Which vitamins/minerals and feed balancers do you recommend?

SaharaS

SaharaS

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Just coming towards the end of a 25kg sack of Benevit Advanced which my 4 are on. Always been happy with it but am aware there are many different ones coming onto the market. Recently changed from hay to haylage and feeds are pretty much based on several feeds a day of sugar beet & copra, with oil or micronized linseed and either alphalfa type chaff or mollichaff depending on horses.. each has salt & benevit advanced for vits & minerals.

I do use grass nuts(also soaked) and calm & condition if needed rather than cereals if possible.

They are (were) turned out daily, rugged (all TBs) and in at night but the weather has forced me into using the school for turnout when its not torrential & if its raining hard, say 4 days on the trot, I'd turn them out for 2 of those days in the school for at least a few hours to a whole day, and the alternate days they would be in with adlib hay day & night & led out or ridden or ridden & led.

...So they will be lacking the goodness they can gather while browsing herbs & hedges & grazing as they are in the school...So thought ideal time to see what else is out there & just looking what is available & recommended (not by the manufacturers!) Prices & sack sizes would be a great help as I have 4 -two are 15.3, one 16.2 and one 17hh all are TB's(one 17/18's so near as damn it) and one is a veteran and one is 4, so I'll be going thru quite an amount.

I don't want to be feeding any unnecessaries or extra expenses so am not looking for a balancer to feed along side vits and mins I'd ideally like to find one sack, reasonably priced that covers everything...we've turned a corner since last thread in last ten days about the two who were not doing quite as well in condition as usual, the copra seems to be kicking in and they now are where they were before they dropped off & really gleaming so am very happy about that now:D

ETA does anyone feed seaweed only as their nutrient?or add seaweed/yeast?

Merry Christmas and smoked salmon & creme fraiche blinis with mint & black pepper on offer..not for the horses tho that would be bad!:D
 
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I feed Top Spec Cool Balancer. As I feed a mix and sugar beet, I give half the amount of balancer that they say as he will be getting some vits and mins from his other feed. My horse looks fab on it.
 
I'd be really careful with seaweed. We had a horrible experience where 4 horses became extremely difficult to handle - we suspected something in a spring in the field but the vet eventually diagnosed mould poisoning from a seaweed supplement that we were using.
 
I but straight minerals from Equimins and mix up my own to provide the same level of nutrients as Forage Plus balancer. My two look well on this. I also add yeasacc. I wouldn't bother with seaweed it's high in iodine and iron, both of which you are unlikely to need to add :)
 
Also the Equimins Meta Balance is a good all round vit/min, you wouldn't need a balancer as it has 10 billion yeast thingy's:o which is ten times more than their Fibre Digester and all the ingredients a balancer would include anyway.
That costs about £33 for 3K and you would need to feed approx 50-60g per horse. If you work out the saving on the balancer, I'd like to bet it would be cheaper. Also if you're feeding Micronised Linseed, you could step that up to two mugs per horse if they're losing weight, that should help to replace what they miss from no grass, along with the high spec of Vit E in the MetaBalance.
BTW, you need to e-mail or call them to order the MB, it's not on their web site. This is because the spec is very similar to their Advance Complete but without the iron and has higher mins for metabolic/barefoot horses, but in fact it is a great all round supplement for any horse or pony, especially if they are spooky and possibly suffering from ulcers or lack of magnesium.
 
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Hello..thank you sooo much for all your replies...being a numpty, I managed to unsubscribe from my own thread so little wonder it didn't tell me anyone had answered! I put it down to mince pies jamming the keys!:D Anyway, I didn't want anyone to think I was being rude..so thank you!:D
 
I feed mine Lexvet cool, which has everything in it. It's a powder, so no extra cereals or anything in it. Think it worked out cheaper than a balancer too, but can't remember what I paid for it. Horse is the best he's ever been on it!
 
fjordhorsefan said:
I feed mine Lexvet cool, which has everything in it. It's a powder, so no extra cereals or anything in it. Think it worked out cheaper than a balancer too, but can't remember what I paid for it. Horse is the best he's ever been on it!
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Thank you..Not heard of that one, so shall have a google...sounds ideal..I've been dithering over ordering :o
 
