Nutrition - including

TOP TIPS FROM BAILEYS HORSE FEEDS FOR PROMOTING AND MAINTAINING CONDITION, WITHOUT CAUSING FIZZ. CONDITION WITHOUT IGNITION!

Many horses drop weight through the winter months but, with a little forethought, if you adapt their feeding in time, you can help them maintain condition all year round, while encouraging a level head.

4 Start early – It’s always harder to feed to replace weight and condition that’s been lost than it is to maintain it, especially as the temperature drops. Keep an eye on your horse’s condition and make changes to their diet as soon as you spot any dropping-off of condition or top line. 4 Choose soft, leafy forage –

Obviously hay should be clean and sweet smelling but feel it in your hand and look for the least stalky bales. The stalkier the grass when it was harvested, the less digestible it is so try to find hay or haylage with a higher leaf content, which will also be more nutritious, and feed it ad lib.

4 Feed forage alternatives – If your horse is not a good hay or haylage eater, consider providing some alternatives like Alfalfa Plus Oil, soaked

Speedi-Beet or Fibre-Beet and Fibre Plus Nuggets in separate buckets alongside his forage, so that he can browse on them and increase his overall fibre intake. This will supply some extra calories from digestible fibre but will also help ensure that gut health and digestive efficiency is at its optimum so the system can make the most of the whole diet. 4 Feed more calories – The average Digestible Energy content of hay/haylage is around 9MJ/kg so, if your horse is eating ad lib forage (as much as they can eat) and is underweight, whatever you give in addition should have a higher DE ie. be higher in calories, in order to promote weight gain. While fibre may be the energy/calorie source of choice, especially for sharp or stressy types, fibre alone may not be calorific enough to promote weight gain. 4 Feed the right amount - If you choose a fibre/chaffbased feed as your source of extra calories, be sure it is fortified with vitamins and minerals and feed it at the manufacturer’s recommended levels, to achieve a fully balanced diet.

This may look like a large volume because a Stubbs scoop only contains about 0.5kg of a chaff-based feed, while a scoop of Top Line

Conditioning Cubes, for example, weighs 1.8kg.

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Keep your horse warm

and happy – many horses lose weight in winter as they use so much more energy to maintain their body temperature. Keep the poor-doer well rugged and as content as possible, as a stressed horse will use valuable energy worrying.

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4 Conditioning mixes and cubes – These are designed to do what it says on the bag and are more energy/caloriedense than chaff-based options so feeding volumes are smaller as you get more calories per scoop. Any fully balanced conditioning feed should contain good quality protein, to build muscle and top line, as well as calories, and supporting vitamins and minerals. They must also be fed according to manufacturers’ recommendations to get results – a cup or two won’t cut it!

4 “Quick release” calorie/energy sources –

Carefully cooked cereals are a highly digestible and

4 Assess your horse’s worm

burden and get his teeth

checked regularly –important for every horse but, again, more so for the poor-doer to ensure his digestive system is not compromised.

concentrated source of extra calories for promoting weight gain. Their calories are rapidly absorbed and readily available, termed “quick release”, so may not suit the fizziest types, but do work well for many horses. The starch they contain can increase acidity levels in the stomach, which may exacerbate gastric discomfort in the ulcer-prone, however. 4 “Slow release” calorie/energy sources – These take longer to digest and absorb into the blood stream and do not exacerbate excitability so are ideal for fizzy, stressy horses.

They include highly digestible fibres, known as

“superfibres”, such as beet pulp, alfalfa and soya bean hulls, and vegetable oils which provide more than twice as many calories as the same weight of cereals. 4 Low starch feeds - Unlike starch from cereals, fibres and oils do not cause gastric discomfort so are the calorie sources of choice in low starch feeds, especially those formulated for horses prone to gastric ulcers. These low starch, higher calorie feeds, like Ease & Excel mix and Cubes, are ideal for promoting condition, while helping encourage a calm outlook.

4 Keep meal sizes manageable – this is even more important for the poorer-doer who will benefit from as many small meals as you can fit into his day. Large feeds risk overloading the stomach which is small and relatively rigid – and can lead to feed flowing out of the stomach before it has been fully

“processed”. If undigested cereal starch reaches the hind gut, as a result, it can upset the bacterial balance and cause problems. As a rough guide, feed no more than 2kg (a Stubbs scoop of cubes) per meal for a 500kg horse. 4 Consider using a “digestive enhancer” – these include yeast, probiotics and prebiotics and are useful for promoting gut efficiency to help ensure your horse is making the most of what he eats. Digest Plus is a prebiotic which feeds the good gut bacteria so that they flourish at the expense of pathogenic species. 4 Contact a feed company

Helpline – If things still don’t seem to be working for you, why not ring or email for advice, there may be one little thing that you’re missing. Baileys nutritionists are both knowledgeable and practically experienced.

www.baileyshorsefeeds.co.uk

PRODUCT NEWS...

Fibre-Beet is a Super Fibre conditioning feed, containing all the benefits of the original Speedi-Beet product, with added high quality Alfalfa. It is ideal for maintaining optimum condition and providing quality protein for muscle tone and function. Fibre-Beet provides a good source of slow release energy without the ‘fizz’. Fibre-Beet also provides a good range of minerals, trace elements and amino acids. It is high in fibre with a low sugar content making it suitable for horses and ponies prone to laminitis as part of a balanced diet. Ideal for horses prone to digestive upsets and very palatable for fussy eaters, Fibre-Beet also has added biotin for hoof quality. RRP: £15.99 - £16.99/20kg bag. www.british horsefeeds.com