What do you feed your horse and how much does it cost?

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Meadow21

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I am currently in despair over my bank account considering how much my horse costs to feed per month. He is not poor condition but lean, however he looses condition very easily as he is a typical thoroughbred.

We go through a bag of top spec balancer (£30) a bag of alpha A oil (£18), beet pulp (£16) and half a bottle of linseed oil (£12). So in total £76 a month.

I have had his bloods checked and scoped for ulcers, feed regime advised by nutritionist. I don’t know if this is normal for a thoroughbred but I am on a yard of cobs and heavier breeds, so everyone else just has a bag of simple mix per month!
 
I feed Equerry conditioning mash, 2kg a day to a hot headed horse that runs very lean in the winter. Nothing else (other than ad lib foreage/grass) He gets through 3-4 bags a month so approx £50-£60.

He's a connemara and has always been a bad doer, arrived from Ireland in poor shape too. My other connemara is still in a muzzle and gets a handful of pony nuts...Chalk and cheese!
 
I feed own brand horse and pony cubes made by the firm that makes branded stuff, and supermarket oil (recommended by Spillers). I mix my own balancer from yeasacc, mag ox, salt, copper sulphate, zinc sulphate and vitamin E. My horse has never looked better.
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I have a 19 year old new forest. One bag of blue chip native £33.90 lasts 5 weeks.

That sounds like a lot is your grass and hay poor quality.
 
Ad lib hay and my god does he eat! He goes through a builders sack of hay in about 16hours! He then gets pink mash and sensicare as his feed, as well as a big bucket of sugar beet with some alfa mixed in for him to pick at

Supplement wise I mix my own which saves me a fortune!

I'd drop the topspec and feed something with a better spec. Progressive earth do basic one and they do vitamin e as well which does seem to work for weight gain. And I'd change to micronised linseed. A sack will cost about £25. You can up the amount you feed and it will still be cheaper. You can then go to a basic alfa a with no oil added. I feed emerald green as its the cheapest and nicest quality but theres other brands.
 
ycbm said:
I feed own brand horse and pony cubes made by the firm that makes branded stuff, and supermarket oil (recommended by Spillers). I mix my own balancer from yeasacc, mag ox, salt, copper sulphate, zinc sulphate and vitamin E. My horse has never looked better.
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Click to expand...

Out of interest why do you not add Selenium?
 
Mine get true 24hr ad lib access to haylage. It is quite low sugar and NSC and certainly isn’t rocket fuel. But if I was struggling with weight this is the first place I’d look. My Haylage would be rubbish at putting weight on a horse. My previous supply was much better at that (not what I need though).

They get a hand full of grass nuts each, a handful of grass chaff. Mug of linseed. Salt. Pro Hoof Balancer and then I top up with extra copper and Zinc as per my mineral analysis.

‘The poor doer’ gets extra Vit E. That made the biggest difference to his weight.

Costs me about £8 a day. But that is feeding 4 horses. So about £60 a month per horse.

I am looking at alternative sources for vits and minerals as I might make up my own supplement completely if it saves enough money to warrant the effort.
 
They all vary so much!
My last horse was a 17.2hh poorish doer, he cost about £100/month to feed.
Whereas current 5yo doesn’t take much, <£20/month, just a few low energy cubes.
The 2yos go through a sack of baileys stud balancer a month each, so about £25/month. One will be cheap to feed as she gets older (short & fat), the other I suspect will be more expensive (tall and rangy).
 
I feed per day:

- Forage plus Laminae balancer (1/2 dose)
- Tri amino acids (1/2 dose)
- Oregano, rosemary, basil (100ml)
- Linseed oil (100ml)
- Micronised linseed (3 mugs)
- Saracens Releve (3kg)
- Readigrass (250gms)
- 6kg hay (per horse overnight in field, they finish it)
- 7kg of hay in stable daytime (leaves some)

My livery includes the Re-Leve and the hay.

Excluding the hay, the Saracens Releve is about £16 a bag so £70 a month, the balancer £30. The rest another £45. So about £145!

My horse is 16.3hhh, a good weight, fully clipped, out at night and in reasonable work.
 
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Meadow21 said:
I am currently in despair over my bank account considering how much my horse costs to feed per month. He is not poor condition but lean, however he looses condition very easily as he is a typical thoroughbred.

We go through a bag of top spec balancer (£30) a bag of alpha A oil (£18), beet pulp (£16) and half a bottle of linseed oil (£12). So in total £76 a month.

