Using Baileys Stud Balancer with foals?

Smile_and_Wave said:
I dont like the baileys product and the woman who always advises around is talks total crap and suggest the most insane feed regimes for horses, for comparison my weanling gets one cup of spillers youngstock pellets and is gorwing steadily and well and is a good weight he also get ad lib hayledge

ive looked after one foal with a growth problem like yours he literally was fed very very little to try stunt his growth for a few months in the hope that he would grow more regularly and was weaned early, have you got the vets advice it is a condition that requires quite a lot of management
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Absolutely, 1000% agree with this, that very feed rep your on about is ridiculous! Cant tell you how much she scared the life out of me with my then 11 month old appy, who was fed nothing but a cup of D&H suregrow and ad lib haylage. I was told he was on the verge of OCD.. but then proceeded to tell me i should be feeding 2 mugs of their stud balancer a day plus 2 stubbs scoops of alfa a a day. Well if he didnt have OCD then he would if id even entertained feeding him what she suggested!

Then at the myerscough futurity she decided my 4 month old colt lacked muscle up front and was bum high and looked to be growing too quickly.. so i was suggested the exact same feed plan. Not only is it completely normal for a 4 month old foal to lack muscle (hes a baby for gods sake!) he wasnt even weaned!! Ridiculous!
x
 
We are about to foal, God Willing, our 250th foal and I have to say that a book called Equine Nutrition by Frappe, has been our bible. In the early edition there was no warmblood data other than in passing but the new edition has more. Young animals do need protein and growth problems come from TOO MUCH FOOD FOR THAT ANIMAL, not from protein by itself. OCD is often seen in fast growing animals but is also caused by lack of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. We always feed by book and eye and watch for those tellatle signs of the pasterns going vertical. We do not feed for show condition and we feed a three times a day, hard feed ration of approx .5kg of oats, some sugar beet and approx 50g soya plus a supplement. in our case, Red Cell.

When our horses are sold they are very oftem x rayed and we have had, touch wood, only a very veryt few incidents of OCD. Fast growth seems to us to be a bit genetic as some seem to eat with impunity and stay level and others have to have a tougher regime.

It needs science and sense
 
Just an update.

Vet has called round today and is sure Rocky will be OK.

Now I really am confused as he doesn't see any problem with my feeding :confused:

His analergy was that giving the BSB was like giving multi vits and would not cause the rapid bone growth we are seeing. His opinion is just his dam is doing him too well.

Either way I am stopping the BSB. Have phoned them today and am waiting for a call back.

Rocky is a big foal, he was born a big foal and will be larger than his dam. She is a middle weight and the sire is MW too. Rocky is a foal with 'substence' but he is in no way fat. Other than his 'upright' bits he looks like a normal healthy foal.

Rocky seems happy enough with his friend (my yearling filly) and only shouts for Mum occasionally. Link to FB pics just because he was being so cute today - I swear he was laughing at me!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...850.260268.567509850&pid=5588000&id=567509850
 
woodlander said:
We are about to foal, God Willing, our 250th foal and I have to say that a book called Equine Nutrition by Frappe, has been our bible. In the early edition there was no warmblood data other than in passing but the new edition has more. Young animals do need protein and growth problems come from TOO MUCH FOOD FOR THAT ANIMAL, not from protein by itself. OCD is often seen in fast growing animals but is also caused by lack of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. We always feed by book and eye and watch for those tellatle signs of the pasterns going vertical. We do not feed for show condition and we feed a three times a day, hard feed ration of approx .5kg of oats, some sugar beet and approx 50g soya plus a supplement. in our case, Red Cell.

When our horses are sold they are very oftem x rayed and we have had, touch wood, only a very veryt few incidents of OCD. Fast growth seems to us to be a bit genetic as some seem to eat with impunity and stay level and others have to have a tougher regime.

It needs science and sense
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thanks for this post, I think I will buy that book, what rate do you feed red cell? do you feed it across the board, it specifically to weanlings?
 
