Best Feed For Young Horse

[hunterjumper98]

I bought a new gelding about two weeks ago. Currently, he is on 3 3/4 lbs of Nutrena SafeChoice Perform twice a day with one cup of ultra bloom in the morning. He also gets around 7 lbs of hay during the day and is out on pasture at night with access to good grass. He refuses to eat any more hay than that quantity. I am not sure how much I like the Nutrena feed. It seems like I am feeding a good bit, but he is not gaining weight. I really would like to decrease his grain intake because I feel that it is just adding to his bountiful energy supply with no impact on his weight. I am not a grain guru by any means as I am new to formulating a horse’s diet. I am thinking about making the switch to a new grain that I can feed less of, but I am at a loss as to what I should feed.

My question is: What do y’all feed your youngsters in training? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[dynamite0319]

How young is your youngster? I fed my warmblood mare Purina Ultium Growth until the middle of her 4yo year. I have fed her Purina Ultium pretty much since then and she’s 5 now. I gotta say, though, to put weight on my TB I had to feed a LOT of Ultium through the end of his 8yo year. Like twice what you are feeding now. He’s leveled off now that he’s finally settled into physical maturity. My warmblood filly has been much easier to keep weight on. She gets about 5lb of feed per day. My vet also advised adding Cool Calories to my TB’s meals to help gain weight without making him hot and I was really happy with the CC.

[Palm_Beach]

If he is out all night on good grass, he might just be too full to eat a lot of hay. Maybe feed less hay and replace it with a higher fat concentrate with beet pulp or something? Sometimes youngsters grow up then out. I don’t feed many young horses, but I don’t like fat 2-3 year olds.

[Emily_amp_Jake]

I have a 4 yr old who is a little on the thin side, not bad, she’s just a little too lean.
She gets 3lbs of soaked timothy pellets twice a day, plus 1.5lbs Nutrena SafeChoice Original, and she gets timothy/alfalfa from the barn, two decent sized flakes twice a day. I’m going to change her over to Purina Ultium once the Nutrena bag gets lower. It has a higher fat concentrate.

[JB]

SC Perform is 28% NSC, and therefore not anything I’d feed any horse, much less a young one. The high NSC level may be a major contributor to not gaining weight.

BUT, he may also be at an age where he will just need to be lean, or eat a LOT more calories to even be lean during his growing phase. How old is he?

If Nutrena is all you can get, I’d look to SC Special Care, or ProForce Sr (yes, for a young horse, it has higher nutrition) or the ProForce Fiber.

What else can you get? Ultium Growth would be better. Triple Crown Growth or Sr would be better.

[hunterjumper98]

I thought that I put more info about him, but I guess I forgot haha! My gelding is a 6 year old Hanoverian! He just turned six, but he still has the gangly teenager look. It looks like he will be a late bloomer as he is still as skinny as a board.

He came to me eating Nutrena SafeChoice, and it is definitely not my first choice of feed! I’ve never been at a barn where you have to supply your own feed before, so I am not very knowledgeable about nutrition yet!

I have access to Triple Crown and Seminole feeds around here in addition to Nutrena. I have almost a full bag of Ultra Bloom, so I’m not sure switching to Seminole feeds would be a good choice right now as most of them already have it in it. Would it really matter if I fed it in addition?

Should I be feeding alfalfa cubes as a supplement, or is that just overkill?

[JB]

Honestly, I would use Triple Crown Sr. It’s higher in fat that many feeds, has great quality ingredients, very good nutrition, and its formula and guaranteed analysis is very similar to the old Growth formula, so similar they were totally interchangeable from a needs perspective.

You could feed some Ultrabloom until that runs out, then see how he does on just the TC Sr.

[Libby2563]

I’m no expert but I second JB’s recommendation. My 4-year-old Hanoverian was doing great on Triple Crown 30% ration balancer alone for a couple years before he was started and during his first year of work. Now that he’s working a little harder and still growing, I’ve added some Triple Crown Senior and wow does he look great! Coat, weight, topline are all fabulous. I am loving that feed. I also feed it to my leased Grand Prix horse who was eating a large quantity of two different Purina feeds plus rice bran before he came to me. He’s maintaining the same energy and condition on a smaller amount of TC30 and TC Senior. The nutritional balance and NSCs are much better too.

[hunterjumper98]

I checked with my local feed store, and they sell Seminole feeds rather than Triple Crown. I think I am going to go with Dynasport because of the higher fat content.

If I switch feeds to Seminole Dynasport, how long should I take to switch it over? He is getting 3 3/4 lbs of Nutrena twice a day. If I want to feed only 2 3/4 lbs of Dynasport twice a day to start off with, how should I make the transition?

[JB]

You can swap at a 1lb rate. If you’re feeding twice a day already, then 1/2lb each feeding.

Repeat every 2-3 days until the amounts are where you want them.