Suggestions for weight gaining feed...........

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mandk

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<font color="blue"> I have a TB who needs to gain weight. We are feeding him Baileys no.4, started feeding this this week.

He is not in any work and purely at grass (we do not have stables at present), he is rugged up nice and cosy, but only as necessary.

Baileys no.4 is over £10 per bag - does anyone know of a cheaper alternative for good and quick weight gain feed. He is pure TB and is not in work -so no mind blowing stuff please!!

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What are you feeding alongside the no 4? TBH all the conditioning feeds are v. expensive now - Baileys No 17 is around £14 where we are, Winergy Condition is good but you need to feed loads and would cost approx £25 per week
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Personally, I'd go for as much alfa a / alfa oil as you can get into him with a good dose of sugar beet. If he's only in light work then this would be fine. Also ad lib haylage if you can.
 
I used barley nuggets when I first got my TB but I did ride him also so not sure if that would be a mind blower. What about conditioning cubes?
 
my 3/4 Tb is on baileys no4, sugar beet (buy it for 5.90 a bag, 24hour soak pellets) which is cost effective and very good for weight gain, and alfa a, plus loads of hayledge
i would say the best bet is try sugar beet alongside your no4, slow releasing energy, and wont drain your bank
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My new TB mare is underweight as well and in the two weeks that I've had her, she's put on about 5 kilos with my giving her a full stubbs scoop of Alpha oil chaff, same scoop of Bailey's conditioning cubes, and then 6 cups of soaked Fibre beet with chopped apples and carrots mixed in as a morning feed and night feed (she gets a big haynet at night and is turned out all day on good grass).

I'm in the same boat as you as I find the Bailey's expensive too but the thing I like about them is that there isn't high starch levels, no molasses and no barley. Spiller's cubes have barley in them and I know they used to send my old loan Arab wappy on them. The only other thing is Allen and Page Calm and Condition cubes which are a bit cheaper than Baileys. I thought about getting them next time as they are near identical in nutrients.
 
You can't go far wrong with the Baileys number 4. I would be a little wary of sugar beet, it sent my TB loopy! The clue is in the name "sugar"
The fibre beet might be your best bet.

Although there is no substitute for ad lib hay or haylage even if he is out at grass!
 
I've had my TB for 4 weeks now, and have been feeding Baileys no 4 for about 2 weeks plus sugar beet and Alfa A. It is really putting the weight on him, so I am considering changing to a different mix/cubes when I have finished the no 4! So maybe it wont take that long for your TB to put some condition on? The sugarbeet and ad-lib haylage also seem to really help my boy
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Are you feeding him adlib hay in the field as well? Hay or haylage is usually the cheapest way (apart from grazing) to get weight on, so ensure that he is getting as much roughage as you can get into him, then you will find he needs less bucket feed.

Beet is a good cheap source of calories - use unmolassed beet if you want to avoid sugars that might heat him up - pelleted unmollassed beet is usually cheaper than Speedibeet if you can get it . You can feed beet alongside the Baileys. Supermarket vegetable oil is also a very cost-effective form of calories and also gives a great shiny coat. Start by adding 100ml oil a day to the beet, and work up to about 400ml a day.
 
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You can't go far wrong with the Baileys number 4. I would be a little wary of sugar beet, it sent my TB loopy! The clue is in the name "sugar"
The fibre beet might be your best bet.


[/ QUOTE ] Were you feeding molassed beet or unmolassed beet? Sugar beet is actually the residue of the beet after the sugar has been extracted, so unmollassed beet is only 5% sugar. However, molassed sugar beet has extra molasses added, so is about 20% sugar!
 
I swear by Allen and Page calm and condition and its cheaper than the No.4. Sugar beet sends my boy really wappy. He's also on Alfa a original although I'm swapping him onto the Alfa oil because he has unlimited access to his horslyx at night (i swear by it for his vits and mins and a nice shiny coat and also to keep him entertained during the night!!(also stops him walking round his stable all night, making him easier to muck out in am!)). Therefore I think he has a lot of molasses in his diet and the Alfa oil doesnt have any. Also I thought I could cut down on the calm and condition ration if he's on the Alfa oil, reducing my feed bills slightly!
 
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Supermarket vegetable oil is also a very cost-effective form of calories

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I would tend to go for corn oil rather than vegetable oil as it is generally made from rapeseed oil, and some horses have reactions to it
An older arab (27) at work has had problems putting on weight recently - the vet suggested oil, but we had terribly difficulty in getting him to eat it - he loves his Alfa-A, but won't touch their oil variety, and he definitely wouldn't eat corn oil added to his feed. We ended up giving him Bailey's Outshine, and he has piled the pounds on!
 
If you google Equivite Bodybuilder , It is a great Condition building Feed supplement , Is based on Milk pellets , Non heating , you can get some good deals for buying in bulk online . I used it on a very underweight arab mare I had , and she picked up really well , in around two weekls and she was seriously thin !!!
 
