idea where to start. He is only going to be in light work, hacking and a bit of schooling, until he gets comfortable with being ridden etc. I will ramp it up next summer if all is going well.
Can anyone suggest what to feed him? I'm a bit nervous of giving him colic as he's not used to hard feed.
 
If it was me, I'd just be looking at feeding a suitable balancer or vit/min supplement. For me, the only 2 balancers I'm happy to feed at the moment are Dengie Alfa A balancer or one of the Blue Chip balancers, but the main criterion for me is whether it has around 1mg of selenium per 500kg horse per day as organic selenium (aka selenium yeast or selplex). I say this because my good doers have had a long term dietary selenium deficiency through me not giving vits/mins (and not realising the grass/hay was deficient). Supplementing with a balancer with inorganic selenium (sodium selenite) for 10 months did not result in any improvement (they all had raised muscle enzymes and work intolerance from muscle damage), whereas within 4-5 months of being on organic selenium the enzyme levels were much improved.

Probably worth having your hay and grass tested as a starting point so that you can see how deficient you are (or aren't) in different minerals. It's common to be deficient in copper and zinc, and often in selenium too. But do make sure that you compare the results with NRC recommended levels, as some forage analyses just indicate minerals as "low", "average" or "high" with absolutely no indication of whether the level is above or below recommended levels.

Whatever balancer or vits/mins you opt for, just give them with a handful of chaff (I opt for Topspec Top Chop Lite chaff), and add about 500ml water to damp it all down to reduce the risk of choke.

You shouldn't need anything other than that.

Sarah
 
Thanks. Can I clarify if this is a feed you'd give every day or just after being ridden? I'm wanting the latter. My previous share horse was on a leisure/pasture mix, cooling pencils and some alfa-a, with sugar beet in the winter but it wasn't scientifically done and it was a one size fits all attitude to feeding!

How much is it to get grass analysed? And who does it?

I will definitely be adding water, watched my friend's youngster have choke once and it was awful. Have added water ever since even in winter.
 
horses do better with a routine, so if you are going to give a feed its best to feed roughly the same time daily(not rigidly to the hour but either am or pm) i would suggest only feed a balancer at first until you and your new horse know each other and are both confident. there are too many posts on here from new horse owners who have changed the horses management and then cant cope with them, its not necessary to give a big feed as long as he has plenty of fibre in the form of grass/hay/haylage . dont forget when he arrives we need piccies please!!!!!!!!
 
Whatever feed you give should be given daily, preferably split into two feeds, if you are concerned about colic giving a feed only after riding would be one way of contributing to that risk. They need to get used to a diet, the guts take time to adjust so by feeding irregular meals you are potentially doing far more harm than good, if he is a good doer in light work he would probably be best just having hay if you are unable to feed daily and on adlib hay he should be fine.
 
With regard to grass/hay analysis, bear in mind that grass/hay will vary over the seasons and you can pay for a test one month and then depending on the weather the following months the tests will produce another set of results.

Because of this fluctuaion; for my natives (as your horse is ) I make sure they have access to a mineral lick ( which has selenium, copper etc) and a salt lick. The horses know what they need and when, at certain times they can go without touching the lick and then there are months when thy are wanting more of it.

If you want to go with a balancer as flintfootfilly has suggested; I would look at the The Dengie balancer it is a better price and Dengie have a good reputation.

Mine live out, have access to grass in summer, hay in the winter, year round access to mineral and salt licks, in the winter they get chaff and vegetables and that is it. They all have plenty of energy for hacking etc my 23 year old has more then enough energy.

Let us know how your horse settles in - you must be excited.
 
texel said:
With regard to grass/hay analysis, bear in mind that grass/hay will vary over the seasons and you can pay for a test one month and then depending on the weather the following months the tests will produce another set of results.

Because of this fluctuaion; for my natives (as your horse is ) I make sure they have access to a mineral lick ( which has selenium, copper etc) and a salt lick. The horses know what they need and when, at certain times they can go without touching the lick and then there are months when thy are wanting more of it.

If you want to go with a balancer as flintfootfilly has suggested; I would look at the The Dengie balancer it is a better price and Dengie have a good reputation.