I have had his bloods checked and scoped for ulcers, feed regime advised by nutritionist. I don’t know if this is normal for a thoroughbred but I am on a yard of cobs and heavier breeds, so everyone else just has a bag of simple mix per month!
Click to expand...

to be honest looking at this you are not feeding huge amounts of calories. Bin the chaff and beet pulp. Add more calories. Bin the top spec balancer as well as basically paying for filler. I just feed a vits and mins now as think balancers are a waste of money in pellet form.

i just think you need more calories bang for your buck. Have a look at the spreadsheet as what I was interested in. It will also depend on quantities. Good quality haylage helps a lot. I am a huge fan of gut balancers as well. I am not a fan of protexin as looked at ingredients (better off feeding brewers yeast as cheaper) and was underwhelmed. I do rate science Suplements. I do also like brewers yeast but haven’t fed it this year as mine look fantastic on Feedmark

I have done a spreadsheet last year https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FlFpea51-iEvqCvdB8aPmC6xhZw6m2BzBjKZaBhpic/edit
 
Depends on a lot of things … what field I have them in (amount of grass) time of year, amount of work done, temperature - the list goes on.
When plenty of grass, my boy is literally getting 1 scoop of Alfa A Original and two cups of Topspec Lite Balancer with some carrots!

When the grass goes down, he gets the same feed in the morning, and in the evening another scoop of Dengie Alfa A Original, 1/2 scoop of Alfa-beet and about 1/2 scoop of conditioning cubes with carrots.

They get opportunity to have hay everyday too as they usually come in for a couple of hours. I put a bit of hay out in the evening too when the grass is eaten down.

Not much of a help to OP as my boy is quite a good doer…. And we hunt on this diet! You will need to add a LOT of oil for weight gain though and most horses don’t find it that palatable so maybe try something such as Baileys Outshine which is high oil and you can feed in smaller amounts? There are lots of conditioning mixes and cubes on the market but if you are trying to feed a low sugar diet, oil based products are good. Dengie Alfa A Oil is a good conditioning chaff and their cool, condition and shine is also a good one.
 
LEC said:
to be honest looking at this you are not feeding huge amounts of calories. Bin the chaff and beet pulp. Add more calories. Bin the top spec balancer as well as basically paying for filler. I just feed a vits and mins now as think balancers are a waste of money in pellet form.

i just think you need more calories bang for your buck. Have a look at the spreadsheet as what I was interested in. It will also depend on quantities. Good quality haylage helps a lot. I am a huge fan of gut balancers as well. I am not a fan of protexin as looked at ingredients (better off feeding brewers yeast as cheaper) and was underwhelmed. I do rate science Suplements. I do also like brewers yeast but haven’t fed it this year as mine look fantastic on Feedmark

I have done a spreadsheet last year https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FlFpea51-iEvqCvdB8aPmC6xhZw6m2BzBjKZaBhpic/edit
Click to expand...

thank you so much this spread sheet is very helpful!
 
I've got 2 thoroughbreds a 20 yo and 2yo. They're both on baileys lo cal balancer, youngster gets a stubbs scoop of baileys light chaff and older girl gets a cup of no.4. Plus ad lib hay. Vet was out last week for jabs and commented that they're both perfect weight and have lovely coats. I try to keep it simple as they can both be hot headed! Costs around 60 a month
 
Mine are 3 13.2 ish highland ponies 1 12.2 dartmoor and a 11.3 welsh A
all five cost me 1 bag beet £8 1 bale of grass chaff £9.50 1 bag of grass nuts £9 per month a bit of salt a 25grm of micronised linseed as needed and very little anything else we have grass foggage so no hay or haylage they are a bit fat but will lose after Christmas so total cost for 5 is about £30 per month so 1 would be between £6-7 per month for feed. Looks a lot in the bucket though
 
Meadow21 said:
thank you so much this spread sheet is very helpful!
Click to expand...
I agree , drop the TopSpec, you're just paying for expensive fillers.
I really rate Allen and Page feeds and would look at swapping the beet pulp to maybe Calm and Condition ?
The hunt horses here hunt a full season on Alfa A with oil and Calm and Condition by the bucket full and they look as good as the end of the season as they do at the start .
 
I have a tb that sometimes struggles to hold weight and the key is getting as much forage into him as I can.

Feedwise he gets Agrobs Musli and Grunhafer, micronised linseed and copra. None of these are cheap but all last for ages, probably cost about £30 a month in winter

I make my own balancer with magnesium, progressive earth pro trace 3, yeasacc and vitamin e. Then a joint supplement.

There are a couple of easy swaps you could do to save money if you don't want to change too much, swap linseed oil for charnwood micronised linseed and the Alfa a for alfalfa pellets which work out cheaper and there are some good suggestions on this thread for alternative balancers.

However I would also look at your forage, is he getting as much hay as he will eat, mine gets about 10kg a day on top of 8 hours grazing. Or could you feed haylage as part of the forage ration?
 
ycbm said:
I don't have a shortage of selenium in my grazing or forage.

