Youngster Feeding

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After recently buying my 20 month old filly (who is not home with me yet) I went into feed merchant to try to decide what to feed her, spoke to lady in shop who "appeared" very knowledgeable and who informed me that for youngers to get the recco'd amount of vitamins and minerals out of youngstock feed they would need to eat about 3 bucketloads a day.

She said that I should just feed her what I feed my other two horses but add a good multi vitamin/mineral supplement to it for the filly to get her recco'd dose.

Any help would be appreciated its been a lot a lot of years since ive had a youngser and in my day all there was to chose from was main ring blue or main ring red (for the oldies amongst us lol).

Thankyou.
 
well.... my mare is a native and i had her from 6 months old and she lived out till 3 and i never fed her anything (bad mum!!!) prob depends on breed etc
 
youngstock feed are designed to have higher levels of protien + calcium to help youngsters grow properly. it will give you an amount that you will need to feed on the back of the bag that will ensure your baby gets the optimum amounts of everythin he/she needs. i also work in a feed merchants givin people advice + would neva tell any1 that they would need to give thier youngstock 3 buckets full of feed a day!! that would be irresposible. mayb to split the feed across 3 per day, so you give little and often for optimum digestion.
 
To be honest I think that the woman in the feed store was pretty wise! Having had a bad experience with my baby developing growth problems, POSSIBLY due to a diet high in protein I would be reluctant to feed such a diet again. Instead I would feed ad lib hay, a chaff like hi-fi lite, speedi-beet and a vit and min supp. by 20 months they have done most of their rapid growth - it's quite steady from here on. I prefer my babies to grow at their own rate - they may look scrawny from time to time but rather that than have problems.

Best of luck x
 
I used to feed mine D&H mare and youngstock mix with some chaff and Baileys economy nuts. She had a vitamin supplement with that as well. She had quite a lot but she was very very underweight when I got her and my vet and a nutritionist devised her diet between them
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my rising two year old has been on 675 grams of baileys stud cubes (3 mugs) and 450 grams of baileys stud balancer (2 mugs) split between two feeds a day since the summer. TBH it is a tiny amount but he is blooming without looking fat and I have had no problems at all. He is on the reccomended amount for his age and type so I'd have to disagree with the feed merchant on this one, however he was on winergy before which cost a fortune and I was stuffing him full of feed to keep the weight on so I guess it does all depend on what feed you use.
 
My 20 month old gets ad lib haylage, out during the day with haylage and two feeds of fibre beet and good quality chop mix, his weight is just fine. No point feeding them up in my opinion as they only go a little loopy in the winter months. Exceptional quality ad lib haylage should be surfice for most breeds.
Anita
x
 
My Younge stock are on rolled barley and top spec younge stock pellets wiv a bit of mix twice a day. i find that top spec feeds very good for there money. :-)
 
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Exceptional quality ad lib haylage should be surfice for most breeds.

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Ditto. My weanlings get a little Stud Balancer through their first winter - but after that it's ad lib haylage + their ration of Sure Limb (min/vit designed for youngsters & breeding stock.) The Sure Limb is so palatable they don't need anything with it - they just gobble it up.

I WOULDN'T feed 'normal' horse feed to youngsters - the carb level is too high and even relatively small amounts could trigger growth problems.
 
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