nutrition problems

brooke · Postby **brooke** » Wed May 10, 2006 12:15 pm

ok ive never had a problem with keeping my horses fat and slick! they all have leaned towards the fat side more times than not, anyway, ive got 2 yearling colts that ive had for 3 months. now i will note that they both were malnutritioned ( in my opinion) when i got them to the farm. As soon as they arrived they were given the 5 day panacur treatment, started on a pretty rigorous feeding program twice a day and stay on pasture instead of in a stall. started out getting 4 lbs grain mix (safe choice and vitality half and half) cup of rice bran, and gro strong minerals daily along with the best hay i can find in the area. ( ive havnt had it tested though) now 3 months later they have pot bellies, hair is dingy, spines are still showing, shoulder blades are still sticking out. 3 weeks ago i uped the rations to 6 pounds day. along with about 2% of there body weight in hay daily. theyve also been wormed 2 more times since they arrived. Please someone give me suggestions what to feed and how to change the routine to get the boys looking better. just to ad one is a 800 pound FEB. colt and the other is a 670 pound May colt.

madelyn · Postby **madelyn** » Wed May 10, 2006 1:52 pm

Youngsters need at least 3% bodyweight per day, so grain should be 16 lbs for the 800 lb dude and 12 lbs for the little guy. Our TB's get MINIMUM 12 lbs/day oats/corn, broodmares get 18 lbs/day of broodmare mix.

KamiBrooks · Postby **KamiBrooks** » Wed May 10, 2006 11:15 pm

If they're getting more than 4# of grain at a feeding, they might not be getting nutrition from the grain portion of their diet. According to my grain guy, the overload of grain creates an acid stomach that works against them.

I've had this happen on one horse that actually looses weight if he is at or over 4#/feed.

I've also seen many horses routinely eat more than that at a time and not seem to have a problem, but I stick to the 4# limit just to be on the safe side.

kezeli · Postby **kezeli** » Thu May 11, 2006 9:13 am

I hate to be old fasioned but I still like cooked feed best, every thing is more digestable when cooked and corn and oats are the higest grains nutritionaly but very hard to digest.

teb · Postby **teb** » Thu May 11, 2006 9:42 pm

I'm curious about the amount of grain being said to feed, as these horses are out on pasture. I have searched high and low to find feed in which, less is more. If I fed one of my in foal with foal at foot mares 18pds of grain a day, they would die. And my 15.3 hand yearling gets a grand total of 2pds a day and is in perfect shape. My TB yearlings are just on lick buckets and minerals because of the grass. Even in the winter, my horses wouldn't get nearly the above amount and they are all at a correct weight and have gorgeous coats. I agree with kamibrooks, anything over 4pds goes straight to the hind gut and therefore not utilized. Waste of money and could cause your horse serious gastric problems.
Terri

ak1 · Postby **ak1** » Fri May 12, 2006 5:57 pm

Just curious as to how your pastures are doing? My future in laws live on a farm in southern TN about 45 minutes from the 'Bama border (Lawrence County)...due to drought and clay soil, the pastures look like crap to me. I grew up in Maryland horse country where we have clay soils but better looking pasturage (farmers also seem to take time to seed their pastures too). The cattle, Amish draft horses/mules and cow horses seem to do well, but I would question the nutrient content for raising racing T-breds. Best of luck working out the nutrition for these guys!

brooke · Postby **brooke** » Fri May 12, 2006 7:49 pm

the pasture is crap for TB's but im working on that. we've raise QH's on this land for years with much success but its amazing how different tb's are. As we speak there are samples being analyzed by a nutritionalist/soil expert so hopefully this will solve some of my problems.

ak1 · Postby **ak1** » Sat May 13, 2006 1:24 pm

Sounds like that will get you some of the answers you need. Look forward to hearing about these babies as they grow!

KamiBrooks · Postby **KamiBrooks** » Sat May 13, 2006 6:00 pm

Instead of increasing grain, you might look at adding alfalfa or timothy/alfafa cubes. I've gotten good results by increasing the nutrution on the forage side instead of going higher on the grain side.

I feed in stalls and give the cubes at grain time. My grain is mixed (vitamines, minerals, etc) so that at about 8# you're maxing out the recommended rates for a 1000# adult, non-working horse. For broodmares/youngstock, I add vitamine/mineral supplement specific to those conditions.

The cubes let me increase calories/forage without going overboard on something like selenium. They tend to eat ALL of the cubes (not like leaving the stemmy parts of hay). And they finish it at the same rate as grain (they'll can take all night to eat a few flakes of alfalfa hay).

Here 50# bags run around $9, so if you compare that to $8/45#bale alfalfa, it appears to be slightly more, but because they tend to leave about 10% of the stemmy parts of hay and I hate waiting an extra hour for them to nibble down hay... I figure it works out even. The other good part is that if you decide to feed 2% of body weight, in cubes (forage) then that makes the pasture conditions much less important for maintaining nutrition.

Kami

hoof hearted · Postby **hoof hearted** » Mon May 15, 2006 3:26 pm

I have had some experience with Beet Pulp. After doing some research it digests like hay, has 10% protein, but is low in starch, is higher in calcium than phosphorous so it won't play havac with the CA:PH ratio. So you have calories without the dangers of grain. If you can get the shreaded Beet Pulp you don't have to soak it. If you get the pelleted I would soak in two parts water to one part Beet Pulp. I have had great luck with it for all horses especially hard keepers.