Another fatty feed query- sorry!

[HairyCob]

I've been reading the other threads that are going at the moment about feeding good doers and getting supplements into them, and all seem to be advising against (or at least not advising for!) feeding Happy Hoof... which is a pain because that is what Dolly is on!

She's a 14.3hh Arab X Welsh, gets fat on a blade of grass and although she's never had laminitis, she does get 'hot hooves' and a digi pulse if she has too much grass, so I'm not taking any chances.

Currently she weigh-tapes at 390kg, is exercised 3-4 times a week and is on very restricted grazing supplemented with a flap of hay in the evening because she seems hungry (maybe she's just a pig, but I've never known a horse eat hay when there's even *some* grass unless they are hungry!)

Feed wise, she has a small scoop (about two coffee mugs) of Happy Hoof to disguise her copious supplements- magnesium based calmer (double whammy!), joint supplement, garlic and vit and min supplement, and a carrot chopped up if I'm feeling generous!

Now, I read here that Happy Hoof is mollassed and therefore shouldn't be fed to fatties/laminitics, yet it IS approved by the laminitis trust- I'm confused!

Any suggestions as to any changes I should be making to keep her weight off and keep her healthy?

It's worth mentioning that she will not eat Hi-fi, hi-fi light or any of the other 'boring chaffs' (her words, not mine;) ;) )

[Showjumper]

lol I think it was my post that's caused your confusion! Sorry!

You're kinder than I am - my Dolly doesn't even get carrots in summer because of the sugar content!

But yes, I've taken Dolly off Happy Hoof because it's mollassed and once she's been weaned onto the Bailey's Lo Cal I'm buying tomorrow, she'll also be off the Marksway Hoofkind which is also mollassed. I'm totally peeved off with feed companies that advertise their products as suitable for laminitics when they clearly aren't.

I spoke to a Spiller's Rep yesterday who said that Happy Dieter is better than Happy Hoof for fatsos but to make sure they're getting a balanced diet, they'd need 2kg of it a day!!! :eek: Absolutely ridiculous!

[Whatanejit]

I'm trying to convince may's mum about the Happy Hoof problem.

Fortunately she is away at the mo so May is only getting one small handfull of Happy hoof with seaweed and easibreath herbs twice a day.

If I had my way she would get a carrot and an apple in a bowl with some dampened hay to pretend it was a dinner.

She has been out in her grazing muzzle for 2 weeks now and looks fabulous.

She is definately able to eat through it and certainly hasn't wasted away in the two weeks!

For the inevitable chin rubs she gets sudocreme applied twice a day.

So your question, then - how to get the supplements in?

Sorry, not sure :o

[Skye94]

Happy Hoof is good for fatties, its spillers only Complete Feed in a chaff disguise :p It is slightly sugared but if it wasnt then it would be like us eating cardboard.. My friends shetland was on it and HE HATED IT!! He would not eat it as he thought it tasted mingin! If your mare likes it then carry on to feed it, it has minerals and vitamins that help keep the laminae well and is a good way of a calorie controled diet as long as she is being fed the correct amount for her work load.. :) Need any more help on feed or vits and mins let me no :D

[eventerbabe]

happy hoof has 5% sugar so is not something i'd be feeding to a good doer or laminitic. Laminitis trust approval means NOTHING. it's so important you read the bags yourself. there are several laminitis approved products i would never have fed to my laminitic.

Have you tried hi-fi lite and speedi beet? that often gets them to eat it. or you could try the honey chop oat straw chaff. it's essentially like hi-fi lite but looks slightly different.

[MelanieD]

Its amazing what cr*p the laminitis trust will approve :rolleyes:

Happy Hoof has got mollasses and alfalfa in it, both of which can be bad things for laminitics. Most of the diet type feeds need feeding at stupid amounts to get all the vitamins from them, I much prefer feeding a smaller amount and some Bailey's LoCal or a powdered vitamin supplement.

