a Forage Based Diet

HAYLAGE & A LITTLE CUNNING:

... with a little thought, you can turn your horses hay or haylage supply into the other  'real' meaning of forage: to seek for food.

 

...and you know: Tom & Henry just love to munch.

 

Here Tom & Henry are enjoying the new layout of their forage, they are foraging, and strangely I have noticed they prefer the nets on their right side, how strange?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I had to buy more nets of course, I dont like them so only had 2, but as long as safety is guaranteed, I support thier use here, because I can see how handy they can be.  But I wont ever tie one up where it can get loose, or they can get caught up in it.


It's always worth remembering all horses arent the same: Henry can jump clean over his stable door, so geting caught in a net is childs play for him, so be careful with your own horse, even if he's not as 'athletic' as mine!

 

 

As you know, Tom & Henry eat their ad-lib haylage from Haybars: there's 2 in their yard, brilliantly customised by John to fit on a straight edge, (Haybars are a corner unit), and the other 2, one in each stable. 


These are filled twice daily with fresh haylage and the boys are just crazy about this arrangement, because they can wander between the grass and 4 separate hay sources.

 

 As you will also know, Tom & Henry have been brought in at night already because of the saturated ground here in Essex and my serious aversion to any more mudfever, so they are forced to spend time indoors, and I can only imagine how boring that must be once you've wandered around a few times and had a nap.

Horses need to eat, they eat for about 18 hours a day (almost the same amount of time cats need to sleep!). 

They eat to stay healthy both physically and mentally, to generate warmth and keep their guts in tip top condition,  of course the idea is they wander in equal measure too, which is why you'll rarely catch a wild horse overweight, he has to work for his living.  But it doesn't have to be a bore.

So I decided to hang some nets outside their stables, and they are crazy for this plan.  They now have three places to choose from to 'forage' for their forage, horses love this, plus it's safe because the nets are outside and less messy too (which the butler likes).

 

I came home early today from work so I was able to take photos in the daylight, normally it's dark when I put them indoors.

 

Try this with your horse, he'll love it!



T&H recommended x


 

Horses don't Nest

...it all started with Brandy: 'Ginger Nut'. In his twenties in this picture, I loved him so much.  The same age as me, he died when I was 26.

WINTER:
HAYLAGE&BEDDING

In the old days, we used bales of soft golden straw to bed our ponies down for the night, teenagers in love with their shaggy show jumpers, we'd have done anything for them wouldn't we?  Their beds were very deep and had banks, pony-club style all round the edges, and we never really knew why, it was either something to do with getting stuck in the stable, or was it to stop draughts!? We just did it because that's just what everyone did, no question.

  

Of course many of our ponies developed coughs, depending on how much turn-out time our DIY  livery yard would allow, and mine was in for 7 months and out during the day, in at night only the rest of the year.  We didn't know better, we all just did what everyone else did. 

 

Luckily, at the time my pony Brandy (here being 'ridden' by John) had a cough, HorseHage was available, and I was the first on my yard to buy it, now everyone I know uses a haylage from one source or another, and you don't hear yards of coughing horses anymore do you? 
 

And we're all getting much better at feeding off the floor or using Haybars instead for a more natural feeding position.  because it lets fluid containing nasties drain away. Thank goodness we are so much better advised, thanks to horse magazines, our knowledge isn't simply passed on wrong advice from yardees or people who think they know it all, magazines are here to help, written by people who DO know stuff.

 

 

Then we all changed to wood chips because straw was thought of as bad, we got them wherever we could, there weren't many places to buy speciality horse&pony type wood chips, but if you travelled around, you could find some.

 

So  then we had a new dilemma, how do we make a soft snugly bed fit for our best friends: our ponies,  so they'd have the cleanest, tallest, snugliest bed on the yard?  The answer was, we couldn't treat our stables the same way ever again, and our ponies really didn't mind...why?

 

 

Because Horses don't nest.

 

By and large, if a surface is quite dry and safe a horse can sleep on it.  We make our beds because all the while we're sprinkling the 14 times dust-extracted, dust-free, lemon scented wood chip down we're thinking, would I like to sleep on this aren't we?  Well horses don't need hypo-allergenic togg20, orthopaedic bedding! they are horses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time of year, Tom & Henry are usually still out, and actually last year they didn't come in at all at night even, but then we got mud-fever, and we're NOT going through that again!
 