Mine live out, have access to grass in summer, hay in the winter, year round access to mineral and salt licks, in the winter they get chaff and vegetables and that is it. They all have plenty of energy for hacking etc my 23 year old has more then enough energy.

Let us know how your horse settles in - you must be excited.
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Thanks for that. Much as I appreciate everyone's advice, I would be concerned that feeding a big hard feed every day (and twice at that would be too much for the work he would be doing and for his type. He'll have a rug on as well because I don't want to spend all my life scraping mud off him this winter (plus not fair on my trainer when she comes to work him)!! I've been around Welsh D's for 5 years and I don't want him getting fat and laminitic like one I have known!! I will get a balancer for him and a lick and see how we get on. If we need more, I'll increase it. I have emailed both Dengie and Allen&Page for their advice and will see if I can arrange something with the YO to give him a feed on days I can't get there due to shifts.

And yes I am very excited but a little nervous. I do have photos but can't work out how to get them on here.
 
be positive said:
Whatever feed you give should be given daily, preferably split into two feeds, if you are concerned about colic giving a feed only after riding would be one way of contributing to that risk. They need to get used to a diet, the guts take time to adjust so by feeding irregular meals you are potentially doing far more harm than good, if he is a good doer in light work he would probably be best just having hay if you are unable to feed daily and on adlib hay he should be fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I wasn't aware of that, so maybe adlib hay only for now. Sounds crazy but that's what the owner of my share horse asks for so never questioned it (you can't really question her).
 
I've tried to add photos to my sig...........let's see if it works! (ps that's not me in the photo!)
The top two were taken either last summer or this one by the previous owner. I took the one in the school in August........scarily he still looks bum-high in that one!
 
If your grass/hay doesn't meet nutritional requirements in terms of minerals, then vit/min supplement or balancer is essential. Chances are that it will be deficient in copper and zinc, and about 70% of the UK is believed to be selenium-deficient too..... so it doesn't matter whether your horse is working or not, it is essential to give vits/mins to avoid problems due to deficiencies.

Some people don't give one, and I used to be one of them, and I'm still paying for that in terms of chronic muscle problems....... hence why I'm trying to help ensure others understand that grass/hay alone is really not enough in most cases.

A friend who has her pony at livery prepares a weeks worth of balancer on one day, and leaves it measured out in a set of small feed containers, ready for someone at the yard to feed each day.

Probably worth checking with a few of the feed companies, but if it is impossible to give balancer every day, then I'd look to give the right total weight over the week, split between however many days you are able to be up there.

However, each meal must be kept small, ideally no more than 1kg at a time (to avoid overloading the stomach and causing some food to be pushed through the stomach too quickly).

If you are only giving a balancer, then there's no need to split between morning and evening as the total amount will probably be only 500g plus about 200g of chaff.

I doubt you'll need any other hard feed as such.

Beware the molassed mineral licks which some horses/ponies just guzzle because of the high sugar content. I never give those, but some who do only give their horse access for a few minutes a day.

If you just have a Rockies-type salt lick, some types do contain some other minerals, but they do not contain sufficient to provide a balanced diet.

I use a company called Sciantec, based at Cawood, Selby to do forage analysis, and it's their mineral analysis that I find particularly helpful. It was around £40 for the mineral analysis, and about £15 for the basic nutrient analysis. Well worth it, especially if you are even vaguely thinking of not giving any vits/mins! At least you'll have a baseline idea of which things are low or high, and can go from there in terms of choosing the balancer which best matches the forage.

Sarah
 
I would start off with just grazing if that is what he is used to. Welshies are generally very good doers and the last thing you need is to feed him up as it will be a nightmare to get weight off him.
Perhaps go with a low-cal balancer like Baileys or Top Spec to be sure he's getting a good all round level of vits and mins, and then build on from that if necessary, depending on how he is looking and performing over the next few weeks/months into winter? Feeding can be a minefield theres so many different feeds out the nowadays to tempt you and make you think you're a bad owner if you don't do this that and the other, but in reality its far easier for you and better for your horse in the long run to try to keep things as simple as you can.
 
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