what are you all feeding your Good Do-er's?

M

Murphs

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Oct 22, 2000
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Pembrokeshire, West Wales
Ebs is 12yrs old 14.3hh cob x and must have invented the term good doer - i don't know how she does it! We've been doing quite wellover the summer months and managed to get some weight off - now, when she should at least be staying still she's putting on weight! Nothing has changed in her routine - she's worked 4/5 times a week and gets a good 10 mile ride at least once a month. She's turned out 24/7 - unrugged as she's not yet clipped. I give her a small feed at night but just to give her a supplement for her joints - she has 50g spillers H&P cubes and 100g of mollichaff just togive some bulk - one apple and one carrott.
Wondered whether to change the chaff to something like Dengie good doer and also whether she should be having a vitamin and mineral supplement - she always seems to have such a large grass belly - she is regularly wormed and worm counted so i know that's not the cause of the belly!
 
petal has been on happy hoof since early spring when we had a laminitis scare. she's not overly fat, but is nicely well covered and has stayed like it easily all summer. she's 14hh and gets 2 scoops of it twice a day, with a multivitamin supplement.
 
Wow your horses are good'doers

Mine gets

2 scoops lucer chaff
4 scoops oaten chaff
1.5 scoops complete
1 scoop Polard
1 scoop barly
.5 cup of oil

2biscutes of lucern hay
2biscutes of grass hay

Morning and night and is still quite thin. The hard feed makes up a full bucket ( I use the white buckets that bakers and florits use)
 
Hmm Seeing as though Libby is older than Ebs I am going to steal that crown away from you - she is the creator of such term ;) ROFL.

anyway she needs food for her supplements to and she gets Baileys lo-cal (has loads of extras) and dengie good do-er for bulk (well a large handful anyway ;) ). I prefer the good do-er to the lite because it is minty :) takes away supplement taste (not that i have tried it myself of course ;) )
 
Carrie's on Hi Fi Lite. Had her on Happy Hoof but she wasn't getting enough to get the full benefit from the vitamins and supplements so it was cheaper to go over to Hi Fi Lite + a supplement. She's turning her nose up at the expensive bespoke supplement I've bought so I'll need to find something else.

Used to feed her Bailey's Lo Cal - 1.5 lb a day but I was advised that it still contained a lot of energy in that weight and to use a fibrous feed + a supplement.
 
Mine both get Good Doer and a Vit and Min supplement. Moss gets a small amount of Universal working Mix, for energy, and both get hayage, Moss, or hay, Conn, as required. It seems to suit. The feed quantities are so small a vit and min supplement is essential.
 
A scoop of HiFi Lite, a quarter scoop of Slim and Healthy (the Allen & Page stuff that looks like guinea pig feed, but has Protexin in which is a pre-biotic), a probiotic and some Max Flex for his joints. Turn out and plenty of hay when he's stabled. Henry is 16.1 IDx and could live on air. Interestingly he's just had a 'lower than it should be' white cell count so vet has advised vit B12 supplement + some selenium.
 
Mine get hay and a mineral lick in the field, and a handful of chaff just to put the vitamin supplement in. Even then May (sec A) is actually getting fatter. The other two are well-covered.

They live out during the day and in a barn at night (to save our field, which is small, bare and wet) and don't wear rugs as I try to encourage them to use their fat up keeping warm *sigh* .

Looking at May still getting wider I am already dreading Spring grass!
 
Moss is on a diet!! Much to his total disgust. I don't mind a little padding going into winter but there is padding and .....!!! If I leave him rugless he develops a coat you could curl up in and then gets sweaty and exhausted when asked to work. He is much better clipped and rugged. Highland coats are fine in Scotland, in these mild temperatures they are a nightmare.
 
That is one thing with Welshies, they get furry but their coats are relatively fine so it's not usually excessive.

I think warmer Winters have a lot to answer for - I can remember really cold Winters as a child (I mean breaking ice on the water every morning) but we don't seem to get that much cold now - just wind and rain. Problem is I think May's metabolism also remembers freezing weather!

As for padding, I think the amount May seems to feel the need to carry round with her would do a Winter in Alaska... maybe she has a body image problem...
 
Hey Chev I remember those winters walking up to the trough with something similar to a sledge hammer as the ice was sooooo thick!

My two are both tubbies and on diets they're out 7am to 5pm rugged then in unrugged - no hay in the field they have to fend for themselves, Zig Zag (15.3) has 5kg of hay split into 2 feeds for the night and Cass (14.2) has 4kg split into two. They both have to have their supplements which is given in 100g alfa-a and a little shredded unmolassed beet with some carrots twice daily.