I like D&H Safe and Sound if you want something interesting for fatties to eat to hide supplements in, it's chaff and has little pony nut type things in so they think they're getting proper dinner. Handful of that and a handful of speedibeet can hide and amazing amount of supplements and they think they're getting something nice to eat.

[mayoguinness]

Take a look at simple systems stuff. Mainly grass based I think and very good. www.simplesystem.co.uk/ No suger or mollasis in either;)

[Bebe]

I give up on chaff type feeds, the only ones that are unmolassed are either inedible as per my horse (Simple System RuffStuff, she threw the bucket at me last time I gave it her) or too high in energy (Readigrass, Graze-on, etc) and not suitable for feeding 90% of the time.

I'm sticking with unmolassed beet, I get away with chucking an amazing amount of powder in without Bebe even appearing to notice. It doesn't look all that appetising but she likes it.

For ease of feeding, and if she's looking too round even on half a mug of beet, I damp the Lo-Cal and that seems to work ok too.

[HairyCob]

Thanks for your advice so far folks, keep it coming!

I'm incredulous that Happy Hoof ISN'T suitable for laminitics- I sarted feeding it when Dolly refused to eat Hi-fi as one of the ponies on the yard who is VERY laminitic and needs constant careful monitoring, is on it:eek: I'll have a chat to his owner.

Unfortuately Dolly won't eat Speedi-beet except in the depths of winter- strange mare that she is... I'll try her with it again, but I'm not holding out much hope as she regularly turns her nose up at it!:rolleyes:

ETA- I've heard great things about simple systems, but unfortunately there isn't a supplier round here and I'm not going to order a pallet full on two counts- one if madam declines it it'll be a total waste, and two, by the time she got through a whole pallet full she'd be eating 5year old feed!!!

[HairyCob]

I've just checked out the Baileys website, looking at low-cal...and lo and behold, it contains MOLASSES, it doesn't say how much, but it's definitely there in the ingredients list:mad:

ETA: Safe and Sound ALSO contains the dreaded Molasses!

[Showjumper]

Gah!! :( That's not good! I was planning on buying a bag of Lo Cal tomorrow for my Dolly! Bebe, do you know what percentage of Lo Cal is mollasses?

[Gill]

I wish I had read all this before yesterday as I went to a laminitis workshop at the vets, which included a talk by the Spillers rep, who came across very well, and of course was promoting happy hoof. I would have asked questions!
My fatties are only on a tiny bit of unmolassed beet shreds with magnesium added, plus hay.
Its very hard to know right from wrong!

[MelanieD]

Safe and Sound does contain mollasses but very little, its nowhere near as sticky as most mollassed chaffs. I like it for fatties that may be a bit laminitis prone, not sure I'd try feeding it to a very sensitive laminitic.

Its annoying how utterly impossible it is to find totally unmollassed feeds that aren't bad in other ways or so boring ponies refuse to eat them :rolleyes:.

[HairyCob]

I have e-mailed Baileys (well, filled out their question form!) to ask what percentage of molasses Lo Cal has in it- hopefully they will actually answer the question rather than just try to convince me that their feed is great!

Can you tell I've been 'upset' by feed companies before?!;)

[colettybetty]

Have you tried Spillers horse and pony cubes ? I mix a handful in with a handful of chaff for my fat boy purely to give him a multivitamin supplement.They are pretty low cal and horses love the taste. I've yet to meet a horse who won't eat their horrible medication if disguised in these cubes softened with water.

[shandy84]

Can I ask if you actually need to feed a short feed at all, my girls when too large are muzzled have one section of hay and a vit lick which I check thoroughly before I buy for sugar content. If you are worried about weight avoid all veggies they have a huge amount of natural sugar :)

[Showjumper]

HC, could you let me know what they say please? If all else fails, the feed shop I'm going to tomorrow also stocks Top Spec so I can compare labels on the Top Spec and Lo Cal bags.

Shandy, Dolly gets a feed to give her the energy needed to do the work I ask of her. She's also on restricted grazing so isn't getting much from the grass, and we've run out of hay.

