QoD 10th Dec - Feeding through winter

bitsnpieces

bitsnpieces

Active Member
Aug 22, 2007
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How is everyone getting on with their winter feeding routines?

I've been quite lucky and had plenty of grass up until about a week ago, everything we did have is now trampled in to the mud, so pickings are a bit sparse. The girls are all on chaff/high fibre cubes/Top Spec light feed for breakfast and evening, with a decent sized haynet for dinner.

Puz has always been a great doer in winter, but I've noticed that this year she's not doing quite so well, despite her yak like coat, so I may swop her onto the D&H 16+ cubes as had her on them a few winters ago and they really picked her up.
 
Paddy is stable most of the time now (yard policy in winter) and he gets 4 big sections of hay at night and always has a bit left and 2 during the day, again doesnt eat it all!!

He gets a mug of balancer and a full flat scoop of safe and sound with about 4/5 carrots in it :) seems to doing OK at the moment :)
 
Lucy is loving her food at the minute, she gets about half scoop of youngstock mix, quarter to half a scoop of beet pulp and a heaped scoop of chaff (on the advice of the lady i share the field with) aswell as 2-3 haynets as the grass is just non-existant
 
Mine are only having a feed in the eve with a Haynet. They live out 24/7, don't have much average and grass is short. They don't seem particularly over hungry though and are not losing weight.

Feed wise they don't have much either, scoop chaff, scoop nuts and scoop mix. I'm very thankful to have proper good doers!
 
We've had two batches of snow since last weekend, its only about an inch thick on the ground and now its getting a bit milder, the grass is apparent in sections where it hadn't turned to ice. We only got our first bale of hay a week past Saturday, just in time we thought.....although Flipo is still reluctant to eat it and wandered off last night to munch the grass. I didn't have to put any more hay out last night as they hadn't touched the morning's rations.
I've now got him on a bit of unmolassed sugar beet and chaff mixed in with his balancer so as to make things more appealling - we went through a period there where he refused to eat it and although he doesn't need it weightwise, I need to get the biotin and turmeric into him for arthritis and hoof issues.
I refuse to worry about him, apart from the odd haiver. He's fat as a house and isn't fussed.
 
Grass because she has a 20 acre field full of it. Hay as yard puts out. Token handful of carrots and cc. Really that's just in case she needs any meds and i know she has appetite.
Horses picking at hay but gradually eating it.
 
No grass at all. Other field is like a big but has lots of grass but I will not ruin the field for the summer and Gingers mid fever is bow under control so I don't want to make it worse as for feed.

Breakfast - nothing
Field - slab and half of hay between the two (if I put anymore out they leave it)
Evening - One stubbs scoop or alpha-a one small scoop of Baliey no4, carrots and linseed oil plus (old age, turmeric and bute for Chanter, Mud-x for Ginger)

1 slab of hay each (large bales)

They both always have hay left in the morning
 
Mine have no grass left now and have to be brought in at night now.

They get hay in the field on a morn and a haynet at night. Both get a speedibeet and Easy rider with Supplements, carrots and apple in an evening, nothing in the morn.
 
Mine have got enough grass to see them to the end of the week, potentially to the end of next week. So they aren't having hay at all at the moment which is a novelty for me, I'm usually fed up of haynets by now lol.

As for feed, again nothing really small scoop of nuts, double handful of their chaff linseed and a dollop of water. That's it once a day.

They aren't hungry at all, not waiting to come into the night field for tea they come down to the gate at dinner time easily but that's just because its the routine.

I've managed the grass really well this year, properly chuffed.
 
well we have just moved into a new field so have some grass to pick at so now fat pony is turning her nose up at her hay and opting for the grass lol, she is also getting half a scoop of chaff, half a scoop of sixteen + and half a scoop of sugar beet with her breathing and old lady supplements :happy: ... any more feed than that and she expands far too fast ...


and new girl when she arrives will be on a scoop of chaff a scoop of pony nuts and a scoop of alpha beet :happy: with haynet in stable when she i in and hay in field too :)
 
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