Cutting out a balancer will not stop a foal growing, they will bloomin well grow in any case! Balancer gives them the correct balance of vitamins and minerals to support their growth- they use a lot of energy to grow and without the correct balance they can have problems.

Does anyone really think that a feed company who makes money out of their good name would purposefully make a feed that would damage horses when fed at the recommended amount?? That would be a teensy bit counter-productive. The NUTRITIONISTS who recommend the feeding guidelines are qualified and trained for the job, they aren't just some numpty who is trying to sell feed.

Protein is also not a bad thing, high levels are sometimes required and it's about the digestability and type of protein rather than the levels in any case.
 
This is such a valuable thread. In answer to the question on Red Cell, we feed 30ml per day per horse with the hard feed.

I agree with Farrierlover, the aims of the feed companies may be to sell feed but their science must be right. What is more challenging is the science is based around the average or the "mean". You will see then a lot of stories about horses with problems who fall outside the average and need an adjusted approach. Once you start changing the recommended intake or adding other things (we do like to practice "horse cuisine although generally it is best to stick to a single balanced solution) then problems arise.

We customise each feed for each horse and we want to be economical with over 60 horses to feed.
 
I think it is just that every horse is different and whislt the feed companies spend alot of money and time on research and making sure the balance is absolutely correct, I do think you are right Woodlander in that they have to then make the feed marketable to a group. They cant be one size fits all so although the feeds are mineral and vitamin wise spot on, I do think that some products are maybe meant more for the thoroughbred market that need to grow quickly as pointed out to me recently by a very knowledgeable person!

I think if you find that if you have an animal that you are raising slowly for soundness, longevity and that maybe holds condition better than a thoroughbred then other products such as the powder supplements are available to allow you to still provide the necessary as Farrierlover correctly points out.

This is what I've learnt very recently anyway! x
 
I agree with Farrierlover on this one.
Personally i have known of more youngsters getting ocd that havnt been fed than have mainly because they have been lacking in some crucial nutrition.
please remember dogs,people etc get Rickets if there diets arnt correctly supplemented horses are no differant.
Youngsters that get slipping stifles will often grow out of this if fed some protein so they build up some muscle and strengthen up.
OCD is multifactural and not just how fast a horse grows or what it is fed.
Horses will still grow quickly whether they are fed or not but may get OCD if they dont recieve enough nutrition to support the growth.
OCD also isnt always to do with feeding of the foal itself but can be insufficient nutrition when the mare is in foal or a mare that produces small undersized foals that then grow quickly.
A premature foal out of a mare that has recieved insufficient nutrition or a mare that hasnt done the foal well may mean that the foal lacks copper stores in its liver and this in itself can cause OCD at some stage in the foals life.
Unless you know for sure that your ground has a perfect balance of nutrition it is very difficult to second guess if the foal will have problems or is getting everything it needs.
Many areas are both copper and selenium deficient two things that are crucial in the bone development in horses.
So its alright to say dont feed your foal or youngster anything at all only hay because you wont know till it is older whether you have done any long term damage or not.
How many people on here know what there land is deficient in.
 
sallyf said:
How many people on here know what there land is deficient in.
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... which is why a broad spectrum vitamin and mineral supplement is essential, either in form of a lick or a powder additive.

I wholly disagree with the statement that a foal will grow whether or not you feed lots of hard feed. That is simply not true. A horse will EVENTUALLY grow to its genetically-programmed size whether or not it is pushed as a foal - how much of that final size it reaches by the time it is 18 months old will depend on how much rich food it is fed as a weanling.

As an example, my foal was sent to stud with his mum when he was 3 months old. He was born very big and kept growing fast and by the time he went to stud, he was a fair bit bigger than his 2 year old half-sister by a similar sized stallion was at the same age. He stayed at stud for 9 weeks, during which, unbeknownst to me (obviously), his mum got starved sufficiently for her to lose nearly 200kg (a third of her bodyweight of 620kg). When I went to pick them up, because of the size of him before going, I expected to retrieve a monster.

