what to feed good doer for muscle building?

Mince Pie

Mince Pie

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I have a good doer who has now come back into full work after about a year off (he's been kept ticking over but hasn't been in 'proper' work). Over the winter he will be fed a handful of alfa a molasses free, pony nuts and speedi beet, however I'm aware that he cant build muscle if he hasn't got enough protein (and on the tiny meal he is getting there will not be enough! ) I'm leaning towards changing his lo cal for something like baileys performance balancer instead. Can anyone recommend a balancer which is slightly higher in protein? He will be worked 6 days a week and the level of work will increase with his fitness.
 
I'd suggest Blue Chip Original. If he puts on too much weight, you can always switch to their light option, but BCO is one of my 2 favourite balancers.

Sarah
 
QB, unfortunately as we're now on part livery I can't clutter up the feedroom with too many things! It would have to be either a balancer or the linseed, and I need the vit/mins as well as he won't be getting it through his feed/hay.
Moomin I am well aware that feed does not give topline, only correct work, however he cannot build muscle if there is not enough protein in his diet.
FFF thanks but they are seriously out of budget!
 
Fair comment. They are pricier than some, but they use ingredients that work. For example, organic selenium (selenium yeast) which is more expensive than the inorganic selenium (sodium selenite) which is known to be less bioavailable, and which made no improvement to my gang over a 10 month feeding period.

Blue Chip can be cheaper if bought online direct from Blue Chip, especially if you order two bags at a time (as you can put in a special code for reductions on orders over £50).

In addition to that, they do a loyalty point scheme. Each bag has a voucher for one point. Once you have 8 points, you can have a free bag of balancer. So effectively that makes each bag about £5 less than you first pay for it.

So over time it becomes cost effective.

Sarah
 
Which is what he's getting, 2 x weekly and then 4 x schooling, when he's fitter 1 of those 4 will be jumping but at the moment just poles.
 
Broke_But_Happy said:
QB, unfortunately as we're now on part livery I can't clutter up the feedroom with too many things! It would have to be either a balancer or the linseed, and I need the vit/mins as well as he won't be getting it through his feed/hay.
Moomin I am well aware that feed does not give topline, only correct work, however he cannot build muscle if there is not enough protein in his diet.
FFF thanks but they are seriously out of budget!
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I must be lucky with my good doer mare then. I have slimmed her down a treat, and muscled her up very well. She literally had Bailey's lo cal balancer, bran, and magnesium through the winter, stopping completely around March time, then just grass.
 
That's good :), but as my lad has soaked hay (no nutrients), a tiny feed (so not enough nutrients), and there will be nothing in the grass soon I fail to see where the protein is supposed to be coming from. Also bear in mind that he has been out of proper work for a very long time so we are starting from scratch. He's an older horse as well so needs some help.
 
I use topspec lite balancer with nothing else apart from AdLib Haylage in winter and they do really well on it (I am scroogy and my 2 get half measure each (half mug) twice a day to keep costs down unless I feel they need full mug for any reason).
 
I would suspect that he is being fed as he is on livery and all the horses expect breakfast at the same time (mine certainly do).

If you are looking more at something that is going to help muscle development alongside correct work rather than "create" it, then you can try basic things like linseed/fenugreek otherwise there are a number of supplements - I used Feedmark's opti muscle on one of mine who had 12 months after KS/PSD op and it helped him. We had to take everything incredibly slow with him as I was terrified he would break, but this helped him in the initial stages, especially as he was very weak across his back. He is just fed fenugreek now (all of mine are fed this).
 
CBAnglo said:
I would suspect that he is being fed as he is on livery and all the horses expect breakfast at the same time (mine certainly do).

If you are looking more at something that is going to help muscle development alongside correct work rather than "create" it, then you can try basic things like linseed/fenugreek otherwise there are a number of supplements - I used Feedmark's opti muscle on one of mine who had 12 months after KS/PSD op and it helped him. We had to take everything incredibly slow with him as I was terrified he would break, but this helped him in the initial stages, especially as he was very weak across his back. He is just fed fenugreek now (all of mine are fed this).
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My horse is on diy livery. Each horse gets fed at separate times, obviously. Yet none of them require 'different feed' because of it.

Fenugreek is a load of rubbish also. Save your money
 
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