 

Its very very wet here, so to keep my boys feet in tip-top condition, and not standing soaking wet for 24 hours a day, I have just brought them in at night.  thus I have been thinking about bedding and haylage.

   

When they come in I bring their beds all the way forward to the doorstep of their stables, so they don't stand all night with their arses in the air! 



It's about 5cm deep with a clean sprinkling of BedDownExcel shavings.  Its smells nice, but again, this is just for me since I'm certain the boys are only interested in what goes in their buckets and haybars!

 

They don't have a deep bed at all, just a couple of inches beneath the clean sweet smelling surface is the rubber matting John installed before they got here, I wish I'd have had this when Brandy was alive.









Then John installed anti-cast strips all round their walls, about a metre from the floor (depending on the height of your horse), 10cm wide strips of rubber (John used off-cuts from doing the floor), screwed to the wall, and skid marks ending at these strips mean they really work too, it just gives their hooves something to grip on.

 

Tom & Henry are eating 1-2 bales of HorseHage daily and at night I hang a net outside their stables too.

(I hate haynets, they're not only dangerous, but all that reaching and pulling with his nose in the air isn't natural, and probably bad for your horse too, not to mention he probably gets quite frustrated getting the hay out, especially if this is his only source of feed), but with a small amount local haylage in a net: HaySoft in it just for variety, I think it's ok. 

They love this haylage, and it now comes in 3 easy to use chunks per bale. and they love this arrangement too, they can look out, chat and eat, what could be better?  I swap the sides each night too so they don't get bored or use only one side of their necks.
 

  

Tom&Henry have never had a cough, our new modern ways of working have made certain of that, and they don't have to wade through a deep bed full of dust spores either, it's all very simple and as natural as possible, except being in the stable, but until my vet can give them an injection against mud-fever, I'm taking precautions!

 

 happy winter xx

 

 

 

TCJpart84 Diets

'DIETS' & 'NUTRITION':

As you know Tom and Henry have been on a diet since January this year.  All I have done is cut out all the willy-nilly treats, the 'I love you' treats especially, replaced them with a scratch, which they really enjoy. 

The rain this year has meant the grass has grown so they have more of that to eat...but eating grass, that's a moving about job so I take that into account!

They get half an apple each at weigh time after Sunday dinner, their usual feed because they need all that goodness still, bagged haylage freshly filled haybars....and they have lost a little over 100Kg's since the beginning of the year!

...but, when do I stop?

I don't have a target weight for them in my head.  They don't have a bikini they need to look good in, or a pair of amazing jeans to fit in before they stop. I can already use the girths 2 girths ago, is that the horse version of a sucessful diet? They look incredible.  They've modelled for M&S this year.  Perhaps because my effort has been slow and my reasons prevention rather than cure, I should just carry on with the 'diet', only now call it 'nutrition'?

So, that's the new plan:

Tom & Henry are off the diets, and now have a diet based on sound Nutrition guidelines as advised by Dodson & Horrell and me.

Tom & Henry don't do eventing or long distance riding, with the weather we've had recently their lucky to get out at all!!!  But, they do need nutrition.  They need minerals, vitamins, fibre, fibre, fibre and fibre,

I needed to be honest about the load I was giving them to eat.  Now I am happy with the results and believe this is the way to continue.  Plus, when you stop calling it a 'diet', it seems like you're under less pressure.

...yes....going forward, keep weightaping them every week, keep up with the no-treats philosophy, and I'll let you know how it goes!

TCJpart79 Fun

HAVING FUN:

Making some everyday tasks and jobs fun, can help your horse learn to become adaptable. 

Adding new things to his environment, asking him to solve problems means he's not simply going through his usual routine.  By asking him new things, your horse can become much more prepared to cope with new and strange, so when things do happen unexpectedly, he will be more mentally capable of dealing with it.  It really works too.

This morning for example, I delivered hay to the yard, just the 2 bales I needed.  Chucked them under the fence and left them there whilst I finished sweeping.