Interestingly, although he didn't look anywhere near poor, we were surprised to see he had hardly grown during that time. 2 months further down the line and having had to seriously feed Mum up, he has, at the same time, had a huge growth spurt - and that with me NOT allowing him to share Mum's feed and not giving him his own. I am now having to wean him - earlier than I like, though he is 7 months old so not hugely early in most people's view - because I refuse to take the risk to put that much strain on his joints. My vet agrees whole-heartedly. He will now be on hay and a broad spectrum supplement in a handful of Hi-fi & sugarbeet pulp to wet it down, just like his beautiful 2 year old sister, until he is in medium to hard work, when he is 5 or 6.
 
can someone please advise me what would be a good general purpose vit supplement for my 6 month old Sec A foal? He cant have a lick as my other horse pigs out on it and scours:o

I feed Baileys Low Cal Balancer to Charlie... is it ridiculous to think of this for the foal?

what about this? or would it have to be a specific one for youngstock? or does that take me back to the original prob...
http://www.naf-uk.com/products/detail.php?id=31

or this?http://www.rideaway.co.uk/equivite-original/default.aspx
 
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The D&H Sure limb is the best I have found and have my warmblood/TB weanling on it with alfalfa chaff, speedie beet, and a few bits of oats and barley cooked up with the beet pulp.

Terri
 
Farrierlover said:
Cutting out a balancer will not stop a foal growing, they will bloomin well grow in any case! Balancer gives them the correct balance of vitamins and minerals to support their growth- they use a lot of energy to grow and without the correct balance they can have problems.

Does anyone really think that a feed company who makes money out of their good name would purposefully make a feed that would damage horses when fed at the recommended amount?? That would be a teensy bit counter-productive. The NUTRITIONISTS who recommend the feeding guidelines are qualified and trained for the job, they aren't just some numpty who is trying to sell feed.

Protein is also not a bad thing, high levels are sometimes required and it's about the digestability and type of protein rather than the levels in any case.
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Well yes and no. I have 3 related horses that have an intolerance to soya. When they were taken off all soya problems went away in 3 weeks. I was told by Bailey's I was crazy in the head and that I should keep all 3 on a dry lot and continue with the balancer. Amazing how when I took them off all soya they could graze like normal horses with no ill effects.

I learned my lesson with big feed companies and the crap they spew. Funny how IR horses crop up everywhere in the last 10 years with the advent of balancers. So glad I listened to my gut instead of a feed company. My horses would have a miserable existence and huge vet bills otherwise. Their diets contain mostly forage, a few oats and barley for winter, Sure Limb, flax meal, and garlic. They look better now then they ever did on the advised 1 pd of balancer.

Terri
 
GinnieRedwings said:
As an example, my foal was sent to stud with his mum when he was 3 months old. He was born very big and kept growing fast and by the time he went to stud, he was a fair bit bigger than his 2 year old half-sister by a similar sized stallion was at the same age. He stayed at stud for 9 weeks, during which, unbeknownst to me (obviously), his mum got starved sufficiently for her to lose nearly 200kg (a third of her bodyweight of 620kg). When I went to pick them up, because of the size of him before going, I expected to retrieve a monster.

Interestingly, although he didn't look anywhere near poor, we were surprised to see he had hardly grown during that time. 2 months further down the line and having had to seriously feed Mum up, he has, at the same time, had a huge growth spurt - and that with me NOT allowing him to share Mum's feed and not giving him his own.
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I think the huge growth spurt will have had a lot to do with you having to feed your mare back up so quickly. It's bound to reflect in the quality and quantity of her milk which in turn will pass itself onto your foal even though you kept him from the feed.

