winter feeding

[pinkangel]

Am i feeding too much? i have two colts rising two, they are out in the day and in at night. I currently feed them a cob of timothy horse hage in the morning, between them, and a cob each at night and a scoop of econmy mix with a couple of handfuls of mollichop. They are unrugged at the moment and not in any work, other than playing! the grass is poor thou.
Also what cheap natural supplement can i give them to keep them shiny and nice!!

[Jessey]

Sounds fine to me, so long as their weight is right.
Do they have good grass aswell?
You may need to increase the hay/haylage that you are giving at night (and in the day if the grass is poor), general rule of thumb is that horses should have free access to a fibre feed (hey/haylage) when they are in. Fed adlib means that their tummies are kept ticking over all the time, which is by far the best for them. Its a bit of trial and error, give them enough so there is a tiny bit left by morning, if there is loads left cut it down, if there is nothing left up it a bit. If you find they are gaining too much weight then putting haylage into small holed nets will slow them up a bit so they can't eat as much overnight, if they are still gaining weight then you would be better to cut down the hard feed and keep the fibre going in as its the digestion of fibre that keeps them warm :D

They should be getting all they need (vits wise) from the Eco mix as long as you are feeding it at the manufacturers recomended rate. For a little extra energy and coat shine veggie oil (from Tesco or where ever) is a great, cheap supplement.

[nat17]

I think you should drop the mix and replace with Spillers High Fibre cubes, and then maybe Speedi-beet to top up when it gets alot colder....they dont really need a mix as they are not in work but if you really wanted to feed mix, maybe its better to go with Stud mix or similar.

I would also change from Molli-chop, it is full of sugar and not as high in fibre, maybe Happy hoof/hi-fi lite/good doer would be a better replacment.
It would be good to add a feed balancer like lo-cal to make sure they get all vit and mins if you dont feed the recom amount.

Agree with Jessey on hay comments.. fibre is central heating for horses:)