Tom & Henry don't shy from a challenge (especially where food is concerned), and plastic bags and bales of hay don't present a worry for them since I believe in desensitising them to these things, I always flick bags near them and leave them lying around when I've added bedding to their stables, etc.  T&H don't mind bags. 

Henry bit a tiny hole in one bale and Tom tried to with the other but since Henry was already in, Tom decided it was wasted effort, he would just pinch Henry's bale!

...and so it was, the boys had opened their own bags of hay, and they were very happy eating out of the bag whilst I carried on with my yard duties....I did open the hole a little more so they didn't have to struggle to get the food out, but this simple job became a game and they were rewarded with haylage.

Funny boys.

TCJpart53 Diet Update

MY BODY IS A TEMPLE.....
...well, obviously mine isn't but the boys are!

In a very unscientific way, I have attempted to document the progress of Tom & Henry's mission (or rather mine), to loose a few pounds.  

...and how's it all going diet-wise?  brilliantly.  The boys are well on their way to their target 'beach bodies'.

I had been weightaping them since Dodson & Horrell sent me a tape back in October 2009, in no specific time frame and shockingly few times too.

Then I was taking a long hard look at them both one day and I remembered a time when they (and I), were skinnier.  So I taped them and was mildly alarmed by the results...hence the diets.

I have weighed them every Sunday since and their progress to slimdom has been fully documented using the chart D&H sent with the tape.  The chart is attached to their fridge door with magnets so it's quick and easy to maintain a system. I give them half an apple each after the taping, so it's not all boring and diets for them.

I call it unscientific, because I'm not entirely certain I'm doing it right BUT, I lay the tape in the same place, I do it at the same time of day (just after they've had dinner), and meet the ends at the same pressure every time, so it may be wrong, but it's consistent.

I have been very pleased with what I have learned.  And shocked that some local haylage I bought when we couldn't get Horse Hage, that the boys LOVED, made their waistlines start to creep up again...I had no idea they could be so different.

They are roughly 100kg's less that when I began at the beginning of January this year, and that's a lot.  I'm not going to need to buy any new girths!!! They look slimmer, healthier and can move very fast too.

So while we order a delivery pizza tonight, clearly playing fast and loose with our own waistlines, Tom & Henry are on the way to being even more gorgeous than they already are....that can't be possible!

TCJp24 Weight Watch

Tom & Henry are on a diet!

Content with spending their day wandering about in the now mud and munching as much haylage as they can eat Tom & Henry appear unperturbed about our soiree with diets!  Admittedly we’ve only been at it a week but they already look more gorgeous than they did last week..but I would say that wouldn’t I?

The test will be to see if their girths still fit in the same holes as before, after their rest over winter (it’s been windy).  But rather than head indoors to browse the inter web for the newest most comfortable straps, I am being strict with their diets, there will be no more girth-buying......this time!

Exercise is the next thing, which of course will help me with my own mission to get to the same body shape I was in the summer.  After a long autumn and Xmas of eating rubbish (my Dad died suddenly and all I wanted was to eat was junk), so I’ll endeavour to ride whenever I can. Except of course, in the wind!

Tom and Henry when they were a little slimmer!

Without realising it the winter is nearly over and it didn’t get cold (what happened there?), and in all likelihood the weight horses are supposed to lose over the cold snap now won't happen.  Leaving my 2 supremely gorgeous but a little chunky. they haven't even come in at night yet, and in all likelihood won't now unless we get some late very bad weather.

It's difficult to have a view on your horses body shape if he is always wearing rugs, when you swap them over, take a minute to check him.

Of course its natural for horses to have periods of feast and famine, the lush grass to mud scenario, alongside the cold snaps.  That’s why their weight fluctuates more than ours, but if I order another new girth (I won't), it would do my gorgeous boys an injustice.  They are big, and judging them by how they simply look isn't enough because they appear to me to be perfect.  There is a condition scoring chart which can help but like anything visual, it's open to interpretation.  Not forgetting that different breeds of horse have different characteristic body shapes:

CONDITION SCORING: Tom & Henry are a 3.75 (me too)

They look perfect. They have shiny coats when they’re not covered in mud (they love to roll), and have the most gorgeous rounded bums.  There's no ‘gutter’ along their spines and I put Tom’s massive neck down to sheer power rather that fat: he can lift me clear off the ground by the front of my Puffa with just his teeth!.  But I love those boys, I want them to live forever, so I’m being very careful.  I should do the same for myself... but my horses don’t have a stressful job like I do...and curry's and crumble are just too tempting. Horses, they just wouldn’t understand!!

