Hooves and winter feeding

[Roofio]

J currently has happy hoof and baileys lo-cal. his weight is around about right - apart from his enormous belly, but thats only going to away with exercise which he cant have at the moment.

last winter, he had d&h build up and cool mix - the cool mix definitely wont be coming back as its lightly molassed.

so do i stick to lo cal and add the build up, or switch to normal baileys and see how that goes?

any other ideas? :)

[Roofio]

just a bump for anyone coming on later ;)

[MelanieD]

LoCal has all the vitamins in so shouldn't need a mix, could switch balancer if you want something with more protein in, there's Bailey's stud balancer which is similar but more protein. Or if just for keeping weight on you could add some speedibeet, or replace the happy hoof with a higher energy chaff.. maybe add some alfalfa if he's ok on alfalfa..

[Roofio]

i might try fibrebeet maybe, quite liked the sound of it last year with all the hoofy stuff its got in it.

do they go nuts on alfalfa? he has always gone a bit nuts the first few weeks of winter - old owner always put it down to the sugar beet, but i didnt give him any last year and he still went nuts so it must be the haylage. he wont be having that this year either!

[Yann]

Sugar beet is good but make sure it's unmollassed. Alfalfa can make some horses hot but it can equally be the mollasses content in something like Alfa A, so Alfa A lite or Alfa Oil would be a better bet.

[Roofio]

thanks :)

just realised baileys dont do a non lo cal version, just presumed they would! :rolleyes:

to be fair, nuts for jr isnt too dramatic. although we did have sideways six foot leaping last year out on hacks :rolleyes:

[MelanieD]

Alfalfa can make some horses loony (I have two of those) and can make some footy (I also have one of those).. a lot of horses do great on it and its really useful thing to feed if they are fine on it but it is something I'd introduce carefully. There is some alfalfa in Happy Hoof so he's not likely to be mega-sensitive if he's ok on that (one of mine goes nuts on the little in Dengie HiFi!)

Some horses have a nutty phase at the start of winter whatever they're being fed :D

[INTRIGUED]

All of the feed manufacturers provide advice on what and how much to feed. Why don't you log onto Spillers or Baileys websites and see what they recommend. I have used them in the past and found if very useful.

Hope this helps.

[Roofio]

thanks guys :)

[Bebe]

You can use Baileys stud balancer as a non low calorie balancer (it's fine to feed to all horses, just marketed for a niche). I'm not sure of the calorie content but it's much higher protein.

Bebe will get a small amount of alfalfa cubes instead of Good Doer to up her protein levels over winter but that's the only change I plan on making to her diet.

[blues mum]

I think the non lo cal version of baileys lo cal is baileys outshine ? not sure it has the biotin though.
Global herbs do a good affordable vitamin supplement with biotin in it. I tend to use this through the winter when I have taken them off local

[CurlyWurlyRach]

Curly gets fibrebeet - shes silly on sugarbeet but she loooooves her fibrebeet :D Smells like tea if you soak it hot.