What are you feeding your youngsters

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Perfectpony07

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Hi Lovely People,

I have a filly aged 2. She’s currently on one feed a day with the round scoop of meadow grass & spillers gro & win.

We’ve recently moved her to my yard, where there isn’t much grass in her paddock like most places this time of year, it’s mostly a mud bath. We’re not allowed to put hay out into the paddocks. She’s in at night with hay, she doesn’t eat the full net, I think she’s abit fussy of the hay, it’s ad-lib on the yard, sometimes abit musty tbh.

Anyway, I’m worried she is going to drop weight, she’s rugged mostly with a 100g full neck atm, she’s unclipped.

For context, she’s 14.1h welsh D but her coat is fine. Shes not a bad weight but if she lost weight she would be under weight 100%

Should I buy some kind of mash for the rest of the season? Or get some haylage.

What is everyone else doing with there babies atm?
 
You want the best quality long stem forage you can find as the base of her diet, whether that’s hay or haylage. My coming 2yo is doing brilliantly on ad lib (and he eats a LOT) of haylage, plus chaff and youngstock balancer.

A little unmollassed sugar beet or soaked grass nuts wouldn’t do harm in the short term if required. Personally I avoid compound feeds for youngsters.

With her being native and us being in Feb, I would prefer a touch lean to being even slightly overweight.
 
A bit late in replying sorry.

My youngsters (welsh C & D) have wintered out since they were weaned. They have adlib hay, shelter and are rugged for warmth. The D came to me at 9 moths in a pretty poor condition and was on a youngstock mix (dodson and horrell I think) and the spiller gro N win for the first 18 months.

I'm a firm believer in keeper youngster out and providing good forage to help promote natural growth. Natives take longer to mature and are often pushed/fed to look like the show ring horses before they are ready. MY D is now 3.5 (rising 4/4 this year) but probably more resembles a 2.5 year old due to his poor start.

As above it's best for a native to come into spring a little on the lean side to give them room to gain a little over the spring and summer.

If your youngster is spending a lot of time stabled I wouldn't recommend feeding a concentrate at all as you will like create a monster with more energy that you can handle (think the welsh dragon reputation) which will end in disaster for all concerned.
 
My rising two year old is on the following :

Ad lib haylage when stabled
250g Keyflow Pink Mash (sensitive stomach so this helps a lot!)
100g Dodson and Horrell Pasture Mix (to make his feed a bit more exciting and give him some extra bits and bobs)
400g TopSpec TopChop Grass chaff (would usually be some sort of alfalfa chaff but poor lad has a major intolerance to it and gets the squits bit time!).

I don't feed a balancer purely because it's not worth the concern for if I'm giving too much of one thing and not enough of another. He is regularly blood tested and checked by the vets to make sure everything is all good and fine with him - and so far all is well - he's growing like an absolute weed (outgrowing all his siblings bar one currently and isn't too far off!) and is in a lovely condition without being too heavy on his young joints.

One thing that I do that some people might not agree with is that I do rug my youngster but only in the mega bad weather and even then it's a light rain sheet :)
 
Changed from suregrow, to grown n win, handful of chaff and a bit of sugar beet to make it wet. He gets as much hayalge and hay as he can eat! I like to keep it simple and straighforwards!
 
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