When did feeding get so complicated???

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sjdress

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My mare is sugar intolerant and cereal diets are a no go. She is currently fed molasses free dengi hifi and a handful of hilite horse and pony cubes.
However I realise with these feeds have a lot of hidden ingredients in them that I might not want to be feeding. I want to feed a high fibre diet but it is so complicated. 14% starch seems a lot for an everyday cube.
The more I read the more confused I get!
Can anyone recommend a low starch high fibre feed for a good doer but highly sensitive and sometimes stressy mare competiting BD elementary?!
 
I agree sjdress...its a complete minefield now!! Fast Fibre from A&P is very low starch / sugar ( about 2.5% I think) and doesn't fizz them up, it doesn't have a high DE count so not great for putting weight on (which I need for my tb but with minimal sugar / starch too), but I would say it ticks all the boxes for you.
 
My fat an energetic dressage horse competed of Spillers cool fibre with added vit min powder.

She has since been switched to Agrobs museli (although isn't in work at moment)
 
I did look at the pure feed company as the more I read the more I am concerned about the amount of rubbish in most commercial feeds. It's quite difficult when your horse doesn't need too much but also want to make sure she is getting enough for the work that she is doing!
 
sjdress said:
I did look at the pure feed company as the more I read the more I am concerned about the amount of rubbish in most commercial feeds. It's quite difficult when your horse doesn't need too much but also want to make sure she is getting enough for the work that she is doing!
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If the horse is holding their weight, has a good coat and sufficient energy when ridden then they are 'getting enough for the work they are doing'

Mine was fed ad lib late cut meadow hay, grazing was in a fatty paddock, and she got half a scoop twice a day of the Spillers chaff with supplement.
She was travelling around the country doing overnighters competing dressage. She would do a fortnight spin up the gallops. She looked a million dollars on it.
 
Mine lacks a bit of stamina at times but it's so hard when she gets stupid so easily - but it's more of a nervous energy. Guessing I need a slow release feed. Seems ok on the hifi and h&p nuts but I'm just worried about what exactly is in the nuts and whether that is adding to her sometimes unwanted fizziness!
 
To be honest, if you are only feeding a handful of cubes they won't be adding much to the diet anyway. I'd be tempted to cut them out entirely unless she won't eat the chaff without them. If you are worried about vit/mins then you can always add a powdered supplement (not that a handful of cubes would provide these anyway).
 
If she's a good doer I'd just feed a bit of bulk fibre with one of the good low iron vit / min powders. You can always add some micronised linseed or copra if she starts to lose condition. You could use your current chaff, or a fibre feed like unmolassed sugar beet or fast fibre, if your really worried about "nasties" in there then Agrobs are one to look at.
 
it's not complicated... fibre fibre fibre, and a bit of fat if they need a bit more condition.

supplements are the complicated bit IMO - our two boys get a joint supplement and a digestive supplement to help them, but they're 21 going on 3...
 
She is on fibre and fibre only! But what exactly is in those high fibre cubes is anyone's guess. Why does it need molasses for example? Commercial feeds are great for conveience but seem to be made up of all sorts!
 
Mine are fed on adlib horsehage, grazing and a token feed of chaff, speedibeet and micronised linseed and they're doing great on it. The only supplements I give is vits & mins and salt.

I'm not an equine nutritionist or an expert, but I do think high fibre, low sugar & starch feeds are the best way to feed horses. If you need energy, you can always add oil (introduced to the diet gradually, of course), which releases energy slowly and is easier for the horse to digest than grains/cereals.
 
sjdress said:
But what exactly is in those high fibre cubes is anyone's guess. Why does it need molasses for example?
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the molasses is mainly put in during the pelleting process to make them stick together....

our two get a molasses free chaff, and speedibeet. Ron gets a cup of linseed meal if he needs a bit more condition, and Tom gets some bruised oats (like a cup full) if he needs a bit more ooomph (linseed makes him fat easily but with no more energy)

they are on 24/5 turnout on average, only coming in for the worst of weather, and get hay in the field shelter more or less ad lib.
 
It got complex when all the suckers fell for the pretty pictures on the bag and the lovely looking mix in the bag - mid 70's was the start of it all with the Meusli mixes. Some of the current feeds actually small awful, at HOY I always collect samples - I keep them in the truck for naughty loaders, but one bag smelled so awful even my Clydesdale wouldn't eat it.
 
the cynical answer is when the accountants and marketeers got involved and saw it as an opportunity to turn a coin or two.

As you know horses' feeding requirements are fairly simple, the rest is to appeal to humans. Reading the ingredients labels is rather enlightening!!

I've not got on well with any of the high-fibre cubes - my ponies do better on straight soaked grassnuts, ad-lib forage with an NSC to suit them and a vits and mins powder to balance up the minerals lacking. You can adjust the quantities of the nuts to whether they need more or less oomph without upsetting the baseline of forage and minerals. Good quality ad-lib forage is the basis of diet - my hunter and my TB worked pretty hard on ad-lib haylage alone, just a few oats added to the feed this time of year if needed. The natives are blooming on a handful of grassnuts and their minerals.
Each horse is different - there are still a number of hi-fibre straights to experiment with, grassnuts, alfalfa nuts (not the chaff which is treated), sugar beet...... at least with straights you can narrow down what ingredients your horse does best on, and what doesn't agree with them.
 
catkin said:
the cynical answer is when the accountants and marketeers got involved and saw it as an opportunity to turn a coin or two.
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This. Plus I'd add: when people started considering their horses as pets/companions more than as working animals. Horses and everything horse-related has become a hobby for many (I include myself), with an interest to learn more and "get everything right", or improve over time. Quite a different point of view from that of a horse owner whose main priority was performance as a working animal. It's made horse owners into perfect targets for marketing, and the flood of available products with their various claims just gets confusing.
 
KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid is the motto for feeding. Marketing companies have "us" sewn up; if you're not feeding you're a bad owner and guilt is a powerful motivator!

What are you feeding for? Condition? Vitamins? etc

Try to feed "clean" feeds so no hidden ingredients. If you want/need to feed a chaff there are plenty that are "pure" chaffs that are solely chopped hay/grass/alfa.

For condition there are feeds like micronised linseed, coolstance/copra

Options like grass nuts or speedibeet for soaked feeds.

If you are looking to feed a good vit/min supplement have a read of the Forage Plus website and their offshoot - Forage Talk (I think that's what it's called, links on FP anyway). Equiminns, Progressive Earth (from eBay) and Forage Plus are all good balancers with no hidden ingredients.

Read ingredient listings (that hard to read wee white label...); if you can't pronounce it chances are your horse doesn't have to be eating it ;)

Pure Feeds use (or at least did last time I checked) a lot of Soya in their feeds and that's not for everyone for varying reasons.

There's no short cut it's a case of learning so that you can make informed decisions. Times are changing; not that long ago if you posted for feed advice you'd get answers of certain brand cubes/mixes. Slowly this is changing with people learning what their/the horse needs and feeding to that requirement rather than the full page ads in magazines and posters at feed stores!
 
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