Trying to do the best feed wise and getting confused!

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Mega

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Hi
In nov I had my hay analysised. I was probably a bit naive and used a company that sell minerals. They recommended changing my feed to alfabeet oats and linseed as a base plus a mineral balancer to mix myself.
Since then i have noticed a couple of our ponies getting little scabby pimples. Talking with our instructor I now know that alfaa might be the culprit. Can anyone advise what is best to feed instead? Thank you 😁
 
Just a plain grass chaff, chopped straw chaff (if they're very good doers and not that fussy) or speedi beet. They are all single ingredient feeds that work well as a carrier for supplements :)
 
Mega said:
Hi
In nov I had my hay analysised. I was probably a bit naive and used a company that sell minerals. They recommended changing my feed to alfabeet oats and linseed as a base plus a mineral balancer to mix myself.
Since then i have noticed a couple of our ponies getting little scabby pimples. Talking with our instructor I now know that alfaa might be the culprit. Can anyone advise what is best to feed instead? Thank you 😁
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How do your horses/ponies look? How do they feel? If they look and feel well, then you really don't need to change or add anything. The little bumps are possibly "protein bumps" which means that they are getting too much protein - the alfalfa is probably the culprit there.
 
The alfalfa is just a carrier unless its fed in big quatities so like Chaps said, grass chaff etc, I use pink mash as its very low sugar and starch and swells up loads so easy to hide minerals in!
 
For me - I like it simple!! Horses were intended to eat a lot of low protein, low sugar and low starch feeds. I very much like Agrobs but the suppliers here in the UK are just dreadful so I have swapped to Thunderbrooks. I feed a small amount of the haycobs, healthy herbal chaff and healthy herbal muesli and use Forageplus forage balancer - Laminae Plus. My appy was metabolic - sadly I lost him to ERU but my new lad who is not metabolic I feed the same. Plus ad lib organic meadow hay - no rye. My appy did not get on with beet in any shape or form, or any soya, mollasses or grain. So on that basis - I think thats probably how horses are meant to eat and thats the tack I take now. I am not a fan of alfalfa - its a legume and if yours has pimples potentially you have too much protein in the diet. If it were me - strip it right back to very simple non protein feeds.
 
sjp1 said:
For me - I like it simple!! Horses were intended to eat a lot of low protein, low sugar and low starch feeds. I very much like Agrobs but the suppliers here in the UK are just dreadful so I have swapped to Thunderbrooks. .
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Kramer do a carbon copy of the Agrobs range which works out cheaper than Thunderbrooks by a couple of quid, and you get 20kgs instead of 15kgs. I've just ordered some to try.
 
If you changed your feed in November, and your horses are only now having some bumps I doubt it has to do with the alfabeet as a carrier, or the diet in general. Most horses do absolutely fine on alfalfa and those who are sensitive to it appear to react pretty quickly (within days) when it's added or left out (based on anecdotal evidence only - I don't think there's any proper study on alfalfa intolerance when fed in small amounts). But you could certainly try switching to another carrier, e.g. plain speedibeet or soaked hay cobs as suggested above.
The idea that too much protein is harmful is a myth. At worst, the kidney has to work a bit harder to excrete the extra protein in urine. Alfalfa is higher in protein than e.g. your average hay, but it is by far not a "high protein" feed. In fact, if you compare the % protein in Dengies alfalfa pellets to their meadow grass pellets, the meadow grass comes up with higher protein percentage (18 vs 16%). And alfabeet is only half alfalfa anyway, the other half being beet. But percentage is really the wrong thing to look at. You need to consider the amount fed and work out the grams of protein fed, and if the alfa beet is only a carrier (fed in relatively small amounts, particularly since it swells up a lot with soaking), then the total amount of protein fed will be far less than what is fed in the forage.

Some of the anti-alfalfa sentiment is based on experiences from the US, where horses are at times fed very large amounts of alfalfa hay (i.e. replacing normal forage completely, or fed hay/alfalfa half and half). That can lead to mineral imbalances, and would indeed raise the total protein intake much above what's needed. But those arguments really don't apply when fed in small amounts as bucket feed.
 
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supsup said:
If you changed your feed in November, and your horses are only now having some bumps I doubt it has to do with the alfabeet as a carrier, or the diet in general. Most horses do absolutely fine on alfalfa and those who are sensitive to it appear to react pretty quickly (within days) when it's added or left out (based on anecdotal evidence only - I don't think there's any proper study on alfalfa intolerance when fed in small amounts). But you could certainly try switching to another carrier, e.g. plain speedibeet or soaked hay cobs as suggested above.
The idea that too much protein is harmful is a myth. At worst, the kidney has to work a bit harder to excrete the extra protein in urine. Alfalfa is higher in protein than e.g. your average hay, but it is by far not a "high protein" feed. In fact, if you compare the % protein in Dengies alfalfa pellets to their meadow grass pellets, the meadow grass comes up with higher protein percentage (18 vs 16%). And alfabeet is only half alfalfa anyway, the other half being beet. But percentage is really the wrong thing to look at. You need to consider the amount fed and work out the grams of protein fed, and if the alfa beet is only a carrier (fed in relatively small amounts, particularly since it swells up a lot with soaking), then the total amount of protein fed will be far less than what is fed in the forage.

Some of the anti-alfalfa sentiment is based on experiences from the US, where horses are at times fed very large amounts of alfalfa hay (i.e. replacing normal forage completely, or fed hay/alfalfa half and half). That can lead to mineral imbalances, and would indeed raise the total protein intake much above what's needed. But those arguments really don't apply when fed in small amounts as bucket feed.
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Common sense at last!
 
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