Trend for not feeding for requirements?

A

ApolloStorm

Well-Known Member
Joined
30 May 2012
Messages
449
Visit site
Being my yards resident sticky bum. A few liveries have asked me to get on their horses because they are being "nutty".
Invariably all of these horses aren't in regular work or just hacking once a week, yet are fed enough for a horse in regular hard work.
To give an example, an 8year old TB not in work at all, barely turned out. Has thrown 3 people off in the past week and has dire ground manners. is fed 1 Stubbs of Alfa a oil, 1 Stubbs of equerry conditioning mash, small scoop top spec cool condition cubes and comprehensive balancer, per feed! Given horse looks very well but is so full of itself the owner won't handle it!
It seems bonkers to me to not reduce feed intake of horses like this. Anybody else ?
 
I'm with you, I see people's horses being fed loads of hard feed, not worked enough and then they're hard to ride and handle. Whatever happened to feeding according to work done, not work anticipated?
 
Not only bonkers to keep stuffing feed into them but to my mind it is negligent to keep horses shut in 24/7 with no proper exercise, most horses will be nutty with no work and no turnout whatever they are fed, the obvious exception being those box rested for some reason.
 
Id up the work and turnout rather than reduce the feed if at all possible, especially with TBs as they soon lose their topline if not fed enough. But basically I agree, why stuff food and supplements into a horse that doesnt need it?
 
Lack of knowledge I would guess. My mare use to be a fruit loop, so never had hard feed. She was luckily a very good doer. She's only been on feeds since she's been retired and has less grazing
 
I think it's quite common. All too often I see horses being fed all sorts of hard feed, oils and supplements when it really isn't necessary. Retired horses on Alfa....happy hackers on conditioning cubes and so on.
 
In theory I agree. 100%. I had my horse almost fat cause I had him on massive amounts of forage and he was getting his feed reduced. Then I got my haylage significantly cut by yard and have had to up the feed again just to keep weight on. Not my choice but it is what it is. He's worked about three to five times a week but he's not eventing or anything lol
 
I visit several yards where almost all the horses (mainly happy hackers and prelim dressage) have EMS, laminitis - middle of winter and no turn out, behavioural issues, have to be sedated to have anything done to them and ulcers. Their feed rooms look like an advert for a feed supplement company.
I also visit a riding school where all the horses are fed soaked grass nuts, unmolassed pulp and chop. The horses all look really well and have to carry weekend riders and beginners. They have over forty to feed so it must be cost effective and as the owner says, she can't afford accidents.
Whatever happened to the good old golden rules of feeding, especially the one of Feed according to age, type, size, temperament and work done!
Plenty of hay, and actually fat in the form of oil is good for slow release energy without too much fizz.
I once bought a horse in an auction. He came into the ring looking like a show cob, dragging a girl on a rope, and generally behaving like a circus horse.
An old dealer next to me said 'There ain't a lot wrong with him a few bran mashes wouldn't cure!'
I bought him for peanuts and he turned out to be a bit of a star., evented on a handful of nuts up to intermediate.
 
People just don't understand horses, or exercising full stop. There seems to be some delusion that cantering around and around the school is a hard workout for a horse so they need more feed or three days off to 'recover', yet they happily take their steed out at the weekend for an hour's trip in the box and jump six rounds of 2'3"-2'9" because they fancy it without a second thought.

I think people think I'm mad, I don't get to ride terribly regularly, or for terribly long, but I spend a long time walking and on transitions and on long hacks practicing flexion and different transitions in walk and trot. I feel mine has a good baseline of fitness so if I want to pop a couple of jumps, I can; if I want to do some 'proper' schooling, I can; if I want to just have a plod around; I can because he isn't super-fit, nor is he being fed inappropriately.

I always thing plenty of good forage is better for horses than any hard feed. It's what they're supposed to eat after all!
 
Feed according to work done. Learned that in the PC many years ago and have not forgotten it!

(Slopes off to catch Welsh D I haven't ridden for a week due to illness and am taking to a jumping lesson as still having saddle issues with Daisy. Haven't cut the D's feed as she's needing to put on weight. Nice knowing you all :o ).
 
Fill it up with forage! It'll soon put weight on when the grass comes, then you'll be shutting it up for being too fat. From a fellow D owner!
 
I have just bought a Clydesdale who was considered under weight( total bloody ignorance rather then out and out neglect ) , at the dealers he was on conditioning cubes. As soon as I got him home I put him on hay, with more hay, a tiny bit of chaff and some fast fibre.......result the thing has really started to fill out. People do not bother to learn about feeding, they see hay as expensive and feel they will get better results filling with high energy food. Then they wonder why their horse is achieving a low obit , I won't mention what I think of Alfra for a horse on light work!!!!!! Kevin currently remains a cool dude, even though I can only ride at weekends.
 
