I want to give my mare some extra calories because she is in moderate training. Im gping to give her a ration balancer because she is an easy keeper but I went to tsc and saw standlee alfalfa pellets/cubes and a bunch of extra stuff. I was thinking of alfalfa/oat cubes but I was also thinking orchard grass or alfalfa pellets. I have never used these thing just normally sweet feed but I hear that makes them more hot and I don’t want that. What have you used and worked? I only want to do maybe a lb of the pellets or cubes a day but I don’t know which one is better and if I should use alfalfa or a different grass.
Neither is “better” than the other, objectively. The choice of which to buy depends on your horse’s teeth, your storage capacity (cubes are much bulkier than pellets), and your horse’s preference. Some don’t like pellets but will eat cubes and vice versa. If you are wanting to just add calories, alfalfa gives you more digestible energy per lb than a mixed or grass hay cube/pellet, generally.
At one pound per day, though, you’re really providing more of a treat than any substantial calories or nutrition, so it really doesn’t matter what you give the horse (other than a ration balancer, of course).
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Both pellets and cubes are forage. Buy them like forage, treat them like forage. Giving a pound of pure timothy pellets is the same as giving a pound of pure timothy hay.
If you can weigh your mare and compute how much hay she needs to hold weight, you can divide that into X pounds of hay plus Y pounds of pellets/ration balancer and there you go. Keep in mind that alfalfa is higher in energy than grass, and adjust accordingly . Many horses I know do just fine on an all-forage diet. The only ones who really need a high-energy feed are the ones in hard work.
If your mare does not get hot on alfalfa hay, she won’t get hot on alfalfa pellets or cubes.