Rapeseed oil has a better ratio of Omega 3s to Omega 6s than all the common vegetable-based oils apart from linseed oil, which is why I choose to feed it. Must say I have never had one with a reaction to it, but I'm sure that for every feed ingredient you can find horses that are intolerant to it!

The oil-rich supplements such as Outshine and Equijewel are very useful for horses who won't don't find straight oil palatable - but they do work out extremely expensive. For example, here is a breakdown of how much it costs to feed 10 MJ of digestible energy (calories) from vegetable oil, Equijewel and Outshine.

Outshine = 72p
Equijewel = 94p
Vegetable (rapeseed oil) = 33p

Incidently the oil in the Equijewel supplement is rapeseed oil!
 
One of our mares ended up with pneumonia due to a severe reaction to rapeseed, so I won't feed products that are made from it. As in humans (not everyone has a peanut allergy!) not all horses are going to have a reaction, but we were advised by our vets to feed corn oil over rapeseed oil (this is for the horses at work, completely unrelated to my mare, and different to the practice that I use at home).
 
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One of our mares ended up with pneumonia due to a severe reaction to rapeseed,

[/ QUOTE ] Was that the oil or the pollen?
 
QR - I would stick with the Baileys no 4 and add alfa-oil. You could always try pink powder as well, as it helps the digestion and therefore they get more out of their food.

You can't beat good quality, ad lib hay for TBs either.
 
corn oil or soya oil from supermarkets, up to 500 mls per day but i doubt your horse would eat something this oily.. a lot of people tend to put a cup in each feed?
hope this helps xxxx
 
I am going to second the Equivite Bodybuilder as I used i when I first bought my boy and he needed a building up and extra weight and it was fab and I didnt find it hard on the purse strings either. I am very careful what I feed him as to much sugar sends him loopy loo but he was fine with this and just about to get some more as he has dropped a little this winter.
 
Can you use Equivite Bodybuilder with Baileys No.4 and maybe some oil?

I am feeding sugar beet and molichop with Baileys no.4. Gonna buy Alfalfa next time. He has plenty of grass still, but obviously not much goodness left in it. We will be buying some good hay.
 
plenty of grass, hay/hayledge
at stables where my loan pony is, me and my friend muck out feed and bring in all of them..
1 is quite old, 20 i think and is losing weight coz of loss of decent grass, he has scoop of sugarbeet and cup of oil in his feed, this is keeping it on at the mo

the other one is the same, he was a rescue pony, about 12 hh, 29 years old! hes so good, and i know this is nothing to do with it but he is in a field with two arabs. soo.. me and my friend go and get the two arabs inn, leave field gate open and tie arabs up outside to hose their feet off, anyway, papp [the old on] follows behind, goes past them tied up, tootle into the stables, goes past 5 open stable doors, all with feeds in, and goes straight to his box and eats his food.. ho cute!!


sorryyyyyyy xxxxx
 
Yes that would be fine. Personally I would feed the sugar beet,chaff and baileys and just add the bodybuilder in to it. They are just like milk pellets. Good hay is essential to everything I think so you will probably notice a difference adding that in with the grass etc. I dont think I would bother with the Alfalfa if it was me, just extra cost that you dont need to spend at the moment.
 
I use Hickstead Conditioning Cubes and Hickstead Conditioning Mix on my TB which has seen him gain a good amount of weight but not add any fizz.

He has 1.5 scoops (Long thin scoops, not round ones) of sugar beet, 1 mix, 1 cubes and double handful of chaff twice a day with vegetable oil in both and some carrots. Having written it down it does seem a lot but he is hunting 3 days a fortnight and doing a serious amount of work at the moment!!
 
Ad lib quality haylage, better than any condition feed you can buy, and much more cost effective, i have never fed a condition feed scince using haylege.
 
Yep, that article says that pure supermarket oils are fine (which would include pure rapeseed oil), it is blended oils from a variety of sources which can cause problems. Some vegetable oils are a blend, some are pure rapeseed oil - check the label if you are unsure.

ETA: Another link which recommends the feeding of pure vegetable oil (in section on management of laminitics)

http://www.horsefeeds.co.uk/laminitis.html
 
I would make sure that his teeth have been done recently (allows them to actually chew the food so that he can process it) and that he has a probiotic, something like pink powder to kick start his gut.

Then I would feed lots of small meals of conditioning cubes (although these sent my anglo loopy) and speedi-beet or some other reduced-molasses sugar beet. Oil can be added as well, but this also sent my anglo loopy.

Also make sure that he has adlib grass/hay etc.

When I had to put weight on my anglo this is what I did (except used fibre cubes instead of the conditioning cubes) and he was fed 4 or 5 meals a day. I tried simple systems but he just got bored of the food after 2 weeks so went back to the above and he put the weight on really quickly once he was on the pink powder.

Supplement wise I used linseed (really good for condition) and fenugreek which should be used with garlic to work properly but my boy cant have garlic.

Although as others have said, barley rings (fairly cheap) and milk pellets are also good, although not used either myself.
 
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