I am noticing the opposite problem at my grazing, which is terrible given we are headed into winter.

Welsh Arab cross mare - has gastric ulcers that has taken god knows how long for owners to notice, is under weight, has ridiculously bad mud fever. Has only put on weight after six weeks of just walking or not being ridden. Spent the entire summer holidays being ridden twice a day for probably a totally of three to four hours per day at a trot or canter. Owners wondering why they have a skinny horse when it was on a cup (dry) of beet, and a cup of cool feed.

Welsh arab gelding - owners way more onto it, but still looking ribby from 150 meters away today.

I don't know if its because I'm used to my clydie crosses or what, but I hate seeing ribby ponies with no toplines. They all think I'm bonkers for feeding what I feed to my mare, but she's not the weight I want her to be going into winter, I'm feeding to help build her topline, and she's also twice the size of their 14hh ponies (mare is a 17hh clydie cross).
 
I think it's to do with how people think about feed - if you ask someone 'what are you feeding?' the response is invariably about concentrates, no-one ever starts with forage. If you think that concentrate feed is what matters, it follows that you will feed relatively large amounts of it and it will seem logical because it gives your horse a human-style feeding pattern (meals). As soon as you start to think about nutrients coming from forage, hard feed becomes incidental and you can be sensible about diet.
 
The ulcers in the arab/welsh mare could be contributing to the lack of condition. In this case apart from possibly vet prescribed medication for the ulcers the answer would still be a forage based diet.
And why do people feel the need to add vitamin and mineral supplements when feeding mixes and nuts - they're already added. I've only once known in my lifetime a horse with a mineral deficiency - calcium - because the owner only fed bran mashes.
 
soloequestrian said:
I think it's to do with how people think about feed - if you ask someone 'what are you feeding?' the response is invariably about concentrates, no-one ever starts with forage. If you think that concentrate feed is what matters, it follows that you will feed relatively large amounts of it and it will seem logical because it gives your horse a human-style feeding pattern (meals). As soon as you start to think about nutrients coming from forage, hard feed becomes incidental and you can be sensible about diet.
Click to expand...

Exactly this!! I feed about 3kg wet beet and a kilo of this awesome chaff stuff that is lucerne and maize with a vit and min premix in it, plus a cup of copra (what category does that fall into i wonder...) and 500gm of concentrate. If she does nothing, that i lower the amount of concentrate. I always feed her copra, chaff and beet as my grazing isn't too flash hot.
 
With the Police horses they were boxing out and doing 4 hrs patrolling a day.

They were fed 3 haylage nets a day, which was more or less ad lib for some, a bit restricted for others (depending on greed factor!). Hard feed was half a scoop of chop and half a scoop of hacking type mix, and if anything was skinny (only a couple out of a yard of 18) they had a bit of sugar beet thrown in.

When we got a new stable manager the horses all went nutty. A rummage in the feed room showed why! The person was experienced in professional competition animals, and could not believe that these horses (min height 17hh) could work on half mix and half chop.

We re-adjusted the feed and all was well.

From my experience, it seems that the skinny ones are often the stressed ones. More feed does not make them less stressed. More work, less feed often has the effect of quietening the brain, then they do not stress off weight, and actually put it on!

My first eventer was like that. Skinny, and fed so much he would not eat any more, and very naughty. With less food, steady work he became happy and ballooned, on a scoop of horse and pony nuts twice a day!
 
Mooseontheloose said:
The ulcers in the arab/welsh mare could be contributing to the lack of condition. In this case apart from possibly vet prescribed medication for the ulcers the answer would still be a forage based diet.
And why do people feel the need to add vitamin and mineral supplements when feeding mixes and nuts - they're already added. I've only once known in my lifetime a horse with a mineral deficiency - calcium - because the owner only fed bran mashes.
Click to expand...


Ive always thought that, but I kept my mouth shut as my opinion is worth nothing to the owners. Not the most appreciative of advice from someone who has dealt with the same thing.
 
Mooseontheloose said:
The ulcers in the arab/welsh mare could be contributing to the lack of condition. In this case apart from possibly vet prescribed medication for the ulcers the answer would still be a forage based diet.
And why do people feel the need to add vitamin and mineral supplements when feeding mixes and nuts - they're already added. I've only once known in my lifetime a horse with a mineral deficiency - calcium - because the owner only fed bran mashes.
Click to expand...