I've heard of others having problems with BSB although Bea was on it for her last foal and didn't have any problems at all. I've used Suregrow for two years now and both years they were excellent; no growth spurts, just nicely covered youngsters growing gently. I will certainly use it again, I found it excellent.
 
Maesfen said:
I think the huge growth spurt will have had a lot to do with you having to feed your mare back up so quickly. It's bound to reflect in the quality and quantity of her milk which in turn will pass itself onto your foal even though you kept him from the feed.
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I absolutely agree with that:D.

The point I was trying to make was that there IS a correlation between how much food goes down a foal, whether by way of over-rich milk or hard feed, and how fast & furiously or how steadily it grows... to respond Farrierlover's statement that "Cutting out a balancer will not stop a foal growing, they will bloomin well grow in any case!"
 
I was reading today with great interest whilst hiding in the office out of the snow the recent comments about Baileys Stud Balancer and felt compelled to write in.
I have used Bailey’s Feeds for longer than I care to remember and have never run in to any of the problems described by members of this forum.
We feed Stud Balancer to Mares/stallions/weaned foals & Youngstock with no ill effects the only time I have come across OCD is in two youngsters imported from Holland.
It sometimes appears to be a sad fact that show foals have to be too mature and over topped to win in the show ring. I took my young Warmblood foal to The British National Foal Show in Birmingham last weekend and was delighted when he not only won his class was Champion & went on to take Supreme Champion Light Horse Foal.
This foal was not born till June and as he stood in the ring he was certainly not over mature like some of the foals stood alongside him if fact I thought what a baby he looked. The judge commented on his good joints and excellent conformation and said he was a credit to us.
His mother was fed on Stud Balancer and he continues to eat Stud Balancer with no ill effects.
In my mind the aim of feeding is to support a foal to grow to its genetic potential. It seems that a lot of people wish to stunt their animal’s growth by not feeding anything – you’d never do that with a child!
We have over the years taken many homebred foals &Youngsters to the Bailey’s Futurity Evaluations and always come away with First Premiums so we must be doing something right
Bailey’s Horse Feeds have invested a lot of time and money in the Futurity Scheme, for all the right reasons to bring British Breeding in line with our foreign counterparts it would be such a shame to loose their support.
 
In my post at the very beginning I have mentioned both Baileys (fed to my foal) and Suregrow fed to two other mares foals, all three had growth problems which in the opinion of the remedial farrier were down to overfeeding. This man is no novice/upstart but has spent a lifetime with horses and I respect his opinion any day of the week.

Since we moved away from Balancers there hasn't been a single incidence of developmental issues with foals here.

I do not therefore single out Baileys, and if their product suits your horses, then fine. I do not starve my foals, they all receive adequate nutrition but are not overfed, we have done a lot of showing in the past, and done well IMO, with some very well grown foals that have caused us no problems. The two I have here now are both descended from the same mare. As a foal she was the scrawniest thing you ever saw, but was only beaten once, and she was Reserve Champion at the WM Foal Show, in the days when it was at Stoneleigh, she blossomed out into a lovely horse. When she was 3rd at Staffs County behind some well topped yearlings the judge said she was worthy of winning, 'only needed a little furnishing'. That was how she was built to be, I didn't attempt to overfeed her to round her out.
 
NSN,

Have you talked to your vet or an independent nutritionist? None of us can tell you what to do, just rough ideas. I for one am not a nutritionist. What works for me and my horses is just that. Just get some independent advice from professionals and see how it goes. It may be that Bailey's is whats best.

Despite being told by them that my horses could not possibly be affected by soya and that I needed to get that nonsense out of my head, I wouldn't steer people away from them. And by the way issues are with any balancer made by any company.

