What feed balancer do you use?

[kit279]

I'm just curious to have a CR straw poll on feed balancers - what does everyone use and why?

Ours are keeping their weight very well on adlib haylage alone and giving them hard feed seems to just make them eat less haylage so I'm quite keen to try a feed balancer as their only hard feed and see how they get on.

 

[Dovorian]

Top Spec Lite - all 3 on it, 16.3 HW hunter out of work, 16.1 WB dressage mare and porky 13,2 NF. Super coats and done well on hay, will add Allen & Page fast fibre/calm and condition when needed.

 

[kirstyhen]

I feed Calmer Mollichaff (fed by accident, buy she loves it and it suits her) with Bailey's No 19 Performance Balancer.

The chaff is actually a complete feed, I feed the balancer to give her something a bit more without making her fat or blowing her brain. It seems to suit her very well and I am chuffed with how she looks and feels at the moment, energetic without being on the verge of exploing, a lovely weight and VERY shiny!

She won't eat if I fill her bucket with food, so only gets a stubbs scoop of chaff and two mugs of balancer split into two feeds, but I know she is getting everything she needs in those small feeds.

 

[Addicted to Hunting]

Top spec comprensive with 1/2 scoop top spec cool condtion and also half a scoop off their condtioning, as she is hard work and hunting at least once a week, so the flakes just give her a bit extra but not much, if that makes sense? And salt

 

[rhino]

Pink Powder. I had a horrible experience with a well known balancer and their customer service was appalling so will stick to PP from now on

ETA gets small feeds of fibre beet and hifi and ad lib hay

 

[SpottedCat]

I used to feed TopSpec but it just went up and up in price until it became ridiculous. Now I feed Pure Feed company stuff because it has a balancer pelleted in it and my feed bill has halved! They do do a balancer on its own, but I use the complete feeds fed at half recommended rate and the horse looks amazing on it. Better than he did on TopSpec I'd say.

 

[CambridgeParamour]

I use Blue chip original on 3.5 year old warmblood stallion. He's very shiny, the right amount of energy and a good weight. He also has a handful of hi-fi origional with apple

 

[Wilbur_Force]

Equilibra 500 from GWF Nutrition. Excellent balancer and horse looks great on it

 

[abitodd]

Another Pure Feeds fan here.
I use the Pure Easy for my yearling and add a scoop of Pure Balance for the HUGE horse because he would have too eat loads of 'hard feed' to get his optimum nutrients. Both look fab on the stuff, its economical and safe for laminitics......not that mine are............but I'd like to keep it that way!

 

[WellyBaggins]

Baileys performance balancer here

 

[luckyhorseshoe]

Spillers Performance Balancer with graze on (similar to ready grass). She is a very sensitive girl and she looks well on this without any silliness or reactions.

She has lots of hay!

 

[Mince Pie]

Suregrow

 

[measles]

We feed Suregrow

 

[Jane_Lou]

Equilibra 500 from GWF Nutrition. Excellent balancer and horse looks great on it

Same, evented native cross on it last year with Tiger oats, pony looked amazing, controlled weight well and had plenty of energy, easy to cut out the oats when not needed either.

 

[Santa_Claus]

Baileys no 14 (lo cal balancer) works out v cheap and majority of year Fleur competes on just that and grass!

 

[abercrombie&titch]

another top spec user here... comprehensive for one, anti lam for other....

 

[monkeymad]

Pink powder. The only time I stopped feeding it and swapped to another balancer my mare got colic, so have now switched back to Pink powder as I think the pro-biotics must have been doing good things!

 

[kerryflower]

another baileys performance. Have seen a real difference. More so than Blue Chip...didn't see a jot of difference with that!

 

[lash]

Bailys Lo-Cal, with a bit of hi-fi and speedi-beat!

 

[MissMistletoe]

I use Spillers Lite balancer.

Was tempted with Pure feeds balancer, but it is £33 a bag, and is 14% starch.

Compared with £17.50 for Spillers, with a starch of just 8%.

 

[Topaz Tiger]

Top spec comprehensive on both my retired mare and my working one, together with top spec fibre nuts and speedibeet.
Both look fab and are good doers.
Fed simple systems a couple of years ok, spent a fortune and horses not keen on huge sloppy feeds, but to be fair did not hype them up, but found it expensive and ended up using less of the more cost affective good quality haylage, so didn't work for me.
Have looked briefly into pure feeds, but as my dentist said it was better for my retired mare not to be feed chopped fibre not keen on it, plus not sure what their ethos is, is it all natural pure etc like simple systems, or is it a easy complete feed for us to use. Still think more research has prob gone into top spec stuff, so will stick with that or the moment.......

 

[Holidays_are_coming]

Baileys Performance balancer!!

 

[mudmonkey17]

Baileys lo cal

 

[millitiger]

I used Topspec for about 7 years up until this summer and have always been very pleased with it... but, the price was getting a bit much so I have swapped to Pink Powder and so far, am very pleased with it.

 

[CrazyMare]

Topspec comprehensive for all of mine with alfa a for the 19 year old and the broodmare and good doer for the 3 year old

 

[kerilli]

Baileys Stud Balancer, for all of them. Fabulous stuff.

 

[posie_honey]

i feed dengie performance vits and mins - to top up levels as i dont feed at recommended amounts
not a balancer but does same job afaik

 

[Firewell]

Baileys lo-cal.
Perfect for my sensitive TB, he looks an absolute gleaming beast on it! I've tried to take him off of it once or twice and he always drops off and starts to look 'meh' after a couple of weeks so I put him back on it pronto!

He gets it with HiFi, fibre nuts and hay .

Never been a fan of balancers before but they really suit J and my mum has just put her skinny TB on it so will be interesting to see the difference it makes to him

 

[LMR]

i feed topsec comprehensive balancer to one of my mine and she looks great was thinking about the antilam one for my other one.

 

[m1stify]

I have had my mare on top spec leisure time with some sugar beet for the last month or so and she is doing great on it, and is a good doer. The reason I chose top spec is that it is cereal-grain free, and mare is allergic to a dust mite found in cereals, which resulted in mild COPD. She is now off medication and cough-free and is in super form. It is expensive but even after a month I am not even halfway through the bag. Much cheaper than medication and vets bills