[shandy84]

No probs :) Just thought I'd check, Bramble is peppy enough on the grass at the mo and driving has kept her amazingly slim this summer, so not restricting her too much at all.

I have a good one.

Mrs Milly Moo my nearly two year old filly is very very round on just grass worm count done by vet all fine, bearing in mind her age, how would you slim her up?

[Pink's lady]

What about Readigrass? It's literlly pure dried grass and nothing else. Not mollases in sight. It smell gorgeous:D and my lot love it. Two handful (about 0.1kg) would be enough to hide her supplements in.

I'm not sure it would be suitable for lamintics though - it is pure grass.

[angelfben]

Readigrass isn't the best choice for a fatty as grass is such a high energy source.. energy = calories.

Readigrass = Digestible Energy (MJ/kg) 11.5 which is not only more than bog standard (i.e. not a low-cal version)chaff, it actually has more DE than their competition mix :eek: I don't know why but you just don't expect that from a chaffy type feed do you? :rolleyes:

The problem is horses weren't really designed to eat grass, or at least not the nice grass we so carefully nurture for them to eat :p They're designed to eat cr*ppy low energy forage for the most part.

I have to watch Alps as he has had lami (though it was concussive lam but he's still more vulnerable to getting it again) and is also prone to piling the weight on and going a bit loopy on too much sugar. Unfortunately though he is also really fussy and won't eat Dengie feeds full stop :rolleyes:

So he gets the dreaded Happy Hoof but only a handful a day of it.. I actually rather like it as what people forget is it is a complete feed, not just a "bulker" like most chaffs. So it purposefully has the energy in it along with vitamins and minerals as it is designed to be a complete maintenance feed for horses on a low calorie diet. When you compare it to the equivelant cubes and mixes it is very low in calories really. However, if you are just using it to get supplements into them I appreciate it is all unecessary calories...however a handful a day I can't see does an awful lot of harm.

My tips for a fatty include small amounts of D&H Pasture Nuts (you can use chaff as well but my horse can't be bothered to try and get that out :rolleyes: ) which can be put in a snack-a-ball along with chopped veg and sugar-free polos. Keeps them amused for ages and delivers nutrition/trickle feeding.

Also the Horselyx stable licks are great for the vitamins and nutrients in them but they are very molassed so be careful with one that might just much through it in a night :rolleyes: I'm lucky in that Alps just picks at it now and then and doesn't over-do it.

[Sammii]

We have a laminitic pony that sounds much like Dolly (with regards to being a picky eater!)

We've ended up getting a handful of hay, and chopping it up and putting it in her feed mixed with her supplements, it's they're powder supplements then we soak it!

[Pink's lady]

Readigrass is high energy (one of the reasons I bought it for Kalli) BUT it's also really really lightweight, so a kg of the stuff is a HUGE amount - it fills an entire big bucket full:eek: It's weights less than Hi-Fi by volume - it was noticeable that one Stubbs scope full of Readigrass was a lot lighter than one scoop full of Hi-Fi (and bag is only a 15kg bag, as apposed to a smaller (volume) 20kg bag of Hi-Fi)

Which means a handful or so, which would be enough to give supplements in, would be probably the same calories as an equivelent volume of Hi-Fi (in terms of MJ/kg). But not a drop of mollasses. Plus Dolly might be willing to eat it - it smells lovely.


But again, I'm not entirely sure that pure grass would be good for a lamintic.

We also used to the same as Sammi - we used a pair of scissors to chop up hay to feed the shetland.

[puzzles]

Readigrass isn't the best choice for a fatty as grass is such a high energy source.. energy = calories.

Readigrass = Digestible Energy (MJ/kg) 11.5 which is not only more than bog standard (i.e. not a low-cal version)chaff, it actually has more DE than their competition mix :eek: I don't know why but you just don't expect that from a chaffy type feed do you? :rolleyes:

The problem is horses weren't really designed to eat grass, or at least not the nice grass we so carefully nurture for them to eat :p They're designed to eat cr*ppy low energy forage for the most part.

