What do you feed your good-doers?

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TakeAChance

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I've had my horse (ISH, 6yrs) since the end of July and am lucky enough to be at a yard with very lush grass. He holds his weight well and throughout the summer has been fed on a handful of Alfa-A Molasses Free and a balancer twice a day. His work load was approximately an hour a day split into schooling 4 days a week and an hour and half hacking twice a week.

Going into the winter we still have loads of grass, but it's obviously less nutritionally valuable and he looks to be dropping his weight ever so slightly. He's doing less work now; hacking twice a week for an hour and a half (w,t,c + lots of hills), schooling once a week for an hour and 20 mins lunging once a week.

I'm just wondering what people recommend for good-doers like him. I've always had pure TBs before and am used to throwing food at them as often as possible, so this is a bit new to me!

Thanks for reading :)
 
I feed mine Fast Fibre, Happy Hoof & a balancer. They probably don't *need* anything, but I like them to have something when they come in and before they go out :-)
 
I feed good quality hay (NOT haylage), Lo-cal Balancer, Brewers Yeast for digestion), Micronised Linseed (for coat and feet) all mixed into Mollichaff Calmer which is a low cal straw based chop.

I discovered early on that throwing feed at this particular tb made her very fat!

So she is fed the same as our welshx.
 
Is he struggling with energy, if not then just give him one scoop a day of alfa lite or hifi, with pink powder or lo-cal balancer, mines can get a belly being half welsh D, so she just has a handfull of tiger oats and 1 scoop of alfa a lite with her pink powder in everyday and shes in quite a heavy workload too and manages fine
 
I feed my cob one cup of balancer 1 cup of fast fibre which turns in to about 1/2 a scoop and 1/2 a scoop of dengie good doers. He looks really good on it.
 
pinch of Alpha A Oil (and only because that is what my TB has as a chaff) and hay. He has now dropped nearly all the weight I needed him to so will slowly up the AAO and add grass nuts.
 
When mine was working in the winter and the grass was poor he got

Half trug of high fi lite and half jug pony nuts and jug speedi beet. That was it! But only when he was worked if he didnt work he got none of this!

Always available cheap salt block mineral lick not molasses.

When grass was all gone hay! plus above.

A good doer generally would not lose weight easily ie they would still get fat on thin air. Lush grass alarm bells. it is very spring like currently.

If you are unsure weigh tape your horse etc. I usually know by looking at mine if he has blown up or getting too much by how he is covered. Standing behind him if I can see that belly poking out as he walks along he is fat etc. Also I know my fields grass quality equally as well. Good doers can be hard to look after too. Good luck though
 
Mine lives out un-rugged as much as possible. He isn't being ridden at the minute as he's had his shoes off (will have the odd sit on him) he's having am + pm

1 scoop dengie hifi mollases free
1/2 scoop fast fibre

plus equivite vit + min

and three good wedges of hay xx

He's a 16.3hh (although we think he may be bigger) shire x cob and looks fab weight wise, this was taken two weeks ago......

photo-19.jpg
 
I feed mine who is in the same amount of work as yours baileys low cal and alfa alfa molasses free and some Oates and linseed oil. Soaked hay. I feed for energy for work not calories. I feed him this all year round as I am lucky enough to strip graze.
 
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