Sugar Beet - How much to feed?

J

joy70

Guest
I intend to start feeding my boy sugar beet at the end of this month, once his coats been clipped out & he is rugged up. But just out of interest how much sugar beet would you guys feed your neddys?

Bearing in mind he's 13.2hh, Connemara X, 15 years young and will be getting by this time i imagine a large scoop of mix, with a large scoop of chaff, will 2 pints of soaked sugar beet be too little or too less?
 
what's two pints in scoops?
i would cut down the mix when you add the sugarbeet - think if the beet as the equivalent of porridge for people, so he won't need as much of the other stuff.
it seems a lot of hard feed for a 13.2hh pony - is he a poor doer? as a rough guide, my 14hh pony copper - 20 years old and on riding school work, gets 3/4 scoop of sugarbeet, 3/4 of molichaff and 1/2 veteran mix at the most. normally it's less - that is midwinter storm dinner to keep him warm from the inside. petal, the other one, who is 13.3hh, gets 1 scoop (2 in cold weather) of happy hoof when she works and that's her lot. both live out and have haylage in the fields.
petal is a good doer and has had laminitis, and chop is not a great doer especially in winter.
 
Es

Im talking about the LARGE round scoops you can get here, so 2 pints would probably equate to 1 of those scoops

He's not a poor doer really, but last year dropped weight after i took his rug off at the end of March!:( We cannot feed hay in the field so i like to try and fill him up with his dinner and as much hay as he can get in, before being turned back out again
 
if you can't feed hay in the field, then you want to increase the SB and chaff and lose a fair bit of the mix. there's no point giving a huge bucket feed as a substitute for hay - it doesn't work.
the stomach of a 16hh horse is the size of a rugby ball, so a 13.2's is smaller.

if you feed more in one go than the horse's stomach can physically hold, then you are just wasting it and risking colic. the feed doesn't get broken down by the enzymes in the stomach as it gets pushed through by the new food coming in, so it goes on down the gut undigested and can ferment or go off. at best, you're feeding the muck heap (as my exam instructor used to say) and at worst looking at gassy colic. horses have small stomachs and long hindguts as they are designed to be trickle feeders and can't cope with few large meals.

so it's not terribly useful to stuff loads of food down in a short time.
can he come in during the day or night and get plenty of hay over several hours then?

as regards feeding - chaff and SB are both high in fibre. the horse uses fibre to keep warm - heat is produced as they digest it. i like to feed high fibre and low concentrate if the horse is not in very hard work (ie eventing) so i don't feed much mix or cubes. so if he were mine, on what you've said in this thread, i'd see if he can come in during the day and have a few slices of hay, and feed (for example) 1 scoop SB, 1 1/2 chaff and 1/3 mix.
 
Es

unfortunately no, Toddy doesn;t come in I dont have time in the mornings to turn him out and neither does any one else

I will up his chaff and SB when it starts getting colder, and hopefully the hay he can nibble during the 2 hours he comes off the field for will be adequate for him

Then at the weekends i can spoil him, by brining him up, and letting him have hay ad lib in his stable:)
 
Ipsa

there are 26 beasties in our fields all day, half of them come in at night, but that still leaves 13 :eek: out all night, and not all of the owners would agree to feeding hay in the field:(
 
Artemis

I only have m/w rugs for him, and it got very warm in the day time and he was starting to sweat up under his rug. Unfortunately im not there in the mornings and there isn't anyone who can whip it off in the mornings for me to put it back on in the evening :( Spose the alternative, would be to try and find a summer sheet or similar
 
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