I have to watch Alps as he has had lami (though it was concussive lam but he's still more vulnerable to getting it again) and is also prone to piling the weight on and going a bit loopy on too much sugar. Unfortunately though he is also really fussy and won't eat Dengie feeds full stop :rolleyes:

So he gets the dreaded Happy Hoof but only a handful a day of it.. I actually rather like it as what people forget is it is a complete feed, not just a "bulker" like most chaffs. So it purposefully has the energy in it along with vitamins and minerals as it is designed to be a complete maintenance feed for horses on a low calorie diet. When you compare it to the equivelant cubes and mixes it is very low in calories really. However, if you are just using it to get supplements into them I appreciate it is all unecessary calories...however a handful a day I can't see does an awful lot of harm.

My tips for a fatty include small amounts of D&H Pasture Nuts (you can use chaff as well but my horse can't be bothered to try and get that out :rolleyes: ) which can be put in a snack-a-ball along with chopped veg and sugar-free polos. Keeps them amused for ages and delivers nutrition/trickle feeding.

Also the Horselyx stable licks are great for the vitamins and nutrients in them but they are very molassed so be careful with one that might just much through it in a night :rolleyes: I'm lucky in that Alps just picks at it now and then and doesn't over-do it.

ditto all!:D

[Bronya]

Every feed that isn't forage or straights, is mollassed. Some only contain mollasses extract, some contain tiny amounts of the real thing, some contain much more. Straights to some extent, and forage far more, contain fairly high amounts of naturally occurring sugars, so the lack of mollasses isn't really an indicator as to whether they are safe (hence why we soak hay for laminitics - to dissolve some of the sugars within it). Straights, obviously, contain high levels of starch.

Part of this is necessary for the horse to survive. No, they don't need mollasses, that's just a flavour and anti-dust thing, but they do need limited amounts of starch and sugar to stay alive. A horse cannot meet its energy requirements with oil alone, and does actually need some starch and/or sugar, to stay alive. The issue with laminitics, is that you don't want an overdose of either at any one time. Thus, like with humans when we talk about low GI in foods, we want the feeds we give laminitics to be very high in fibre, low in starch, so they take a long time to digest in the gut and release their starch and sugar gradually into the horse's blood, so preventing any sudden rises in blood sugar levels.

Given that grass, hay and straw all contain some sugar, the issue of any particular feed is that it has sufficient fibre, and less sugar or an amount of sugar equal to well soaked hay, for a laminitic. For a good doer, you just want an amount of sugars equal to or less than normal hay, so about 4% or less depending on your hay.

There is also the issue of the type of sugar - recent research has suggested that fructans are more dangerous than other sugars. If in the long run this proves to be true, then grass sugar will turn out to be more dangerous than sugar from other sources.

Another thing to consider with starvation paddocks that is linked to this, is that recent research has indicated that closely grazed or frosted grass is high in fructans, a type of sugar that triggers similar changes in the hindgut to a soluble carbohydrate overload. This helps to explain the cases of laminitis seen in horses and ponies kept on ‘starvation’ paddocks or turned out on apparently poor grazing in frosty weather.

Oh, and rye or other cereal grass hay is higher in starch/sugar than timothy hay - just in case anyone doesn't know already.

[Bronya]

:eek: Just came across this

The largest source of sugar in a horse’s diet, particularly in the summer is grass. Other contributors of sugar to the diet may be hay, chaff or chop and molasses although these are to a much lower extent.

The table below indicates the sugar content of common ingredients in a horse’s ration:

Grass: 35kg eaten fresh weight = 1000g sugar
Hay: 6kg eaten fresh weight = 150g sugar
Cool Mix: 1kg eaten fresh weight = 90g sugar
Molassed chaff: 0.5kg eaten fresh weight = 100g sugar

[mayoguinness]

Can you ask your local Supplier to get it in??

[Showjumper]

I bought Bailey's Lo Cal today...was in the feed shop with different bags scattered around me comparing ingrediants etc and I decided it seemed the safest, especially as I'd only need to feed 400g a day as opposed to the 2kg some of the others recommended to get the same amount of nutrition.

