My new horse came to me on a diet of 4 lbs of oats and a VMS that’s 13.5-16% Ca & 3% P at 0.5 lbs per day. She’s on free choice grass hay, but I don’t have a weight on that.
She was in full training, so I imagine I’ll have to lower her oat ration to keep her weight (950 lb) in check. I plan to ride ~5 days a week, but I doubt I push her as hard. By my math, at 4 lbs it’s 2.61:1 or 2 lbs is 3.39:1, so the Ca:P is fine.
Currently, she looks GREAT, so I’m hesitant to change anything, but I’m wondering if there’s any merit in moving to something like Unbeetable/Alfalfa/BP/etc as the carrier? Obviously they’re lower NSC and there’s not much of a price difference…
Thoughts?
ETA, that would put me closer to 5.44-5.79:1 ratio if I used Unbeetable forage, for example. At the high end of acceptable? I’d prefer to keep the VMS, considering I’m happy with her condition currently. The grass hay would bring that ratio back down too.