feeding advice for my cob-help!

K

Kate&TheHerd

Guest
well, over winter my cob has lived out. I've fed her a scoop or less of alfa with a hand full of cool mix. I then cut this right down to just alfa. shes moved onto a new field, iv sectioned it off as was lush grass so she doesnt have much. I have also been bringing her in at night. shes alright but maybe slightly over weight. i got some hi-fi light (spur of the moment thing) as i like feeding her a bit of alfa with her supplements seaweed, garlic and this 'in one scoop you get all your supplements thing'. is this right, or what should i be giving her? i like giving her something as i say with her supplements. iv seen baileys lo-cal good doer as well, should i try this? help its my first year (not even a year) with her so im confused :confused:

edited to ad: i forgot to say what i do with her! we go out for an hour-hour and a half good hack, mainly walking and trotting 3 or 4 times a week including jumping in the woods, schooling and jumping :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I have the same issues as you do. Joy is a good doer and last year was my first year as an owner :D

Hi fi lite is good, you can swap to Good Doer which has even less in it if you need to but I have tended to stick with Hi fi lite in summer just to add supliments in.

Many cobs don't actually require extra feeding on top of their forage for energy requirements but do still need their balanced diet which is why I give a token feed for suppliments just as you do.

The trouble I have had up until a couple of days ago was that since the grass came through Joy wasn't interested in her bucket feed and only wanted nice juicy grass.

However in the past week I have upped her work rate and she has wanted her feed after being worked thank goodness but a mineral lick was popped into the field with the 2 mares have been crunching on :rolleyes:
 
oh see mine was a gypsy horse and i believe was put on a starvation diet so now food is everything to her! even though she has grass shes well into her food!

she has eaten the grass down a lot im just not sure when to give her more of it?

shes been in often though but still her belly has got a little bigger and shes sweating more when out.

I'm glad your in the same situation, its just so difficult to know what to do! at least i know that the hifi lite isnt too little to give her, how much do you give about?
 
CurlyWurlyRach said:
I think Baileys Lo Cal is great and my mare will eat it despite having lots of grass to munch (she refused to eat her chaff and supplements last summer).
Click to expand...


Thanks for posting that. I'm going to keep it in mind for if she goes off her food again. How much do you need to feed? The reason I ask is that I want Joy to have a prebiotic too and would want to mix that in if I could. Mind you having said that she wouldn't have got anything at all so the low cal would be better than nothing even if their wasn't enough to mix in anything with it :D
 
Joyscarer said:
I want Joy to have a prebiotic too and would want to mix that in if I could.
Click to expand...


I've got that ready to give mine but have not done so yet! I havent as I dont know if its ok/too much for her to be getting, shes on seaweed, garlic and a general all rounder. a friend suggested i gave her the perbiotic...
 
I feed 675g a day but that is maxium rations cos she's a big hoss and theres a scale of height to amount of food.

The rough guide is pony = 1 coffee mug, cob = 2 coffee mugs and horse = 3 coffee mugs.

ETA - Lo Cal has Yea Sacc in aswell which i think is a pro/pre biotic :)
 
Last edited:
k8_doran said:
I've got that ready to give mine but have not done so yet! I havent as I dont know if its ok/too much for her to be getting, shes on seaweed, garlic and a general all rounder. a friend suggested i gave her the perbiotic...
Click to expand...


Minus the garlic, that's what I give Joy :D

She has Pink Powder and seaweed. She was also getting magnessium as a calmer but when I cut back her feed there wasn't enough to be able to mix it in so I stopped. I deal with her hyper days well enough without it so I won't bother with that from now on although it did make a difference when I first put her back into work after the winter.
 
In answer to you other thread, no you're not killing her!
With a good-doer cob you don't want to feed them Alfa-A though because that is molassed and good for weight gain - I feed it to my skinny ISH!
Try an unmolassed chaff, the lowest calorie content is Spiller's Happy Dieter or Happy Hoof, depending on what you can get hold of. It's almost just straw but they seem to like it, it has little pellets of something in it but they won't get fat. You don't want to be giving her mix as that will also put weight on if she's not using it up.
If you want to give a balancer try either Bailey's Lo-cal or TopSpec AntiLam, I use the normal TopSpec but have heard good things about AntiLam too. You can either feed just that and you will get a supplement mixed in with it or you can bung in some rubbishy chaff to make it more appetising!
Our first cob came to us at 14hh with a 64" girth (that's bigger than they make them!) and by the time she left us a year later she was in a 50" - she was always a big girl but no longer obese! We fed her fresh air and if she had anything she had chaff with carrots and she always had enough energy. If she's on good grass she really shouldn't need anything, her gut should be functioning well enough not to need a pre/probiotic and grass should give her all the vitamins and minerals, especially if she has access to a mineral lick (as long as she's high up enough in the pecking order!).
 
Hi,

After legnthy discussions with several vets over the last few weeks regarding my horses poor performance i'm changing the way i view feeding.

my horse was put on a trial diet of forage only - so all he gets is adlib grass during the and ad-lib hayledge at night. he's been fed this for a month now and is doing fine on it so unless he's competing i dont think he'll ever get anything else.

i do want to start him back on his calmer though and he is to get a trial of bute so i will need a little handful of chaff - i use dengie good doer fo this.

i think that's all i'd give annie, supplements of whatever you want her to get with a wee bit of good doer. if her performance drops then maybe review things but she **should** be getting what she need from her grass alone
 
Agree with StormyJ, I feed Alfa A to my mare, but that is because she is a tad on the skinny side.

But in short, NO you're not killing your mare.
 
thanks everyone, dont want to think im feeding her wrong

out of interest if i do start doing more and she needs a bit more, what then?
 
If Joy ever needs a bit more the first thing I do is start to move up through the chaff range to a chaff with a bit more in it. I go up from hi fi lite to alpha a lite. If she still need more then I chuck in some pasture nuts but never needed more than one of the shovel scoops of pature nuts even over winter and that is nowhere near the recommended feed amount.

I haven't needed more than a round scoop of alpha a and a shovel scoop of pasture nutss per day all through this winter but my next stage would have been to add in some speedi beet if needed. That's still a small meal so once a day would have been enough.

I don't know what others would do as my girl will never be in any more than light work.
 
newrider.com
Top Bottom
Back