[PaintYourWorld]

Okay so I have done alot of reading that says good nutrition is part of what keeps a horses coat nice, I really don't know what good nutrition is . I picked up my feeding routine from other people I know. Anyhow, my horses get 1 scoop of grain 2x daily and all the timothy hay they can eat. We don't really have grass in our pasture, but every once in awhile I take them out so they can eat. The Grain I am currently feeding I got from one of the 4h leaders, because my gelding is extremely hard to keep weight on, and this is the best thing I have found so far. Anyways I was just wondering if my feed is anygoodand if not what to look for?Hope That made any sense I had alot I wanted to say without writing a novel.
Here is one of the tags from the feed bag.

[loosie]

Hi,

I'm no nutrition expert, seems the more I learn the more I need to know, as with other subjects....

Free choice hay is good. Mixed hay probably has a little more nutrients than one type, but you probably need to suppliment for nutrition anyway. Horses are designed to eat little & almost constantly. Might have been on the Safer Grass site or Dr Kellon's where I read that 'creep feeding' hay - that is, free access but horses can't gorge, only pick - is actually better for putting weight on 'hard keepers' as well as helping 'easy keepers' trim down.

When I read that you fed grain 2x day I thought this could be an issue, as cereal grain is generally too high in indigestible starch, and twice per day feeding of it is not ideal - a horse can better digest what is fed little & often & has more problems when it is fed too infrequently. But you are taking about processed pellets, which incidentally appear to have little grain(barley) in them. This looks more of a 'ration balancer' type feed. 2x day is probably perfectly adequate for this, but you might still find the horse also does better dividing the daily ration in more feeds if you can manage it.

It will depend on the nutrients in the hay and your area as to whether the suppliments in this feed are adequate for your horse, but one necessary ingredient that seems to be completely absent is magnesium. This is a very important nutrient that needs to be in balance with calcium(can't remember the ratio tho). I would look into better supplimenting. You might get the info you need from Dr Kellon's site or some such. If your horse is maintaining his weight & energy on this feed and this amount, then that's good. If you think he could do with a little more, better balanced nutrition might enable him to get more out of it, or you could feed more/more often, &/or add a little more soy bean meal or copra meal to his hard feed.

[PeggySue]

what are the feeding directions for this feed?? I dont' see ration balancer I see high fiber high fat feed that is a complete type feed

[PaintYourWorld]

[Gypsy Rose]

Yep! Definitely a complete feed!

Do you have the feeding directions?

[PaintYourWorld]

Bump......