I picked up 2 8-9 month old cross bred stud colts today. Both need a boost in nutrition. Just low body fat/substance to them. Dull coats. I was told they were wormed in January. They are pretty wild yet so need to gain a little confidence in them before worm again. Anyways. One will be a resale. They right now just are eating good mix hay feee choice. As for feed. Idk if I should do say triple crown ration balancer. Triple crown growth or say Vermont blend in unbeatable forage blend pellets. They will be on added vit e. Not my first young one to feed. Other one I fed triple crown balancer to then changed to Vermont blend but wondering if I should feed them more age appropriate feed?
If they need more calories, I would recommend the triple crown growth over the balancer. And feed to bag recommendations (by weight of grain) and then revaluate every two weeks and increase from there. I only use balancer for the easy keeping foals.
Get a FEC done to see what’s what and deworm accordingly
If they were eating crap for food, not enough hay, then start with all the good quality hay they’ll eat, and a ration balancer
If they’re not in good condition in a month, then either add a few pounds of alfalfa pellets, or switch to TC Sr and see how that goes. I prefer Sr over Growth due to lower NSC
Unless you test your hay, or feed enough alfalfa, nearly any forage balancer is not a good idea for horses under 2 - not enough protein or any protein and amino acids, and not enough Ca or P which is often low (Ca) and/or unbalanced in grasses
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Yes I don’t test hay right now bc it’s one round at a time until we cut in June which I will test then. They were one grass hay by looks of pictures but sharing with cattle another horse and it wasn’t protected by a feeder. I can say they were not feed proper amounts of the feed. Worming I will handle that. They were wormed in January but they were snubbed to a horse snd they just stuck it in when they were froze pulling back. They are not handled enough yet to be able to worm right now and I’m not going to hold them down! They wi come around soon to get that situated. Right now yes they are just on good grass alfalfa hay. I have not added anything yet. I have unbeatable forage blend pellets and triple crown 30 here from previous horse. I would prefer to try the balance route first bc I don’t necessarily like idea of growth feed with them being cross bred (draft blood) but maybe won’t be an issue. I plan to pull mane hair as soon as I can do they and not traumatize them to panel test them incase they have one of the dominant diseases.
you can still get a FEC done to see what you’re facing for deworming.
The balancer is a good start, given the change/improvement in hay