I use Equine Answers 365complete. Its a balancer in powdered form with all the vits, minerals, Msm, pro and pre- biotics and biotin you need. I feed it to my Tbs and am VERY happy with the results. It's also cheap :)
 
I had the same problem Sahara, I have three to feed so keeping them all upto weight and making sure that they were getting all there vitamins and minerals is a challenge.
I currently use Baileys Lo-cal, which I've just started using and I'm seeing really good results my horses have lovely coats and there hoof and tail condition is starting to improve :)
It's around £25 a bag, and I feed two coffee mugs full a day to my big horse and one mug per day to my smaller ones, they have that alongside, some fast fibre around 0.5kg and 900g each of Hi Fi lite, alongisde 10kg hay each. They are in at night out during the day.
I know that Horse&Pony direct do a similar product called low calorie balancer, they do others too. But they are all under £25, and if you buy three bags I think you get a discount :)
 
Scarlett said:
I use Equine Answers 365complete. Its a balancer in powdered form with all the vits, minerals, Msm, pro and pre- biotics and biotin you need. I feed it to my Tbs and am VERY happy with the results. It's also cheap :)
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Cheap is good!:D I've looked at some of the other things mentioned but struggled so far to be tempted away from Benevit Advanced for the contents and price have not been as good so far....this is the first that actually sounds better thank you!

Laura-Maybe-IV said:
I had the same problem Sahara, I have three to feed so keeping them all upto weight and making sure that they were getting all there vitamins and minerals is a challenge.
I currently use Baileys Lo-cal, which I've just started using and I'm seeing really good results my horses have lovely coats and there hoof and tail condition is starting to improve :)
It's around £25 a bag, and I feed two coffee mugs full a day to my big horse and one mug per day to my smaller ones, they have that alongside, some fast fibre around 0.5kg and 900g each of Hi Fi lite, alongisde 10kg hay each. They are in at night out during the day.
I know that Horse&Pony direct do a similar product called low calorie balancer, they do others too. But they are all under £25, and if you buy three bags I think you get a discount :)
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Thank you for this too..it such a minefield out there!thanks for the link & discount mentioning too...I'll go thru it like nobodys business as have 4 big ones so good to know they do discounts!It leaves more money for me to spend on chocolate & other necessities in these rainy grey days to keep the spirits up!:D WHEN is this evil weather going to start playing nicely again???
 
Sahara The Red Nosed Reindeer said:
Cheap is good!:D I've looked at some of the other things mentioned but struggled so far to be tempted away from Benevit Advanced for the contents and price have not been as good so far....this is the first that actually sounds better thank you!
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It really has been a great find for me and mine. I feed no other supplements other than linseed with it and have no issues or concerns, plus my horses are barefoot. A 4kg tub at £53 lasts me about 3-4 months for 2 horses :)
 
I'm using the Top Spec stud balancer and have been very impressed with it to the point that I will be switching her to the Top Spec lite once the foal's off her.
It's got absolutly everything - the only extra I feed is a joint supplement, everything else is in the feed. A sac costs about £28 and lasts about 6 weeks or so depending on horse weight
 
I buy Feedmark products when they offer a big discount. last one was £20 of a £60.00 order [notified by email], standard discount is £10 off a £40.00 order.
I have also tried Pro Balance +, it worked out a bit more expensive, but I was only buying a small bag.
Micronised linseed, and non molassed sugar beet [horse is barefoot] are the best basic feeds imho.
Buying basic feedstuffs which are minimally processed is the way to go if you have several horses. Fast Fibre is a cheap base which I use in summer.
I like the containers to be watertight if I am not keeping stuff in the house.
It is a faff, but I only have to mix the minerals with the linseed once per bag [of ML] and I only have to add a cup or two of the mix to the s/beet. Though I often add a small handful of non molassed Dengie chaff for variety and taste.
At the moment there are 30gms of minerals and 100gms of linseed for maintenenance, so actually they get 130gms per day, you need to factor this in as the minerals are "heavy"
Small, accurate scales are vital. You need a "scoop" of the size to meet the 130gms weight.
 
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