weighing feed

[chevycouple]

Do you weigh your horses feed? Including hay? If so how much do/would you feed a yearling?

 

[chandab]

I weigh all my concentrate portion of the horse's diet. I have a digital scale (bought on eBay for my internet business for weighing for shipping, it works great for weighing feed); I picked a scoop to use to measure out feed (mine is a store bought frosting container); then used it to weigh out different amounts of the feeds I'm using. So my scoop is marked with 4oz line, 8 oz line and then full is 12 oz for my feed (I feed Progressive grass balancer). When I'm using different feeds, I have a separate scoop for each feed, so that I can mark on the container lines for, at least, 4 oz and 8 oz of the particular feed.

I probably should weigh my hay, but I like to give them pretty much free choice, so don't actually weigh it.

My two yearling fillies, both to mature B size are getting the following daily:

1. Progressive Nutrition ProAdvantage grass formula - 1.25#

2. 1/2 cup whole oats (3 oz) - more of a treat than actual addition to their nutrional needs (they were free)

3. 1/4 cup BOSS (1 oz)

4. grass hay pellets - 1#

5. mix forage pellets - 1/2# (just trying these out - before adding this, they were getting 1.5# of the grass pellet)

6. grass hay - 2-3 flakes (about 4-5 pounds)

[Their total daily intake is divided into two meals. The majority of their diet is the Progressive ration balancer and grass hay. I bought the grass hay pellets at a time when I could not get good baled hay.]

Edited to add: How much you feed will depend on what you feed and the manufacturer's recommendations for that feed. Also, my horses have white salt and clean water available all the time.

 

[Black Magic]

We tried various types of feed over the years and came back to Buckeye. The bag price scares most people at $22.00s a bag. However, as we only have to feed about 1/2 cup per mini... it turns out really inexpensive. We make a mix of 1 part Grow N Win 2 parts Oats .5 parts Ultimate Finish plus free choice hay. Oats here are $8.00s for 50 lbs and Ultimate FInish is about $35.00s for 50 lbs. The Grow and Ni and Oats are $38.00s for 150 lbs. or about $12. something per 50 lbs. Omaleen is going for $11.40 for 50 pounds at our local Purina store. Now divide the $12. by half, because it you use less then half of what you would of sweet feed or the Omaleen, and it's almost half of money you'd spend on other feeds. So it's worth the extra change up front IMHO. Make sure you get the cup to measure with... The only problem I've seen, is that it's very very easy to over feed Buckeye to minis.

We purchased a mare, who was getting 13 ounces a feeding of Omaleen plus beet pulp inbetween. I cut her to one half pound of our mix of Buckeye products per feeding and she was still putting on weight. I have her down to 3/4s of Buckeye's measuring cup per feeding and she's maintaining her weight at this point. I'm gonna back down to about five ounces to bring her weight back to under 300 lbs. She's less then 31 inches. Our 26 in stallion gets a a half of Buckeye's measuring cup per feeding, or about a half pound of feed per day. Our 36 inch stallion gets a bit over 3/4's a Buckeye measuring cup or about 3/4s a pound of feed per day. and he's 377 lbs!

Only one who gets a scoop of anything around here is the QH. Everyone else is on ounces and fractions of a cup. Her scoop is a 2 1/2 lbs of Buckeye per feeding and she's maintaining 1100 lbs. If you feed Buckeye, you need their free measuring cup to go with the feed.

Hope this makes sense now???

I feed free choice Coastal, and give a half a flake of T&A.

God Bless,

Lynn W

 

[minimule]

I weigh all my feed including the hay. I have a digital postal scale I bought at Sam's club that weighs up to 10# for pelleted feed and a larger scale that goes up to 400# for the hay....a little overkill but oh well!

I have 2 yearlings here, a filly and a mini mule.

The yearing filly gets 2 cups of Nutrena Safe Choice 2x a day. Weighed out it is about 12 oz each feeding. She gets .7# of alfalfa and .6# of timothy grass 2x a day. She is in good condition.

The little mule gets 2 cups of the Nutrena Safe Choice 2x a day and only gets .5# of each alfalfa/grass 2x a day. Mules don't require as much feed as a horse and if she gets too much, she builds a belly fast.

 

[chevycouple]

thanks to both of you...especially mini mule since we feed the same feed.