Yearling feeding ...

[Twinkletoes]

Our new colt arrives in 48h, Hanov x Shire born May. What would you feed, & supplement wise what do you swear by? We have lovely soft haylage in, and have been given various words of advice re not overdoing the hard feed, dangers etc...

 

[Maesfen]

What's it on now? I would be inclined to keep it on that for at least a couple of weeks until he's settled in and you would have a better idea.

 

[MillionDollar]

Mine are on 24/7 of Dr Green, nothing else. They are on 5 acres of good grazing.

 

[CBFan]

DON'T!! haylage and grass will be perfecly sufficient... a handful of hi-fi lite will be enough to get him used to eating from a bucket in case you need to give him meds in the future..

good luck xx

 

[TURBOBERT]

Interesting. I am taking over my daughter's yearling - 2 in January. He is just on grass/haylage and handful of nuts and Benevit. I wondered if during the worst winter months whether he might need more protein. What do people think?

 

[TGM]

Haylage usually loses less protein during conservation than hay, so protein levels are unlikely to be deficient. If you want to be really sure, then Dodson & Horrell do a forage analysis service for just £5, which will tell you, amongst other things, the protein content of your haylage:

http://www.dodsonandhorrell.com/helpline/forage/forage-analysis/

I think the price is quite cheap compared to the price of feeding a balancer all winter unnecessarily!

 

[TURBOBERT]

Thanks for that