feeding my 6 month old colt ????

[xxvanessaxx]

what do you think i should feed my 6 month old sec a colt .....

he's quite chunky for a lil pony, my 2 year old sec b is on hi-fi and stud mix and hes done very well on it ....

any ideas would be a great help thanks

[sarahp]

My weaned foals are on ad lib hay/grass, plus Top Spec balancer and a bit of Equijewel and TS Conditioning Cubes, mainly because they both need finishing up! The D gets Alfa-oil too but the A is such a tank that I haven't put her on it yet, I will when the other stuff has all gone.

I did start them off on unmollassed sugarbeet with their balancer as most horses like it but they weren't too keen so I stopped it! The other three that get fed all get it though, again with balancer.

In general terms I prefer to avoid sugar and cereals, so no mixes for me but balancer, fibre and oil.

[xxvanessaxx]

ok thanks xx

[crimson]

If you want to avoid weight gain I would use a balancer like bailey's stud balancer, a normal balancer wont have all the nutrients a growing baby needs.

You can add some chop if you want to bulk it out and also ad-lib hay/haylege

[flojo]

I feed chaff, balancer and a mug of SB to dampen. They all look great on it

[mariem]

spillers young stock and stud mix is what we feed ours on with brilliant results

[hacklover]

saracen level grow mix. from 4ths old!! dont need to change feed till its 4. cool.

[sarahp]

When I said balancer I did mean a suitable one for the purpose, ie a stud one - I use Top Spec. Their advice service is brilliant, worth a ring.

The thing about using a stud mix or cube is that to get the correct amount of all the necessary micronutrients it does need to be fed in the recommended quantities; if you reduce the amount you also reduce all the micronutrients. So if your foal gets too fat on it (not good for the joints) you can't reduce calories without reducing micronutrients as well.

Particularly for natives, can I please put in another plea to avoid sugar and cereals as they do predispose the pony to getting insulin resistant in later life?

[Guestless]

I use TopSpec for all my ponies, from foals (who seem to very quickly start pinching their mum's pellets) to my veteran. I don't feed it at full ration to any of them, as IMO foals can get everything they need from grass as long as it's half decent (but not too rich either).

I'm not a huge fan of stud mixes, etc as they tend to be quite high in starch and I would rather feed a fibre-based diet. Like sarahp, I supplement with TS conditioning cubes if necessary (but only needed to do that once for a youngster).

TopSpec is to me the equivalent of the way the welfare state used to be - from cradle to the grave, lol!!

[crimson]

Apologies SarahP, I wasn't aware top spec did a stud balancer, I thought it was just a "normal" horse balancer they did - you learn something every day!

[sarahp]

They do a range of different ones, check out the website!

[Guestless]

Nov 25, 2009 12:02:29 GMT sarahp said:

They do a range of different ones, check out the website!

They even do their own chaff now - I've just changed on to it....smells and looks lovely.

[sarahp]

I have a bag waiting for when I finish the current alfa-oil!

[magnuts]

my boy is on frickers 16% frickers stud mix and oats.. he has been on this since he was 4 months old and he looks great...