Weight gain feed's

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silverstar

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My mare is slightly ribby and needs building up, bought her a week ago. I was wondering if there is an economical/cheap feed to build her up and give condition. I will use Sumo but cant really afford £30 a bag or whatever it costs now. Does anyone have any recommendations for an economical/cheap build up feed? Thanks
 
Baileys No 4 is great for condition as it helps to build up muscle, not just fat. But she will probably gain enough weight if you have her on the correct amount of hay (approx 5% bodyweight every day) and just some chaff and mix.
 
The oldies at my yard have basic fibre nuts. They soak them to make them more palatable, and means they can eat them more easily. They have gained more weight and maintained it better with this than any of the more expensive feeds specifically for the purpose!
 
I have found Corn Oil helped
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If you dont need the convenience of quick soak sugar beet you can get unmollassed sugar beet in pellets much cheaper. Makes include equibeet from trident and eurobeet from badminton. You just have to soak them for at least 12 hours before feeding. A cheaper way of feeding alfalfa is dengie alfalfa nuts. They too have to be soaked but are several £s cheper than the same weight of chaff
 
ad-lib good quality hay/haylage is main thing.
i use Topspec Conditioning Flakes which i think are about £11/bag. they have low starch so aren't heating and were great at putting weight on my youngster who was very poor when i got him.
 
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If you are looking for something reasonably priced either Allen and Pages Calm and Condition or Fast Fibre are very good.

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Fast Fibre is not a conditioning feed, in fact it has a very low DE and is primarily a source of fibre for good doers, so in this case would not be ideal.
 
If I want to put weight on a horse (not often even my 30 yr old is a good doer) I use quality oil like Linseed (only add 2 teaspn to begin with) and cooked barley which needs to be introduced slowly as it works FAST. this in addition to sb/alfa and normal mix.

Baileys No1 which is cooked cereal is also good but don't know the price right now in Uk.
 
My Tb mare who normally winters ok, but does tend to loose condition has always been fed on Baileys topline cubes, alfa oil and speedibeet. This year instead of using hay, I changed to haylage, big bale out in the field and she is looking fabulous. She is not finishing her bucket feeds so i have cut these down dramatically so she is only getting a tiny amount of hard feed.

I'm delighted with how she's looking, will definately have her on ad lib haylage next winter, has worked a treat.
 
Alfa A oil is super stuff for conditioning and weight gain, I always have a hard time keeping any weight on him in the winter and I have found this really helps, and His coat is even more glossier than ever, I can almost literally see my face in his coat
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Very old fashioned (but I am very old) Barley Rings are good for weight gain , can be fed as they are or soaked and about £6.80 a bag . works for my TB who seriously drops weight at this time of year.
Note to self ... must ask her what her secret is I could do with dropping a bit.
 
My mare dropped alot of weight when I brought her I don't think she was happy at the yard I was on and i changed her feed to the old fashioned way she is now on bran, sugar beet, Allen and page rolled oats(they are the only brand that do not blow her brains out) and barley, along with seaweed and molases which sound alot of exspence but not as much as feed the same amount of say topline cubes
 
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