Already (because I’m doing it too), I have cut back on all the treats, and they only have one carrot julienne in each dinner.  Instead of any old sized scoop of chop they now have a strict flat one and I’ve cut out the mush too today.

I am doing it all gradually, my mush was only soaked at the recommended ratio during the 2 days of cold we’ve had in Essex.  I make it slushy so it waters down the feed, so cutting it out was easy and quick.

They keep looking at me as if I have betrayed them, but I think they’ll be happier living longer and they’ll be able to gallop faster around their field too, won't they?

Why is this my new obsession?  During a bored moment waiting for the kettle to boil I used the weigh-tape on them.  Admittedly they are super furry and caked in mud (that has to distort the measurement by loads don’t you think?), I was alarmed by how much bigger they were than last time I did it (last year in the summer). They look fine to me, but I don’t want to take any chances, not with my boys.

So, I’m making them finish all the hay in the 4 haybars before topping it up.

Because it's has been so mild, the boys haven't been wearing rugs, so checking their appearance daily becomes an easy task.  but if your horse wears rugs, you'll have to make sure you give him a good eyeball every day just to check he is OK.

It’s week 2, so I’ll keep measuring their waistlines and let you know what happens:

UPDATE: 22/01/12

Already the diet appears to be working, I weigh tape them every Sunday and they lost weight in the first week, and again some more in the second.   They share an apple once a week at weigh tape time. 

The grass is growing now too so they have new tufts of this to concentrate on, and are giving their Spring turnout hungry look over the fence!.
I have harrowed and seeded the bare patches in my top 2 fields too now, and they look to have survived quite well from all the rampaging my boys do.   As the days mostly are consecutively above 5 degrees now in the middle of January, the grass will continue to grow, once spring is underway (my Daff's are already 8cm out of the ground) and the fields are dry enough, I will turn them out. then they won't be interested in hay at all and they'll spend a lot of their day moving about.  This will burn the calories... now if it were only as easy for me...?

SECOND UPDATE:  29/01/12

Today I taped them for the end on the third week on diets, and again, the notches on the tape are going down  the correct way, each week they have lessened their girths by a notch, and I'm very happy that they still don't seem to mind.  Of course I have ridden this weekend, so beginning more exercise will definitely help.  I'll keep you posted.

THIRD UPDATE: 30/01/12 


TRAKEHNER NEWSLETTER STORY:

 Tom&Henry are on a diet!

 My strategy for Diets, was hastily planned, but thoughtfully and carefully executed: It was quite hard to begin with, because convinced they are perfect the way they are, concluding that it was my management of Tom & Henry’s life that was to blame for this situation, was hard to admit. But the tape does not lie...unless somehow it’s shrunk – that could happen couldn’t it??!!

I try to keep them as close to a 'natural' life as possible, and let’s face it, they don’t get high calorie diet, they live on air and haylage!  But  my routine needs adjusting to be suitable for them in this new world.  So, determined to succeed, I began to change the way I do things.

Now Tom & Henry like nothing better than swaning around their yard, or wandering in the now mud, and rolling about in it and eating lots of haylage.  A perfect life which has allowed extra weight to creep up on us.

I took a long honest look at them both, with extra emphasis on their behinds because they are so amazing, and whilst not in the category of obscenely overweight horses, they – like me – could do with going back to slimmer times, when our girths and favorite jeans still fitted us.  So like it or not, we three are on a diet!

I used the weightape on them both after Xmas (something I should really do on myself!) during a bored moment waiting for the kettle to boil.  I was shocked though, at how much fuller their figures have gotten since I last taped them in summer.  Nice curvy frames and some extra girth not due to Xmas indulgence like mince pies, but a combination of things:  We have had a very warm winter and the mild autumn meant the grass lasted longer and the land fared better than usual.  Meaning they stayed out on grass to well into December.  I should have made dietary changes then, but, like everyone, I assumed winter would come - it would just be late.

