My vet recommended this for my mare, an airfern, who is FAT with a 3 month old filly by her side. It is a 24% protein ration balancer formulated for the NW. It says to feed no more than 1# per day. So I’ve been giving her roughly 1 small coffee can (2Xdaily) of the senior feed she had been on previously, and top dressing it with this LMF. But what about the baby? When do you guys start offering foals their own bucket; and how much do you typically allow them to have? I am hyper OCD aware so worried about letting her have too much. Right now I’m giving baby about a one cup measure of the LMF 2Xdaily.
For the mare, either give her all the LMF and no Sr, or, since that’s probably still too much for her, especially with the soy, give her a v/m supplement and add Tri-Amino from Uckele. At 3 months the milk quality isn’t a big deal anymore, so the mare’s high nutrition isn’t a concern.
Baby, at 3 months, can’t digest things well, not even hay, so at the VERY most she should be getting a foal-appropriate feed which is milk-based. Progressive makes a very good one - Foal’s First Starter and Creep. I don’t know if LMF has something equivalent.
I used the FF from 4-6 months, at which point their digestive system can handle most types of adult food, and switched then to the regular ration balancer.
Just to clarify, you are using the SS Grass formula (24% protein) - these are ration balanced for grass or alfalfa diets. So if you are feeding a high percentage of alfalfa, you might switch to the SS Alfalfa formula.
If your mare is an airfern, and your foal is holding weight well, why use a Senior Formula? That is generally higher fat.
My foals start “sharing” Mom’s feed at around 6 weeks, but really just tasting. By 3 to 4 months, they are more serious about it, and I start putting out separate dishes and separate hay piles. LMF does make a “Development” formula for foals and young horses.
[QUOTE=springer;6443763]
It says to feed no more than 1# per day. So I’ve been giving her roughly 1 small coffee can (2Xdaily) of the senior feed she had been on previously, and top dressing it with this LMF…[/QUOTE]
One pound of LMF is all you are supposed to feed. Have you weighed the feed? It kinda sounds like you are feeding more than one pound? Coffee cans are not accurate ways to determine feed weight.
How much Senior is the mare getting? If the mare is obese, why are you feeding Senior? Giving her extra concentrates/feed only compounds her obesity problem. LMF Super Supplement is an all inclusive supplement, providing all the vitamin/minerals/nutrients your horse needs, so she doesn’t need Senior, and definitely doesn’t need the extra calories since you say she is fat.
As for the foal, you don’t want her to be fat or receiving too much nutrients. The mare’s milk is very fortified. 2 cups of LMF sounds like way too much for a baby. Have you weighed what you are giving her? Giving too much or having a fat foal can lead to developmental issues, such as OCD.
Echoing the others. LMF Super Supplement is an all inclusive supplement, and you are supposed to feed no more than one pound per day (which I find is about 4 cups). Do not feed any other fortified grains (like sr. feed) with Super Supplement. If your horse is obese, there is no reason to be giving the Sr. feed. I would be feeding grass hay, and one pound of SS a day. That is how it is designed to be fed.
As for the foal, I started mine on Super Supplement at 4 months old (in addition to milk pellets) – but the situation was VERY different. My filly was basically a rescue, very thin, and her dam was an aged TB mare, that had been reduced to a rack of bones. The young filly NEEDED the extra protein / vitamins / minerals because her dam was too weak to provide it. She was given SS, and all the hay she wanted.
Sounds like your mare should be able to provide more than enough nutrition for the foal. I wouldn’t be giving it any supplements, just make hay available.
when i weighed my LMF SS for grass in a 1 lb coffee can it held 1.5 lbs of SS filled to the top and 1 lb of SS was 2/3 of the can…
personally i would drop the senior and just feed 3/4 can of SS ONCE a day if that is what vet recommended…
[QUOTE=Appsolute;6444022]
Echoing the others. LMF Super Supplement is an all inclusive supplement, and you are supposed to feed no more than one pound per day (which I find is about 4 cups). [/QUOTE]
When I’ve weighed LMF SS it’s actually more like 2 measuring cups equals 1 lb.
