Oats - great suggestion for poor doer

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Polos Mum

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A big thanks to the poster who recommended oats on one of the poor doer threads.

I'd tried barley rings for 2 months - no change
charnwood linseed - 20kg sack in 6 weeks - no change and he didn't like eating often left it
Been building up oats for 4 days now and I've just been to feed him lunch and he scrapped at the door as I was making the feed up!!!

He's not done that all winter - so happy at least if he likes it I can get a fair bit in and hopefully it'll tide him over until the grass comes.

He's having all of the above with sugar beet and Alfa A oil and extra veg oil - three times a day.

14 hh companion that was previously v good doer but this winter hasn't done well at all - Oh and has a tooth issue so doesn't eat much hay/ haylage/ soaked hay or chopped up hay (tried all in vain!)
 
I'll be interested to know whether it puts condition on - I have a poor doer who was an ex racer, so probably used to oats, but he has a history of gastric ulcers so I am wary of too much starch for him.
 
I'm keeping my fingers crossed, although TBH I'll be happier if the dam grass starts growing and then I'll have no way of knowing whether it was the oats or grass !!

I appreciate it's not ideal in his feet but life is a compromise for me and he needs condition more than I need to be ultra careful about his feet (which have always been fab and unshod)
 
Didn't see your other thread- i went away 8years ago middle of summer and my poor doer wasn't fed like we asked, he lost so much weight which needed piling on before winter. We used powdered lambs milk mixed up correctly and then put in his feed to bulk him up it worked great. Also sugar beet is great for gaining weight.
 
We used to fee our oldies a mixture of stud cubes and high fibre cubes, with sugar beet as well to put on weight. It was all soaked down like a porridge too as they didn't have many teeth left either!

Think wecould all do with some grass coming through now. I think all of ours, even thosewho usually are pretty well covered all through winter, are looking a bit light at the moment.

You could maybe get him some Graze-on to help with this as it's essentially just dried grass.
 
Some great suggestions - many thanks

Next year I'll be getting him into winter with more weight on to start with, I've always watched him to keep his weight down! so this year has really taken me by supprise.

Grass nuts sound good as does Graze on (although I'm sure that's the name of a weedkiller too!) - He needs to be out quite a bit to help his breathing hence the high calorie options rather than grass substitutes. If the weather doesn't improve as currently promised middle of this week I'll have to compromise his turn out to get him eating fake grass in the stable!

I have some farrowmate (left over from our pigs which I might try) - never thought of that before.
 
All my feeds are based around grass nuts. The one who needed more condition gets fenugreek & brewers yeast as well. She's gone from picky to eating everything & licking bowl out. Coat lovely, nice amount of weight on coming into work. If outs to starchy for you, try the f&by to normal feed.
 
I already use grass nuts, as well as as much haylage as he can get himself outside of, alfalfa pellets and speedybeet, micronised linseed............and even some whey powder (= protein, as used by body builders) I was given for him. I imagine that is similar to the milk powder, although someone told me once adult horses couldn't digest milk once their systems reached maturity?
The only things I haven't really tried are cereal based.
 
My lad is putting weight and muscle on with ers pellets and releve.he's 17.2 so its quite hard to get weight on, plus he's very fussy and only manages tiny meals!!!hence they are split in three to six feeds per day.
 
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