Selenium is extremely toxic in small amounts, it's safer to err on the side of caution, I feel.
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Ah ok. Any analysis I’ve done of Surrey grass or hay over the years has always shown a need to supplement. I’d assumed that was a pretty typical U.K. position.
 
bouncing_ball said:
Ah ok. Any analysis I’ve done of Surrey grass or hay over the years has always shown a need to supplement. I’d assumed that was a pretty typical U.K. position.
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Yes a quick Google search shows that the vast majority of UK grass is lacking in selenium. But before supplementing I'd do an analysis, like you have done ,.considering how dangerous it could be exceeding the recommended amounts.
 
Meadow21 said:
I am currently in despair over my bank account considering how much my horse costs to feed per month. He is not poor condition but lean, however he looses condition very easily as he is a typical thoroughbred.

We go through a bag of top spec balancer (£30) a bag of alpha A oil (£18), beet pulp (£16) and half a bottle of linseed oil (£12). So in total £76 a month.

I have had his bloods checked and scoped for ulcers, feed regime advised by nutritionist. I don’t know if this is normal for a thoroughbred but I am on a yard of cobs and heavier breeds, so everyone else just has a bag of simple mix per month!
Click to expand...
Sorry not got time to sort out all their feeds.

But absolutely no mix /grain of any type.


4 horses combinations feeds


Hifi ....................... 1 scoop connie x
Fibergy ....................... 1 scoop 15.1 hh gelding QH x and 16.1 hh ID
Timothy chop ................... 1 scoop ID QH Coonie
Grass pellets ....................... hf/ connnie ID QH
Ready Grass .................................. welsh A
Purabeet ................................ 1/2 connie ID
Haycare ................................. 300g soaked QH and welsh A
+ supplements

I don't want to shock my mind how much I spend on them.
 
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I’ve had very good doers for years, so basically don’t feed them anything except good quality hay in the winter, but with some of the rescues my fattening regime is true ad lib forage, alfalfa chop, linseed meal and vegetable oil, with a hard feed - I usually feed a Bailey’s mix or rolled oats. High oil based mixes are expensive, as is linseed oil, just adding a glug of any supermarket oil will do the job much cheaper.
 
I feed soaked alfalfa nuts + wheat bran (now swapping to rolled barley for extra calories as it is getting colder) + salt + brewer yeast. The supplement comes in treat form so doesn't go in the bucket.
I feed 3 on that diet but not sure how much I use per month so can't really tell you about cost.
I am planning to add some linseed but it isn't easy to find here.
 
Sossigpoker said:
Yes a quick Google search shows that the vast majority of UK grass is lacking in selenium. But before supplementing I'd do an analysis, like you have done ,.considering how dangerous it could be exceeding the recommended amounts.
Click to expand...

I've always had to based on analyses in Herts but the amount I supplement is no more than would be in any off the peg balancer.
 
Soaked grass or alfalfa pellets generally work out a lot cheaper than chaffs. If your horse doesn't require a low starch/sugar diet then the Mole Valley Conditioning Cubes are a useful source of cheapish calories and work well to keep weight on.
 
If you feed ad-lib hay and your horse has access to grass, I would ditch the chaff. Seriously.

I do feed TopSpec, so appreciate it is expensive, however I also have a Thoroughbred and don't spend anywhere near that per month (mine gets three small feeds per day). Dodson & Horrell have released a selection of more affordable balancers that could be worth looking at? The entry level one is only £18 per sack.

Feeding straights with a balancer could also be a good option. I have always found barley rings and or rolled oats to be super for adding condition but, these are high in protein so no good if you have a horse that stocks up easily etc.
 
I feed Allen & Page Veteran Lite to most of them and Soothe and Gain for the poor doer in the depths of winter. I use Healthy Tummy as a chaff and the ancient pony has Alfa Beet too. I spend around £80 per month and that’s with 5 of varying sizes. They also have pretty much ad-lib hay. I don’t think to complicate things too much and they all look fab.
 
I feed my oldie who struggles with forage Saracen Releve- from half to one scoop per feed (2x a day) increasing or decreasing depending on condition and grass availability. He has micronised linseed fed all year at about half a mug per feed and in winter I add Equijewel at about half a mug per feed. He also gets a small amount of fibre nuts to increase eating time but I don’t feed chaff in his main feeds. I’ve managed to find a hay that he seems to be able to chew at the moment but also give a trug with a scoop of dry haycare a scroop of dry fibre nuts and a scoop of chaff mixed together for him to sift and nibble through hopefully slowly. He often leaves it if I soak it.

I tweak all the time depending on condition, weather, exercise, grass etc.
 
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