Thats odd… I have weighed it as well – a little food scale. Maybe it was off.
So we have:
Close to 4 cups (not heaping, leveled)
2 cups
¾ of a one pound coffee can
I guess I will weigh mine again. I KNOW my dry dog food is ¼ pound per cup, and SS seems to have the same desity – ½ pound per cup would mean SS has the same weight as water – but maybe it is that dense!
I’ve found 1 c is about 1/2 lb …
Had a recent kitchen remodel and now I can’t find the kitchen scale 
I have been feeding according to what my vet says and that is that 4 cups is approximately
1 and 1/4 lbs! Just to further confuse ! This is LMF SS G.
Don’t listen to vets! LOLOL 
You really need to weigh it. I can tell you that the 2 RBs I have personally used, so have personally weighed - TC30 and Progressive Grass Advantage - have been 3c/lb. Pretty well right on the nose.
According to your vet, 4c=1.25lb also puts it at 3c/lb. However, we now have someone who has weighed it at 2c/lb.
With some feedstuffs it’s not important to actually weigh in most cases - usually the forage.
However, when it comes to something like a fortified feed, and probably especially a ration balancer, you DO need to weigh what you have to figure it out. If you’re only supposed to feed 1lb, you’re wasting $$ by feeding 1.25lb. If you’re supposed to feed 5lb of a fortified feed and you’re only feeding 2lb, you should switch to something else.
Actually have weighed it several times over the nearly 10 plus years of use. Will weigh again when I come across that darn scale! 1.25 lb is okay for horses that are well above 1000lbs which 3 of 4 of mine are. Hear you though, the stuff is super expensive these days. I remember not too terrible long ago is was closer to $15.00/bag instead of $31.49 just the other day. Will definitely be double checking!!!
You’re right, the really heavy guys could use 1.25lb
But yeah the point is - no sense feeding even 1/4lb more than you need to be
I struggled to get the weight off my easy keeping ponies (1000lb ponies–so not little ponies) using LMF super g even at the one lb dose. I switched to TDI 10 which is fed at 2lb a day and have had no problems keeping the ponies a manageable size. Super G is great stuff–but not for everyone.
Some horses can easily get “fat” on the amount of soy in a ration balancer.
[QUOTE=Appsolute;6446095]
Thats odd… I have weighed it as well – a little food scale. Maybe it was off.
So we have:
Close to 4 cups (not heaping, leveled)
2 cups
¾ of a one pound coffee can
I guess I will weigh mine again. I KNOW my dry dog food is ¼ pound per cup, and SS seems to have the same desity – ½ pound per cup would mean SS has the same weight as water – but maybe it is that dense![/QUOTE]
fwiw, i said between 2/3 and 3/4 - but i was wrong… 1 pound would be 2/3 or .67 percent of a 1 pound can.
so i think that agrees pretty much with 1 cup = .5 pounds.
[QUOTE=mbm;6447907]
fwiw, i said between 2/3 and 3/4 - but i was wrong… 1 pound would be 2/3 or .67 percent of a 1 pound can.
so i think that agrees pretty much with 1 cup = .5 pounds.
:)[/QUOTE]
Yes, and I would also add that I’ve done this both with LMF SS (which I used to feed) and TDI-10 (which I currently feed) and on several different scales, fwiw.
Buy a scale or borrow one! Cups and coffee cans are measures of VOLUME, not of WEIGHT. And depending on how hard you pack into that cup or coffee can, it affects the weight.
I think it is about 3 cups loosely scooped (not packed down). I found a small scoop in the feed store (it was actually for dog food, but was in the horse feed section) that turns out to hold almost exactly 1 pound of LMF - I used a cooking scale, weighed the scoop first, then figured out how full the scoop has to be for one pound of LMF SS. And that is now my SS scoop!
how would you pack down pellets?
in any case - i agree weighing os what you need to do… which is how i know how much to fill a can to make one lb of LMF… i weighed it numerous times, then i used a sharpy to mark my cans for the appropriate horses.
