opinions on mix and nuts

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Timmys Mum

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I was talking to a friend the other day about feed and she said that pony nuts and cool mix is what people feed their horses so they don't feel bad over the winter. she recommended me to put my pony on conditioning mix and chaff with water instead of speedibeet. I'm a bit confused because I was taught at college that mix/nuts are complete feeds which keep the weight on but are not heating. I intend to keep my moderately chilled 14.2 (who's in light work at most atm) on what I've fed him every winter since I got him; chaff, mix and a bit of speedibeet, but I wanted to see if anyone out there shared her views? what would you suggest? and is there any preference between mix and nuts?
 
Any mix or nuts is only a complete feed if feed at the daily rate recommended by the manufacturer - normally 2kg a day. Under the RDA your horse won't get the daily amount of vitamins and minerals and you might then want to feed a balancer or vitamin supplement in addition to the hard feed.

Any mix or nuts may be heating and some are specifically designed to add oomph whilst some are marketed as not being heating at all, so you're not quite correct in thinking they keep weight on but don't heat horses up. For example a high fibre cube/mix 'shouldn't' heat horses up and a competition or instant energy cube/mix possibly will.

You also need to consider your horses type and workload when looking whether a chosen feed will add weight.

In general when comparing a mix and a nut of they same brand & type the mix will be a lot higher in starch - for example if you compare Baileys Topline Conditioning Mix and Baileys Topline Conditioning Cubes you will see a difference in starch levels and this is normally the same whichever manufacturer and comparable mix/cube you look at.

At a recent feed talk given by a local vet he said that cubes are harder to digest for horses but if I fed a hard feed I would choose a cube over a mix on most occasions due to the starch levels as mentioned above.
 
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