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 Warrior Mom
Posts: 4400
 
| What do you feed your performance horses? I'm really contemplating quitting grain all together. Tired of the ups and downs, aggressive behavior at feed time , etc etc... I have really nice grass hay put up and my horses get access to decent pasture daily, depending on weather. So plenty of turn out time. I found a supplier for decent alfalfa hay. Was thinking of just putting everyone on alfalfa instead of grain. I would probably add in some renew gold to get their platinum in as well. I've never NOT fed grain so this is a very weird concept to me! I'm lucky I have fairly easy keepers and I've never had to feed more than a few lbs of grain a day. |
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Veteran
Posts: 155
| I have 1 that gets 9 lbs teff hay 2x a day and 3lbs alfalfa cubes, 1 cup ground flax seed, california trace vitamin/ mineral and a vitamin E capsule 1000 iu. She looks great, and has healthy feet.
All of mine get a variation of this, depending on their needs. |
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Expert
Posts: 1314
Location: North Central Iowa Land of white frozen grass | Most people that feed grain feed way too much of it. I feed grain to make sure my horses get their vitamins, protein, minerals and salt. 2# per hd per day is plenty of total mixture. I have mine mixed for me at my feed mill. There is nothing in all that fancy feeds that everyone buys that has anything more in it than what you can have made up yourself. |
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 Reaching for the stars....
Posts: 12704
 
| I have an easy keeper and a medium keeper. Both get 10 lbs top quality alfalfa and 10 lbs timothy per day. I feed beet pulp shreds with fat supplements to the medium keeper, and the easy keeper gets a handful of beet pulp with a squirt of oil and some flax seed to keep his coat really nice. The medium keeper is out on my poor grass, but she doesn't graze as much as she could so not many calories there. Both get a small scoop of vita/min too. The easy keeper is a little plump on his diet except in the spring breeding season. He's svelt then. The medium keeper went to my trainer a month ago and he was making fun of her fun fat! |
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 Namesless in BHW
Posts: 10368
Location: At the race track with Ah Dee Ohs | Most of ours get alfalfa and grass hay only. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 672
| I don’t usually feed grain, just pasture,good grass hay, and high quality alfalfa. I started my 2 & 3 yo on RenewGold because they needed the extra calories to put a little more weight on and really like how they look and act. Not hot and they don’t get wild at feeding time, which is usually what happens when I’ve fed grain... |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 629
| I do renew gold or enrich year round and add in rice bran and alfalfa pellets in the winter to keep weight on a medium keeper. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 618
| Alfalfa, Purina Enrich and rice bran(amount varies depending on horse) |
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Expert
Posts: 2121
Location: The Great Northwest | Horses don't need grain! Don't feed them soy products just bad. Check soy used as feed for horses out. I feed Alfalfa and grass hay with some pasture. Supplements can be fed alone or add apples, carrots, ect. I also feed Hemp oil for quality Omegas. |
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Expert
Posts: 1314
Location: North Central Iowa Land of white frozen grass | Horses don't need any suppliments. It just is at what athletic level you want yours to be in. I bet if you ask any trainer with top level horses what they are feeding. I bet none of them are on just hay. Period. |
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Sock Snob
Posts: 3021
| i sent my 2 year old to be broke to a reining trainer who worked for some of the best trainers out west. he fed alfalfa cubes only. since alfalfa hay is hard to get in virginia. |
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Location: Middle TN | Dropped grain a year ago. Only feed 2 lbs a day of alfalfa pellets and 1 lb Renew Gold with Platinum Performance. Free choice mineral salt, pastures and grass hay now that we are coming into winter. Both have taken a big chill - this includes a moody mare. The PP hooves are now fully on the ground and the splitting and chipping hooves are a thing of the past. Having to deal with hauling and carrying a lot less feed bags is an extra bonus. |
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Reaching for the stars....
Posts: 12704
| BS Hauler - 2018-11-12 9:05 AM Horses don't need any suppliments. It just is at what athletic level you want yours to be in. I bet if you ask any trainer with top level horses what they are feeding. I bet none of them are on just hay. Period.
I've seen top horses be on 10 lbs + of bagged feed plus many supplements. I've seen top horses on high quality alfalfa alone. Track horses. Horses that really really get worked hard 5-6 days a week. Of those two groups the hay only horses had less dancy prancy buck and snort behavior and both ran at about the same speeds with one of the hay only horses being the fastest overall. Hay only had better feet. Hay only had less colic incidents.
I'll let you know about a year from now if I think my new DTF mare is running her best on the hay diet. But I'm going to keep her that way for the next year and see if her performance is any less over that time on hay only. |
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 Blond Bombshell..
Posts: 6628
Location: Hill Country of TEXAS!! | 4 quarts of hayrite mini cubes w oat( hay) twice a day and either turned out on a coastal round bale or have a haybag/net of coastal in front of them 24/7 stalled, hauling, and standing at the trailer for a run. I dont feed any suppliments and one horse gets Purina Outlast 1 1/4 cup twice a day. I feed him that, feed the others and come back with his 4 qts cubes. |
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Good Ole Boys just Fine with Me
Posts: 2869
Location: SE Missouri | I was high quality alfalfa (20% protein), improved pastures, and oats for a long time. I have added bluebonnet (took out the oats)to my mix about 6monthas ago and am happy with the change. I love the extra bloom I got with the bluebonnet. For the price of oats vrs bluebonnet I couldn’t continue what I was doing. I feed minimal grain but am happy with what aim getting out of it. |
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Expert
Posts: 1409
Location: Oklahoma | I believe in a hay diet but also vit/min too and whatever they may need like if they are arthritic supplement definitely helps. Depends on the horse. |
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