Also spoke to some other customers and the shop owner and they all advised that Lo Cal does what it says on the bag...fingers crossed!! :D

[Colour_Crazy_Gi]

Zola is a real good doer! She literally lives on fresh air! :eek:

She is fed Hi-Fi Good Doer and Pony nuts. Even though people say forages don't contain any molasses, they do. Even good doer contains a certain amount of molasses! Imagine eating crackers without any butter or cheese every day. I wouldn't eat it either! So they need a certain amount of molasses to encourage them to acctually eat it!

[HairyCob]

Well, having read all the helpful advice here I've decided that for the time being she's going to remain on Happy Hoof, if for no other reason than I've just opened a new bag and I'm not throwing it away!! She only has a tiny feed anyway, so I figure she's probably getting wayyy more sugar from her grass than she is from her feed.

I'll probably switch her to something else when this bag is gone.


Showjumper, I had a response from Baileys, here it is:

As your horse is holding her weight and condition well when not receiving any hard feed it is unlikely that she will require a conventional mix or cube. Mixes and cubes have been designed to be fed at a specific levels in order to ensure that the necessary levels of vitamins, minerals and quality protein are delivered to the horse, my concern is that these products when fed up to the recommended levels will your horse will put on too much weight.

However, it is important to ensure that she is receiving a balanced diet, not even good grass will supply the full spectrum of nutrients at the levels required by the horse. To ensure a balanced diet is provided (all the vitamins and minerals she needs) I would recommend Baileys No.14 Lo-Cal Balancer as the sole concentrate ration. Lo-Cal has been formulated to be fed as the sole concentrate source when a low calorie feed is desired yet it will ensure a balanced diet is provided. Lo-Cal is a small, palatable nutrient dense pellet containing quality protein, vitamins and minerals to promote a healthy coat and hooves, maintain condition and maintenance of muscle. Lo-Cal also contains a yeast culture to aid fibre digestion and efficient gut function. In short Baileys Lo-Cal balancer provides the horse or pony with all the essential nutrients for health and well-being but without significant carbohydrate (calories) levels that they do not need. The Lo-cal also has excellent levels of biotin, methionine, calcium and zinc all of which will help to promote excellent hoof growth and repair. For horses and ponies that are prone to laminitis we recommend reducing the starch content of the diet as much as possible this involves avoiding the use of mixes and straights and we also recommend our Baileys Lo-Cal Balancer. The Lo-Cal is free from traditional grains such as oats, maize and barley and therefore has a low starch content (just 8%). The Lo-Cal will contain a minimal level of molasses, the only molasses it does contain will be used just to bind the pellet together.

For her size to ensure that she is receiving a fully balanced diet you would need to feed 1 lb of the Lo-Cal per day, as a guide a half pint mug will hold 1/2 lb of the Lo-Cal, so therefore you will need to feed 2 mugs per day. The Lo-Cal can be fed alongside some speedi beet and a good quality chaff such as the Dengie Hi Fi Lite, this will bulk out her feed and will also provide a good source of fibre.



Having read that, I'll probably switch her to lo-cal when the Happy Hoof runs out!

[gingeremmie]

That makes sense. The lo cal balancer is just little pellets though, not chaff. I feed safe and sound and baileys lo cal to my good doer who is also a recovering laminitic along with magnesium and salt and he's doing really well. I only feed a couple of fistfuls of safe and sound a day, just enough to mix the magnesium into really as my boy won't eat just lo cal with magnesium mixed in, he turns his nose up at it. He'll eat the lo cal alone though, it's the magnesium he doesn't like and so we need the safe and sound to disguise that :rolleyes:

[Showjumper]

Thanks HC - other than the bit about the mollasses, that email is nearly identical to the one I got from them :)

I have a nearly full bag of Marksway Hoofkind but once I've fully switched Dolly to Lo Cal, I'll be selling it to the highest bidder (plenty of people on my yard so selling 3/4 of a bag of feed should be easy enough :) )