I have been looking for something to give my 3yr old mare the nutrients she is lacking from her grass and I found ration balancer. She is an easy keeper a little on the leaner side but I was wondering if anybody uses it and if it was a good choice or not
Ration balancers are for when you want to feed them all the minerals and vitamins they need, but no extra calories. You say she’s both “an easy keeper” and a bit on the “leaner side,” so I’m a bit confused as to whether she needs extra calories or not. Do you want her to put on weight? If so, a ration balancer is probably not the right thing for her. If you want her to not put on weight, then it should be fine.
Generally, younger, growing horses would probably benefit from more calories than a ration balancer would provide.
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She doesn’t really need to put on weight she is good healthy sized horse not fat. I just think her forage isn’t great and I want to make sure she is getting all the nutrients she needs since she is young. I want her to develop muscle tone and get all the necessary nutrients and I thought the ration balancer would work.
Yeah then it sounds like a ration balancer would be appropriate for her.
Should i add anything else or is the balancer good enough? She is only on light work I’m just training her but it’s not hard just pleasure riding.
The balancer by itself should be enough if she doesn’t need to gain weight. They are meant for exactly what you want, adding vitamins and minerals that they aren’t getting from grass or hay alone, and are meant to be fed in small quantities.
I feed a ration balancer ( triple crown 30% ) and then I also use alfalfa cubes that are soaked and triple crown senior for some extra calories. I don’t like to feed the whole amount of senior that it calls for ( too much grain) so I give my gelding that is not an easy keeper about a pound or little less of the senior with the balancer and he looks good. My easy keeper gets the same except less senior - more for the taste than anything.
Yea I went to tsc and they have alfalfa oat cubes that I was going to add like 1lb to the ration balancer since a he is only 800 or so lbs and I thought that would be good enough since she is working a little but anyways
Do you have a feed dealer? I bought alfalfa cubes from TSC a couple of times when I ran out on a Sunday. But the last bag smelled like kerosene and my horse wouldn’t eat it. I’m not a big fan of TSC for anything except Ariat boots and Troxel helmets. Their store brands of most else (equipment, feed, etc) are, IME, crap.
ETA: I feed a ration balancer all year - I use Seminole Equalizer. In the summer, they just get the ration balancer (they’re turned out to graze 24/7). In winter, I supplement with Seminole Perform Safe and coastal bermuda hay. I’d be a little worried about alfalfa making her hot, but I’ve never fed it to a horse I was still riding so don’t have any first-hand experience.
Found out I can’t use the ration balancer because tsc can’t ship it to my store so I went with original nutrena safechoice and some vegetable oil instead since I’m working her more frequently. Thoughts?
