Mare with foal

[debbiesshelties]

Hi all,

I have a mare with a two month old foal. She has never been heavy but I am not happy with her weight since foaling. She is not terribly thin but her top line looks way too bony to me. I have increased her feed and tried giving her Legends Mare and Foal but she does not like it. Her current feed has 11% protein (8-9 cups daily) with hay 3 x daily. Now she is getting a belly but still not gaining where I would like. HELP Please!

Thanks,

Debbie

P.S. She was dewormed within 12 hours of foaling and has been dewormed again since then.

 

[Jill]

I really like complete feeds and my mares are currently too fat (with foals on them). I feed a complete senior pellet and grass hay. One of the mares came to me with a suckling filly a couple years ago too thin w/ no weight over her back and used the pellets to get her right then, too.

 

[Minimor]

what kind of hay do you feed? If it's a grass hay I would switch her to an alfalfa mix, or add some soaked alfalfa cubes to her diet.

Can you try a different brand of mare/foal feed? I don't feed a lot of pelleted feeds, but do use them to supplement some horses. I have a couple mares that drop weight when they are nursing foals, even when they are on alfalfa mix hay, and so I add pellets to their grain. My horses are fussy about pelleted feeds & won't eat some brands too well. They like the frontrunner pellets the best; I usually buy the foal ration & just use that for the mares as well (16% protein). However, they also like the frontrunner mare/yearling ration (14% protein)--they'll eat the masterfeeds pellets, but prefer frontrunner and those are the only two brands I've bought in a long time.

11% just isn't high enough for a nursing mare IMO--and it sounds like your mare's condition is confirming that. I would try a different brand to see if she will eat it better. Your best bet might be Calf Manna--I don't think I've ever seen a horse refuse to eat Calf Manna, and it is an excellent supplement for nursing mares. We used to use it all the time, then it got impossible to buy here so we had to change to something else for our mares & foals. Now it's available again but so far I haven't gone back to buying it as we've had good luck with the frontrunner feed.

 

[Maxi'sMinis]

I use Dumor Mare & Foal, alfafa/timothy hay cubes, Blue Seal Hay Stretcher and good hay.

 

[Miniv]

We feed our nursing mares a Senior complete feed, like Jill does. It's 14 percent protein. They also have grass hay AND pasture.

 

[debbiesshelties]

Hi again,

I just got back from the feed store. I found some Legends Mare and foal that is 16% and textured instead of pelleted. I am hoping that she will like this better.

She is on Brome hay. Hay is still hard to get here in NC, we really need more rain.

Thanks for the replies, I will give an update soon.

Debbie

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

You have already gotten some good advice but I wanted to add my endorsement of alfalfa. I can't stress to people I talk to enough what a difference alfalfa can make in the body condition of a mini. If you can't get an alfalfa mix hay use cubes or pellets soaked as part of the ration and you will see a difference. Even my overweight horses have nice trim looking bellies since I started them on alfalfa and I convinced my BIL to try it and his horses look the best they've ever looked this year.