Should I feed a balancer?

[floradora09]

I have a TB who's been doing well recently, has been on better spring grass but now there's not as much left. Since the winter he's been fed about 2 scoops of Alfa Oil a day and 2 1/2 scoops (the recommended amount for him) of Baileys top line conditioning cubes (no. 4) and is looking wonderful. In the last month or two I've cut his feed right down as he wasn't eating it all and is looking rather well! So now he's on 1/2 scoop of each a day. But obviously he's not getting all his vits and mins he needs anymore.. so should I swap to Baileys performance balancer? Does this provide any calories or is it purely vitamins? Do you think he would be able to get the required energy levels from just the balancer and Alfa Oil?

Thanks xx

 

[TGM]

A balancer will usually provide protein as well as vit/mins, and will contain some calories. They also usually contain a probiotic yeast which is meant to create optimum conditions in the gut for fibre digestion, so ensuring the horse gets the maximum benefit from the forage it eats.

You don't say what your horses temperament or workload is like, so difficult to advise whether the feed will supply enough energy (ie calories) for his needs, but I can say that a lot of horses do perform and compete well on similar diets of balancer plus chaff, given that they are getting decent forage as well. The great thing is with balancers is that you can adjust the amounts of chaff/beet fed with it according to the horse's energy levels and condition, knowing that the amount of vit/mins will still be sufficient.

What might be a sensible plan is to decrease the cubes at the same time you introduce the balancer. So if you feed half the recommended amount of cubes, feed half the recommended amount of balancer. Then phase out the cubes completely and just feed the balancer with chaff. You will need to keep an eye on the quality of the grazing though if this dry spell continues, and if necessary feed some hay/haylage or extra fibre-based bucket feed (ie alfalfa, grass products, beet etc).

 

[floradora09]

Thank you very much TGM! If anything in the summer when it's hot he gets a little laid back, but his temperament is usually mostly affected by the weather, not feed. The only time he's been 'off' was when he didn't have enough grazing in the winter and became quite quiet. Normally he's ridden about 5-6 times a week, which includes a couple of hacks, 45mins hard work in the school a couple of times, and usually a competition of some sort (be it SJ, Dr, xc schooling, HT, ODE etc). The baileys performance balancer does contain protein for muscles etc I think.

I know that he used to be kept just on a balancer and chaff and did fine, so I expect it'll be ok. As you said, at least I can change the amounts of chaff/alfa beet depending on amount of grazing but know that his vit requirements are still being met..

 

[Luci07]

Please post up your results on the performance balancer if you go that route. My youngster started on it yesterday as I particularly wanted it for the muscle repair/developent (it has amino acids, struggled to find another balancer that did), normal vits and mins (which theoretically he should get his his hard feed) but also has a probiotic as he can be a little stressy.