It’s been much warmer than usual here but it’s been very windy, so exercise accidentally dropped to nothing.  We haven't had winter down here in Essex, and the weight horses naturally loose over the cold period to keep warm hasn’t happened either.  I have rugged them a lot less than before therefore.  I bought them lightweight rain sheets with neck covers, and only twice have they needed a heavier weight one this winter. So they haven’t lost any condition in the cold.

Also not ignoring the fact that perhaps feeding them their carrots and apples ad-lib when they look at me cute – which is all the time – well, that had to help too right?  But this time, I’m not going to believe their curvy and voluptuous figures are ok and I’m not going to buy new girths or jeans either!!

So, I started by cutting out all the treats, I identified several categories:

1, those I give willy-nilly just because I love those boys...they get a scratch instead now – no calories in that!

2, those I am persuaded to give them by the boys themselves, they have such hypnotic stares and communicate in no uncertain terms what they want. Saying no is hard.

3, those I give as a reward for excellent behaviour while being asked tricky questions or for being good and getting me back to the yard in one piece!

The reward treats remained, they really are the perfect horsey gentlemen.
So next, I did the dinners:  I cut out the fibre-beet firstly.  I feed the ‘mush’ (British Horse Feeds: Fibre-Beet (from the Speedy-Beet stable)) at the recommended ratio during very cold weather for extra slow release energy, then after to replace the grass in winter, or when the temperature drops below 5degrees consecutively, and the grass stops growing.  Then in autumn and early spring I mix it very sloppily with twice as much water as before so it waters down the feed and adds extra flavour and nutrition.

Then the carrots got cut, they are down to a single carrot julienne in each dinner only (depending on the size of the carrots)! They have 2 meals a day. And, as a treat, the share an apple at weightape time on Sunday.
This was hard, because I like to show Tom & Henry I love them, so I am giving them extra scratches now instead, as Tom is now beginning to lose his winter coat, so he loves the scratching under his neck.

I plan to weightape them every Sunday, this will keep a measured track of our progress as well as lending some consistency as to where on the body I lay the tape, because it’s very hard to get it in the right place every time. And Tom is so tall I’m on tip-toes, and Henry is so fidgety I have to wander around with him!
We have had 5 cold mornings here in Essex so far this winter, hardly any hardship at all, and mine have kept and added to the weight, and I haven't brought them in at night either because I haven’t needed to (the first time since I’ve had them), which I believe keeps them healthy in mind and body. As for my diet...that’s not going quite so well....

Horses are designed to have reserves in fat to survive the winter and lack of grass, but we are getting so good at feeding ad-lib forage for that natural trickle-feed diet, that that scenario doesn’t really happen anymore, eating for 18 hours a day keeps their guts healthy and keeps them warm too.
Any extra feed we give them on top of that, for the extra nutrients the little emerging tufts of grass or haylage don’t adequately provide. We need to be careful what this consists of.  And be honest with ourselves exactly how much our horses actually NEED.  Tom & Henry don’t have hard feed at all.  They have Dengie Hi-Fi Lite (one scoop), Dodson&Horrell Ultimate Balancer at supplement quantity, a carrot and water to moist or British Horse Feeds Fibre-Beet during winter only.  And that’s it.  Plus as much haylage they can eat. Trakehners, or at least mine, seem to survive on very little, and they have LOTS of energy too, so they don’t need any extra.

Cold weather takes its toll on condition too, it takes a lot of energy to keep warm, but the rugs we use mean our horses don’t really ‘suffer’ a winter like they do in the wild either.  This could be another reason why so many of our horses are overweight, we’re treating them like humans...not like horses.

So I just need to be careful about the condition they go into winter in, they don’t need to be ‘cuddly’, and actually, it’s bad for their hearts and joints to carry too much weight (as it is with us), so to keep them tip-top, I will try make sure they are the correct shape all-year-round, perhaps I can cut feed out completely like my neighbour does during summer, just give them a handful of balancer for all their vits and mins....and as for me....well, that’s work in progress...

thanks,

Shelley, Tom&Henry
 

 

TRAKEHNERS CAN JUMP part 9

FEEDING:
...it's a minefield, here I'll try to make it simple, that's how it should be.

