Feeding a Broodmare

[vallygirl927]

Hey Guys,

I am moving my broodmare on to my property and wanted to see what kind of graining program you all have in place. The mare is 6 months in foal. I'll be feeding alfalfa and free choice grass hay (probably Timothy or Orchard hay). Do you guys have any particular supplements and grains that you recommend? Anything special you do to give the foal every nutritional advantage as possible?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

[Jeff]

My mare gets alfalfa twice a day plus Farnam's Mare Plus supplement twice a day plus 4 or 5 quarts of Elk Grove Stable Mix twice a day, I like the Stable Mix because it has added limestone.

http://elkgrovemilling.com/stable_mix_rack.pdf The stable mix is a Sacramento based company, don't know if it's sold that far south.

Between the stable mix and the alfalfa, the protein content is probably 12%.

If Stable Mix weren't available, I'd be feeding the mare one of the senior feeds plus alfalfa.

She gets a daily biotin supplement also.

[kimberley mine]

Here is a good start:

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/AnimalSciences/pubs/asc112.pdf

Before you get into the grain, WEIGH YOUR HAY and WEIGH YOUR MARE. If you can stop off at a vet clinic before you get her home, put her on the scales. You can oversupplement just as easy as you undersupplement and only knowing her weight and how much you are feeding her will let you know if you've got the right balance.

For supplements, I don't have enough good words to say about Platinum Performance. The horses I've seen who are on it just bloom and one gelding liked the taste so much he'd try to eat the plastic bag it came in.

[Jeff]

The Stable Mix is $17.00 for a 50# bag, also can get some of the off-brand senior feeds for the same price, a good price for the balanced nutrition, and the thing about stable mix and the senior feeds, you don't have to worry about over feeding like you do with grain.

You can feed all the Stable Mix or Senior Feed that you want without making a horse sick or colic, they are designed to be complete feeds.

Edited to add, looked at stores that sell Elk Grove feeds/stable mix, looks like Bakersfield is the southernmost city that sells their product, to far from San Deigo, but I'd consider one of the senior feeds for a broodmare, especially an older one like mine (12)

[Diane]

I feed orchard grass morning, alfalfa/orchard grass at night and supplement with Platinum Performance mixed into Equine Sr. for midday. Our night time temps can vary like crazy in the next 3 months. I find it's worked well to feed more EqSr to aid with the flux of calorie needs.
The end of season cuttings can have a lot of dirt and even rocks in our hay out here too so Fiberpsyll is a must for me. It amazes me how many lbs of earth can hide in a flake of hay.
Good luck and keep us posted.

[griff]

watch the overall total calcium to phosphorus ratio. Ideally it should be around 2 to 1; or two parts calcium citrate to one part phosphorus..

That's very had to achieve wit a high grain diet as grain is very high in phosphorus..

Inverted calcium to phosphorus ratios; i.e., one part calcium to two parts phosphorus caused the horse's system to pull calcium for it's bone.

Gains like corn, oats and worse of all rice bran have very high inverse calcium to phosphorus rations. many feeds contain calcium citrate but usually not enough to counter balance the phosphorus provided that comes with grain feeding..

I believe brood mares and young stock will eat the amount of calcium citrate they need if given free choice; however, the fine, "feed-grade" ground limestone tends to get very hard if left in the self feeder too long.

I guess you can over do anything but calcium to phosphorus rations as high as 7 to 1 have been tested with no adverse ellects.

remember it's the combined total ratio that's important, so don't forget that orchard grass hay has more phosphorus than calcium.and rice bran is as bad or worse for a horse than corn

griff

griff