Cassie has lost 20kg over the last couple of months and is now holding her weight so may get a little mix added as winter goes on and she's looking good.

Zig Zag - she has put on according to the weigh tape!

Their diets were worked out for me by the lady that does the supplements as she is also a equine nutritionist (bad spelling day).
 
Carrie gets a scoop of good do-er, a general supplement and half a scoop of pasture mix (or the Countrywide equiv, light mix) once a day but only if she is worked. She normally does a two-hour hack with a good gallop at some point, plus three or four lessons and say one or two shorter hacks a week but I still think she has put on a bit of weight! Actually i had started feeding her even if she wasn't worked but am going back to only if worked now. Once she is clipped maybe she will look more trim, but it was the vet who pointed out she is carrying some fat so I don't think it can just be her hairiness! It does not bother me as I think it is probably useful for her in the winter to have a covering of fat - but I don't want her to keep putting it on!

I've had her rugged for about three weeks now, since I found her shivering like a drowned rat in the field when we had that awful wind and rain. She probably hasn't needed it the whole time and I've now switched to the lightest turnout rug I have got having realised she was hot last weekend.
 
I have a reasonably good doer. I don't want him to lose any weight this winter so I have been feeding early and all through the summer.

2 scoops pasture mix
3 scoops dengie hi-fi
3 scoops conditioner
2 scoops suger beet
codlivine
Vit +min

He is worked 4 times a week and competed most weekends. After competing he does tend to lose a bit of weight
 
Blimey you make me sound as though I am starving Moss! 1/2 scoop of Working Mix twice daily. two slices of haylage at night and some fairly long but bulk only grazing. His normal diet is not as much as Moose is feeding.
 
i must admit i rugged Ebony a couple of weeks ago when we had the really bad wind and rain but have teaken them off again because it has been so mild. She'llprobably have a little clip (bib or low trace) at the end of Nov as she does get a pretty thick coat but she is absolutely petrified of the clippers - 1st year i had her she was heavily sedated by the vet - 2nd year she wasn't working much so wasn'r clipped - last year she just had a bib clip (used ACP but didn't sedate her at all:( ).
It's good to know i'm not the only one with a "fatty":D
 
Ive got tubbies too....Bailey is well covered or fat,and sooty is looking 'well' too.They both live out with access to stables/shelters, and not rugged at the moment.Im defo feeding too much but after youve had a TB that was terrible for losing weight I feel cruel not giving them a nice feed.
Bailey is 4, welshdxcob 14.2hh he gets, 3/4 scoop(1 ltr) of Happy hoof ,3/4 small scoop of speedi beet,I also usually add 1/2 med scoop of park mix or not heating type feed .He isnt ridden as IM preggers but does the odd 20 lunging about twice a week to keep him interested.
sooty(mini shetland aged 20 - 30) gets 1 1/2 handfuls of happy hoof,1/2 small scoop of speedibeet,1/3 small mix.they get carrots etc.
I put out 6 wads of hay a day to share,as there is no grass in the field they are in as they are confined due to my condition.
Do you think I should knock off the mix?I was giving this for extra vitamins but is there enough already in the happy hoof?
 
This is an interesting thread:)

At the moment it's trial and error for us with Rio, she seems to have lost quite a lot of belly and is definitely getting fitter. She's out 24/7 unless the weather is really bad and gets a lightweight rug on if it's cold and wet as she gets miserable.
At the moment she's getting a scoop (about 2 lb) of mix (alfa easy) and a scoop of Hifi lite (1lb) along with garlic and vitamins once a day. She'll usually have a few pounds of hay while she's up on the yard too.

She works 3 or 4 times a week and might get a little extra mix if she's doing a lot at the weekend, she seems fine for it even though textbooks (and the feed bag) suggests these are less than starvation rations!

I've considered a bib clip but she only tends to sweat up badly if the weather is mild, her coat matches the welshie description, so as it'll only get colder from here on in I might leave it.

I assume your scoops are the large ones? Or am I overfeeding? A toastrack TB would be much simpler in this department:D
 
To H and Bailey.
I would not feed a feed for vits as the small quantities you are feeding probably has not got that much in it anyway. As I understand it to get the vits ration from the feed you must feed the amount on the bag. I use CLOP as standard so I know they are both getting their vits and mins regardless and adjust feed quantities as required. Mine are both on the edge of Dartmoor and are both well rugged but from what you say and in your position I would probably cut out the mix. [Conn is a good doer and works most days and very occasionally gets a handull of pony nuts. ] Congrats on the baby.
 
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