Terri
 
I was just wondering, in relation to growth related problems ( mainly OCD) how early is the damage done? I am thinking of breeding my mare next year and am very wary of growth problems due to buying a youngster with these problems in the past. My mare looks well on haylage, topspec and chaff but would this need to be cut back whilst in foal or just after when the foal is born
 
Scarey Tuesday said:
I was reading today with great interest whilst hiding in the office out of the snow the recent comments about Baileys Stud Balancer and felt compelled to write in.
I have used Bailey’s Feeds for longer than I care to remember and have never run in to any of the problems described by members of this forum.
We feed Stud Balancer to Mares/stallions/weaned foals & Youngstock with no ill effects the only time I have come across OCD is in two youngsters imported from Holland.
It sometimes appears to be a sad fact that show foals have to be too mature and over topped to win in the show ring. I took my young Warmblood foal to The British National Foal Show in Birmingham last weekend and was delighted when he not only won his class was Champion & went on to take Supreme Champion Light Horse Foal.
This foal was not born till June and as he stood in the ring he was certainly not over mature like some of the foals stood alongside him if fact I thought what a baby he looked. The judge commented on his good joints and excellent conformation and said he was a credit to us.
His mother was fed on Stud Balancer and he continues to eat Stud Balancer with no ill effects.
In my mind the aim of feeding is to support a foal to grow to its genetic potential. It seems that a lot of people wish to stunt their animal’s growth by not feeding anything – you’d never do that with a child!
We have over the years taken many homebred foals &Youngsters to the Bailey’s Futurity Evaluations and always come away with First Premiums so we must be doing something right
Bailey’s Horse Feeds have invested a lot of time and money in the Futurity Scheme, for all the right reasons to bring British Breeding in line with our foreign counterparts it would be such a shame to loose their support.
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Can we assume, from your post, that you would support the feed rates, suggested by the manufacturers?

Alec.
 
I feed Suregrow but less than the recommended amounts. They get about 150gms per 100kgs body weight. they also get a handful of linseed, and they look fab. There is no way I would feed Suregrow at the recommended amounts never mind BSB.

I really, really rate Suregrow and feed it to the adult riding horses at 100gms per 100kgs body weight as a balancer, and they all look fab as well. As good as when they were on full whack of Topspec.

I sound like I work for D&H now :D I dont, I just really rate it as a VERY economical way of feeding :)
 
milo'n'molly said:
I was just wondering, in relation to growth related problems ( mainly OCD) how early is the damage done? I am thinking of breeding my mare next year and am very wary of growth problems due to buying a youngster with these problems in the past. My mare looks well on haylage, topspec and chaff but would this need to be cut back whilst in foal or just after when the foal is born
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Everyone seems to be getting a little panicky. Here is a general rule of thumb. A mare will be feeding the baby inside first. So in general if she is looking well you shouldn't worry. Make sure she is on a vit and min supp if you don't use a balancer. Sounds like your mare doesn't need one but again this is the Internet. Any vit and min for mares will tell you when to up the rates which is usually the last trimester. You may find you need to start adding more calories then so if you don't feed straights maybe look for a stud cube.

Whatever you do don't start cutting your mare back when the foal is born. She will be working overtime to feed it and herself. But again you will be dependent on time of year foaling. Good grass means she won't need as many calories as say an early foaling when the grass is of little value.

I feed straights and if I need more weight I use rice bran. I have some horses that do excellent on a balancer which is why I'm not anti anything. My balacer horses are great as I add oats and alfalfa chaff to the ration and I'm good to go. Keep things as simple as possible and try not to over think. Trust me I have been there and done that. I've had sleepless nights from worrying about exact this and that. And while we are all concerned about over feeding, i have seen the exact same damage done by people who tried to tell me OCD was from feed. Once you have a system for your feeds don't go adding tons of extras as well. Again keep it simple.

And while on the subject of OCD who has had their mares x-rayed before breeding? I did. And many say it isn't hereditary but still wanted to have a decent start as I have the one mare. I use OCD stallions so try and get the odds a little better. Not saying I'm right as funny enough it doesn't seem to bother big studs. But they have better odds than I do with one.

Terri
 
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