oats v copra v re-leve?

[Matafleur]

I'm getting to the stage where I will be needing to feed my horse a bit more feed, I needed to strip a bit of weight off him after summer but he now looks great and I want to maintain that.

He is currently turned out for a minimum of 14 hours and comes in during the day for me to ride and to eat his hard feed. There is loads of grass in the field but obviously the quality is dropping off now. He gets ad lib hay whilst in and hard feed of:

Half scoop of rolled, soaked oats
Mug and a half of micro linseed
Salt
Pro balance
Scoop of healthy hooves molasses free

I was feeding a bit of speedibeet but he really isn't keen and just picks it out, if I put too much in he just won't touch the feed.

He isn't the type to hot up I don't think but he's barefoot so I need to consider that when choosing feed.

Am I better upping the oats, which he at least seems to like, or trying something like 're-leve? What quantity of oats can I safely feed if needs be?

I should add that I'm happy with his current conditions but his work will be increasing while the grass quality declines.

 

[criso]

I combine Oats with Copra as the latter gives more slow release energy and a good protein amino acid profile. However it is quite fattening so I would be a little wary of giving it to to a horse that has needed to lose weight. Mine are Tbs (both barefoot) while not poor doers don't tend to fat either.

Can't comment on releve as having had problems with allergies in the past, I don't feed compound feeds of any sort.

 

[Matafleur]

I combine Oats with Copra as the latter gives more slow release energy and a good protein amino acid profile. However it is quite fattening so I would be a little wary of giving it to to a horse that has needed to lose weight. Mine are Tbs (both barefoot) while not poor doers don't tend to fat either.

Can't comment on releve as having had problems with allergies in the past, I don't feed compound feeds of any sort.

I would prefer to avoid a compound feed but I'm a bit worried he may not eat the Copra, he's not the best eater of hard food anyway and I worry he will get worse as he gets fitter. I'm also less worried about the weight gain aspect, he put on most of the weight whilst on an 8 week break on very good grass. He looked very well all summer in light work, I just pulled him off the grass if I felt he was getting a bit too well! His work will increase a lot this coming year so I'm hoping the weight won't be a problem.

Do you find the Copra difficult to source? I'm pretty sure my local place don't do it which will probably mean ordering online from somewhere...

 

[criso]

Not too difficult to source in Herts, 3 places locally stock it and one is the place that supplies a lot of smaller merchants. If you contact Coolstance they will tell you the local supplier.

I have one greedy horse and one fussy one. The fussy one has to have anything new introduced very slowly over weeks and I accept it will be a battle but once he did he now licks the bowl clean. Where it does help me is that mr fussy won't do huge feeds so having something quite concentrated works for him.