What to feed your horse can be a very tricky affair.  There are so many new feeds about all claiming to be the thing that’s been missing from your horse’s diet. But I believe in keeping feeding as easy as I can.

Tom enjoying ad lib haylage

I thought hard and researched long before finally coming up with a plan for Tom & Henry.  I considered very carefully many factors: size, age – they were still growing and developing, warmbloods (like mine) are slow developers, often they don’t finish growing until they are 8! 

Super safe rubber buckets made from recycled car tyres

Breeding, level of work and fitness and – this is something the magazines sometimes leave out…what would my horse choose to eat or what types of forage would they want to eat in the wild?

 

My boys are fit and healthy and in very good condition and get all the ‘stuff’ they need from a very simple bowl of dinner:  firstly they get ad lib HorseHage HIGH FIBRE – and I really mean they get as much as they can eat, fresh every day, they never run out.  

Weighing hay nets is all very well (and messy and boring), but if you think about how much time your horse would spend munching in the wild – about 18hours a day (that’s more than a Rand even!), they need enough nosh to give them this stimulation – while they are eating they are happy and content, and being a horse.  Some people might worry about this strategy, especially if their horse is overweight or prone to Laminitis, but if you cut down on all the cereals you have been using for years without much thought to change, you can plan a much larger percentage of you horses diet to be forage - it's so much better for them (and their tummies). So plan to feed your horse hay or haylage for the time it will last rather than how much it weighs. And soaking your hay will decrease the sugar level too, so ask a nutritionist to help you plan a forage heavy diet.

They even eat the old stuff out of the bin!!! So embarassing.

Even in the summer, when there are 3 acres of very nice grass for them to eat, they come into their stables for a couple of hours a day and eat hay. 

The ultimate length for grass for horses is 2.5cm tall, horses often graze on pasture sewn for cattle, this is longer and may not have some of the herbs a horse pasture mix of grass seed would have.

So I leave hay out for them all year round – this would also explain why my grass is never eaten right down to the ground – they wander, munch, wander, munch, wander to the yard, munch some more – the more variety the better.  And HorseHage comes in a couple of flavours too – depending on the type of horse etc, there are 4 different types, some higher in fibre (that’s the one I use - blue), some higher in sugar, a timothy grass etc – so occasionally I buy a couple of bags of green or purple just for a change – and they love this.

Then they get more hay – in the form of chop – Dengie Hifi light, again you can feed loads of this to make his dinner last for ages if you use the ‘light’ version, as it has a very low sugar level, then a balancer for all the other stuff (Dodson & Horrell):

 

A hoof supplement (Equine America Hoof Power Plus: because I am obsessed with good feet, but I won’t tell my farrier because he wouldn’t approve, farriers don’t believe in hoof supplements):

 

Lots of carrots al la julienne. And in the winter they get ‘mush’: Fibre-Beet (from the Speedy- Beet people)!

 

Horses in the wild would not eat grains (they probably wouldn’t be able to get their hoofs on Dr Johnsons treat cubes either – but that’s not the point); I don’t believe horses can cope with this type of feed.  Of course in the wild they probably wouldn’t bounce about on the spot and fancy fancy side step around or jump some fences either – so we have to make some compromises – I just think the closest you can get, to as natural as you can get the better.

Henry gives grass the hoofs up!

There is lots of advice about how much food to give your horse, I’d recommend one of the help lines from a feed company like Dodson & Horrell, they helped me plan the menu here at chez Rand.  And it works a treat, my 2 are always healthy and they never run out of energy.

Apple Bobbing!

Food can be a nice game too, in the summer when it's very hot, I put a large bucket of water in their yard, they drink from it happily (I wonder whether it's because they can drink together), Henry will often stick his feet in for a paddle...but the funniest thing happened once upon a hot day.....

...and you may not know, that pears dont float, so Henry had to reach down to the bottom to get them out!

i threw some apples in thinking they'd push them about in the water and play, I did not expect what happened next...Henry of course!

Up to his eyes in it!

he bobbed for the apples! plunging his head deep into the water, up to his eyes to get all the fruit out!!!!  so funny.

Tom was amused by the whole thing and was happy sharing Henry's catch x

Don't you just love your horse?

part 10 worming...or not!