We have two yearling colts. They just got moved from their previous barn and are now at my mom’s house. They’re both a little thin, so we want to fatten them up. I’m having trouble finding Coastal hay, so my options are Timothy or Alfalfa. Which is best for our two young horses?
Better to keep them lean fat isn’t good. If you could get Timothy/alfalfa mix that would be good.
How thin is a little thin?
You can do permanent damage to the skeleton if a young horse gets too much nutrition and grows too fast. If n the other hand you don’t want them skinny and stunted.
Do you know the Henneke body weight system? If not look it up. A 4 or 4.5 out of 10 would be fine. You don’t want glossy show horse fat 6 out of 10 in a yearling anymore than you want an 11 year old child to be “husky.”
Can you post photos?
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I feed primarily Timothy and a little bit of Alfalfa to most of mine. I like it as I can control the amount of each easily that way. I don’t feed any grain, just this and vitamins and all of them do very well on this. Make sure you get a test to know what you are actually feeding and make your program up that way as it can vary so much in regards to proteins and sugars.
I will take photos if I go back out there tonight. If not, I’ll get some tomorrow. You can see their ribs a bit…they look kinda bony. They are also potbellied but we just gave them dewormer today. We’ve had one of the colts for a while now but just bought the other this past weekend…he’s in need of a feet trim, ASAP.
I’m a little disappointed in the care that they (particularly the colt that we owned and paid board and training fees for) were (not) receiving. I’m glad they’re at my mom’s house now so that we can get them in tip-top shape. Farrier and vet visits are in the cards in the next week or two.
I ended up buying a Timothy and Alfalfa mix. They’re on Producer’s Pride 12% horse pellets from Tractor Supply Company right now. That’s what they were fed at their last barn. Probably not the best feed. Any suggestions?
That’s 12 % nsc or protein? You might want to pop into the sport horse breeding thread too as they have lots of experience with babies.
I am not familiar with Producer’s Pride products, but online found two options: 12% sweet feed and 12% pellets. Both seem to have high levels of NSC, which I would avoid for young horses. I would look for a good ration balancer like Triple Crown 30%. This will provide additional protein as well as vitamins and minerals without all the extra sugar in the feed you are using now.
It would be best to have pictures. You want young horses closer to lean than overweight for proper development.
Maybe add something about feeding yearlings to your title to catch the folks with that experience? Btw yearlings can look awful in terms of proportion. It’s not always a pretty age (think 11 year old girls).
Buy both of those hays, but mostly Timothy, and use alfalfa sparingly, up to about 20% of the forage if the calories are needed.
Seeing a few ribs is perfect. That’s where the caloric intake should be, which is separate from nutritional intake.
Producer’s Pride is a low end, low quality feed. Triple Crown Sr would be fantastic IF they can handle the calories from the pounds required. If not (and most likely not), they TC 30 or any ration balancer is great. That would be fed at 2-4lb depending on the brand, and their expected mature weight.
If you can’t get TC, but they do need calories, you can either add alfalfa pellets (my preference, as you can increase/decrease those as their caloric needs change based on growth phases), or use Purina Ultium Growth. Those are my preferred options over anything else at TSC.
