Feeding question

[Silver1]

How much of an increase in feed does a horse need when its being worked consistently? Mear is getting more work right now then she has ever gotten from me before, and riding time is getting longer and longer for her. Right now she goes on a bridle path ride once or twice a week, lunged once a week, schooled three to four days a week, and gets sundays off. Her bridle path rides usually last about forty five minutes to an hour, at walk and occasionally a few strides of trot, but we'll say walk mostly. The last two times we've ridden she's ended up getting turned out into the arena and she usually has a gallop.

She's beginning to get some great muscle definition, I don't think she's loosing weight, but she does seem to be rather tired from her efforts now, like she's not getting enough energy from her food.

She's currently on two flakes of three-way (oat, bermuda and timothy) usually weighs in at about ten pounds and the rest of the weight is made up in alfalfa-oat, and lately about a pound of sweet feed. Normally sweet feed is enough to bring her back to speed but it doesn't seem to be helping.

She's not sore in any way, and though today she was a bit grumpy in the morning (picture a touseled, pajama-clad, don't-you-people-know-its saturday non morning person before her first cup of coffee) She was pleased with being ridden, despite her exaustion later.

Any thoughts?

[CMR]

Ick, sweet feed. I loathe sweet feed. It really has no nutritional value at all, although horses do love it. I compare it to human junk food. I would get her off the sweet feed. Try a complete feed(follow directions on the bag) if you don't want the hassle of making sure her feed is nutrionally balanced. I would add a cup or so of oil. It adds calories without adding a lot of bulk. If you do add oil, you will need less feed.

[virtuallyhorses]

I'd be rather wary of making sweeping statements like 'sweetfeed really has no nutritional value'. For a start there are many people from many nations here so comparing whatever you call sweetfeed to whatever someone else does is pretty risky. Sweetfeed can be a generic name for pretty much any mixed grain with molasses on it or in the case of NZ it is a brandname for an NRM feed (created by KER, Kentucky Equine Research). It contains -

Steam flaked maize, barley, steam flaked barley, steam flaked oats, wheat, maize, wheat by-products, maize by-products, barley by-products, extracted soyabean meal, peas, lucerne meal, molasses, limestone, dicalcium phosphate, DL-Methionine, L-Lysine Hydrochloride, salt and the nutritional analysis is clearly marked on the bags so I wouldn't really call it junk food or of no nutritional value...

However, silver1 back to your question - check whether your sweetfeed covers all the vitamins and minerals. If not, try adding a multi vit or electrolytes if it is hot in your area. Also be prepared to give your horse an extra day off every so often, if the workload has increased recently she might just be getting a bit sore from the workload. 1 pound of sweetfeed really isn't very much, simply up the sweetfeed a bit more (1 of my scoops is about 2lbs). However if she isn't losing weight you might just want to wait and see.

Another option is to get a blood test covering the major minerals including selenium, it is possible that an imbalance has arisen over time and you will only know it from blood work. For instance, anaemia occurs in horses and will make them slow and grumpy - however in horses it is often not from direct lack of iron.

[Silver1]

Thank you both for your valuable insights,
I researched your comments online cvreagzayn, I ended up doing a lot of research because its a very interesting topic and I can see very clearly what you have to base your claims on. Sweet feed was originally never meant to be a feed at all, but a dressing for plain oats to make them more appealing to horses. Hence the molasses. It was never meant to be fed as a suppliment on its own, but something to accompany the real food. A few companies still follow that thought process, and so there ARE many sweet feeds that are nothing more then equine candy.

However, just as many more sweet feed companies have evolved it into a worthy feed of its own. Now for the most part it will include three or more cerealgrains, a pelleted vitamin supplement and molasses, which sounds (to me anyway) like a pretty reasonable meal. I found the ingredients tag on my sweet feed and it looks like the ingredients are healthy, nutrition filled choices, the more suspicious sounding names I looked up and found them to be perfectly acceptable. ("Wheat mill run" made me think they cleaned out the bottom of their grain holders once a month and threw the sweepings into the bag, but it turned out to be wheat that is pelleted, and the best of the pellets goes to my feed :))

As for the suggestion of oil/complete feeds, those are both very good suggestions. I actually had oil recommended to me before, but she didn't really take to it, and lost a disasterous amount of weight over the issue. I'd like to try a complete feed on her, the brand that makes my sweet feed also makes a complete feed she was on before, it made her -very- fat, but she was eating it in combination with alfalfa, so perhaps that in combination with three-way might help balance things out.


Virtuallyhorses - obviously I took your advice and looked at my tag, and it does carry vitamins and minerals, I'm not sure if its all of them, but there are lots. Vitamin A, B, D, E, calcium, biotin, thiamin and niacin are a few that leap out at me from the ingredients, but thats only half the list.

I had fed her more sweet feed yesterday thinking the ammount might be a problem (before I posted) and today she actually did seem a bit more perky. She certainly wasn't grumpy anymore, a good sign I thought. Wednesday is shopping day for Mear so if you have any favorite brands you like let me know so I can keep an eye out for them.

[CMR]

It didn't even cross my mind that sweetfeed isn't basically the same everywhere(i'm such an idiot :D ). Ours around here are pretty much floor sweepings and molasses, I just assumed that was what they were every(again, I'm an idiot :D ). If Mear didn't take to the oil, have you ever tried her on something like linseed or black oil sunflower seeds? They provide a lot of oil, but I'm not sure if they would affect her like the oil did.

[Silver1]

No, I haven't tried either of those. I looked up Linseed online and its used to soothe irritated stomach/intestines etc. so hopefully it won't cause the opposite reaction. I could always try a small amount to start with and see how she reacts. It looks to me like it might be very suitable as a suppliment for her. One of the websites I looked at suggested only adding it in once or twice a week in a mash.

Nutritional values: 22 – 26% crude protein, 18 MJ DE/kg, 7% fiber, 31% oil, mild laxative, antioxidants, Omega 3 fatty acids, anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial, decreases recovery time from strenuous exercise (mash fed after strenuous exercise), improves hoof condition, relieve arthritic and inflammatory pain, keeps less desirable saturated fats mobile in the blood stream, increases oxygen uptake to the cell, improved skin and coat condition, valuable source of energy (great to feed during the cold months – mash fed twice per week, or during times of stress to prevent weight loss)

Looks to me like a pretty good deal though :)

[Silver1]

I bought myself a bag of complete feed today, from the same company that makes my sweet feed, I happened to look at the ingredients...they're exactly the same! The only difference is that the sweet feed has barley, corn and oats, while the complete feed has alfalfa towards the bottom of the list. The label says its a complete feed for a horse in moderate work, but I'm not quite sure I want my horse on 100% energy. I was going to feed 10 pounds of hay, and 4 pounds each of complete feed and sweet feed, but now I'm thinking alfalfa pellets and sweet or complete feed instead might be better, I want to give her some pep, not send her to the looney bin!