Ive always thought that, but I kept my mouth shut as my opinion is worth nothing to the owners. Not the most appreciative of advice from someone who has dealt with the same thing.
 
Mooseontheloose said:
Fill it up with forage! It'll soon put weight on when the grass comes, then you'll be shutting it up for being too fat. From a fellow D owner!
Click to expand...

I doubt it, none of my natives are fat because they are in genuine hard work (well they are when I'm not dying a slow painful death from flu!!)! She has adlib forage and her hard feed is forage based low sugar and starch. She is muscled up like a racehorse. My other cob is having ridiculous saddle issues because she's so fit too.

She'll be fine. Just a bit faster than usual. I've got my neck strap. <trembles>
 
Well, you sound like you're well across the problem - fit D's are a marvellous thing. Mine also hunts and events to 100 BE but he does only have to sniff a blade of grass in the spring and his girth increases. Which is odd, because he is by nature a worrier and definitely not a plod. They're all different. Which is why I'm not a size zero but spend my life running round like a headless chicken. No justice!
 
I've got slightly more sense than money and never understand why people spend their hard earned cash on unnecessary feed.

My 15.2hh cobby type who is in light work (four times a week of lunging or hacking or schooling, depending on weather etc totalling roughly five hours) and will be stepping up to six days light work (totalling roughly eight hours) as soon as the clocks go forward, gets ad lib forage (and self regulates so never has an empty net), a handful of unmollased chop and half a cup of balancer. He gets about ten high fibre nuggets for breakfast. The only reason he gets fed at all is to fit in with others on the yard. He is well covered and could lose a few pounds before the grass comes through.

His RID field mate who is in his mid 20s and does slightly less work in the winter gets more or less the same feed, with a bit of sugar beet added, and is a pig with his forage but looks and feels very well for an old horse coming out of winter and his owner is already muttering about grass muzzles. They are turned out 12 hours in the winter and 24 hours in the summer. Plainly, neither of them need any more than they currently get and we have recently halved the amount of forage they get in the field as, despite it appearing as bald as a coot, they were starting to waste the forage so clearly finding plenty else to eat.

The added bonus is that my annual feed bill comes to about £60 and I am happy, therefore, to feed him just to fit in with the yard routine. Forage is included in my livery.
 
At my yard, my mare is fed the least and worked the most which means she's fit, fun to ride and the right weight. She's been on summer rations all winter because she hasn't dropped weight and is full of herself; if I fed her what other people would like me to she'd be fat and dangerous.
 
I'm afraid there are alot of clueless people owning horses today, who can't read or watch an advert without being totally taken in by it and have too much money to waste. I used to ride a little pony who lived out 24/7 He was ridden for hours at weekends, hacking 4 or 5 miles each way to gymkhanas and staying out there all day. And he did it all on grass and absolutely nothing else. But look at the money people waste of fancy gimmicky foodstuffs for themselves - probiotic yoghurts, superduper breakfast cereals, "healthy" food ( a few flakes of porridge oats and some dried fruit doesn't make something healthy), supplements, babyfood. If they stopped wasting their cash and bought good old simple fruit and veg, cheap cuts of meat and left out the coke, MaccyDs, pizzas and takeaways every Friday and Saturday night they would be better all round. And in the same way we overfeed our pets with huge portions, we stuff our own chops, which again costs a fortune. It never fails to amaze me how people are so easily taken in by slick advertising. I have a theory that if a company can afford a glossy advert on the TV or a full page in a magazine, then someone, ie. gullible customers, are paying for that advert, and therefore I avoid at all costs. I buy almost nothing branded, human or pet food.
 
Mooseontheloose said:
Well, you sound like you're well across the problem - fit D's are a marvellous thing. Mine also hunts and events to 100 BE but he does only have to sniff a blade of grass in the spring and his girth increases. Which is odd, because he is by nature a worrier and definitely not a plod. They're all different. Which is why I'm not a size zero but spend my life running round like a headless chicken. No justice!
Click to expand...

Would love to see some pics of your D eventing! Ultimate aim for her and I believe she has the attitude and talent for it. Not sure I am brave enough. I didn't expect to be this ill for this long then expected to bring her back into work leading her off my other one (who has to be exercised come rain or shine or imminent death of rider) but the way it's work out has been a last minute decision that I can't jump the other one so she has to go. I suspect she will surprise me and be absolutely fine, she was completely mad when I bought her but she is a very good girl now.

Also agree the the size zero thing!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top