warm supper in the snow? overweight cob

CobSunshine

CobSunshine

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Hi guys.

My 14.2 cob is 550 kilo so don't want him putting more weight on. The grass has been covered in snow since Sunday so he's probably not eaten much and Im seeing him tonight.

Usually id feed him a few scoops of
http://www.baileyshorsefeeds.co.uk/whatproduct/general/bec.htm


Will this still be adequate from a vit/mineral and fibre perspective after a few days of poor forage?



Or is there a better alternative low in calories but high in roughage? something that could be mixed with warm water would be good as the water trough keeps freezing over
 
I'm a bit confused by your post. Has anyone checked him? Has he had supplementary hay in the field? Does he have a feed every night or just occasionally?

The best thing you can give him is ad lib hay or haylage, that will be far more beneficial than any bucket food at the moment.
 
I find ringing the feed companies nutritionalists to be helpful. There is so much feed choice nowadays it can be a minefield. I am thinking along the lines of feeding Hi-Fi lite or Happyhoof with,maybe a balancer if the nutritionalist reccomends it.
 
Does he have access to hay?
I would be concerned giving him any kind of nuts if he's only been grazing poor forage for a few days - probably just go for a big bucket of chaff and lots and lots of hay.
 
I assume you're feeding him hay in the field, if so you shouldn't have to wory about poor forage?
Two scoops of high fibre cubes seems like a lot for an over weight cob?
Not too sure on the measurements of bailys, but my cob was on half a scoob high fibre cubes a day with chaff and ad lib hay day and night. She was not over weight, in medium work and lived out!
 
Not feeding him hay in the field. He's grazed out 247 with 50 other horses on a huge plot. The only time he has extra food is when i feed him.

So based on him being 100 kilo overweight i don't want to risk lammy and feed too much.

With the current snow what quantity and how often should i feed?
 
In the current conditions your horse will have no access to food if you aren't putting hay out and that can be very dangerous for an overweight horse who could develop hyperlipaemia if starved.

You need to be providing hay or haylage in the field for them to eat or at least providing a hay replacer such as high fibre cubes, fast fibre, or sugar beet and chaff or one of the Dengie high fibre chaffs.
 
Is his grazing totally covered with snow or are they able to scratch about and graze a bit? If there is no grass at all then they must get hay.
With the additional feeding he doesn't need the cals but it might be worth feeding him some vits and minerals to fill in any gaps in the nutrition he is missing from his grazing and hay. I would get a no molasses chaff (hifi molasses free, topspec topchop lite and badmington alpha lite are all free of any added sugar - fussy ones seem to be happy with them too!) and just add a powder supp to it - pink powder is good. A handful of chaff (with a little water to dampen it) with a scoop of pink powder should do him well!
 
I'd be buying him some horsehage, soaking it and not giving him any hard food if he's fat! You can get a balancer to be handfed as treats and leave it at that.
 
Kitsmas_Pudding said:
I'd be buying him some horsehage, soaking it and not giving him any hard food if he's fat! You can get a balancer to be handfed as treats and leave it at that.
Click to expand...

Why would you buy haylege and then soak it? If wanting to remove the cals much better to soak hay - though tbh if it continues to stay freezing I wouldn't for the time being. Hay lollies not being so practical to feed!
 
If the grass is covered in snow and has been since sunday, then he needs to be fed hay, preferably morning and night. As do the other horses.
 
Yeah hay is your best bet, if you were thinking of bringing him in for food then just give him hay instead.

On a totally different note do you know how i can post my own question/thread? i can't find the link anywhere and i have a question to ask!
 
I've been out today and bought some

http://www.horsehage.co.uk/HH-HighFibre.html

HorseHage-HighFibre2010.jpg


and

http://www.horsehage.co.uk/MC-Hoofkind.html

MC-Hoofkind09.jpg



based on the feeding guide i should be feeding 1.5% of bodyweight per day. (including forage?) so as there isn't much forage about at the moment i'm feeding the entire 1.5%. 550 kilo = 8.25kg food per day

The hoofkind chaff reccomends 2-2.5 kg per day

leaving 5.75 kg of horsehage high fibre to put in the bucket.


I weighed very accurately and ended up having to get the biggest flexible horse bucket i owned to fit the 8.25kg of horsehage high fibre & hoofkind chaff.

It seemed like far too much considering he's overweight! Took him an hour to munch through it all, and i'm only able to go down once a day at the moment - would this have been too much food in one go?
 
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