Weight gain and safe feeding for performance horses

[Carrie94]

Need some personalized advice on what to feed horses for weight gain. My three horses are all a little underweight this year. I’m not completely ruling out ulcers and the like but my guess is the hay (although it seems high quality) doesn’t provide them enough calories - hopefully that will be resolved shortly.

Horses
Horse 1 - QH, maintenance only (little to no exercise), 4 year old, still growing, ribby and poor topline (BCS of 4)

Horse 2 - cow bred QH, ridden daily (moderate-heavy), 7 year old, only slightly ribby and topline could be improved (BCS of 4.5), up until a few days ago was on Buckeye’s Gro N Win (which did a little for his topline but not much)

Horse 3 - reining bred QH, ridden daily (moderate), 3 year old, ribby, good topline (BSC of 4), previously on Buckeye’s Gro N Win and Buckeye’s Ultimate Finish 40 (8oz daily, which did nothing for her weightwise)

Current situation
a) they have 24/7 access to both pasture and supplemented hay and can eat as much as they want - no grain

b) they’re UTD on de-worming and dental work

c) diet restrictions - I’m trying to limit iron and NSC as much as possible for all 3 horses (which is largely the reason I took them off the Buckeye feeds)

Questions

1. I’d like to add weight to all 3 before winter sets in and level of work decreases - not sure what to supplement their hay with

2. I’d like Horses 1 and 3 to GROW more (as in fill out) - I see top level performance prospect weanlings and yearlings always looking so filled out at a young age and these two are growing sooo slowly/poorly. This being said, yes, I realize horses grow at different rates and that growing slowly is better than too quickly - but, these two SHOULD be looking more mature than they are - I want healthy horses.

TIA.

PS: Keep in mind, I’m in Canada and I live in a secluded area so have very limited access to most common manufactured feeds.

[CHoff]

If you have access to ultium, it is the most calorie dense feed on the market I believe (something like 1,900 cal/lb). High fat, good amount of protein, and gets weight on FAST, having to feed a MUCH smaller amount than other grains. It is generally very well liked by most people, and has a lot of research behind it.

[Palm_Beach]

If you are worried about NSC, why are they on free choice pasture?

Maybe list a few of the brands you have access to.

[JB]

Worry less about the iron and focus more on getting the copper and zinc up. It just makes life so much easier. Unless you have a really metabolic horse who’s eating forage that’s really much too high in iron and therefore really must get all supplemental iron out of the diet, it really is not the big deal that many are making it.

It sounds like they all simply need more calories than a ration balancer.

Since Buckeye is easily available, choose one of the Safe N Easy formulas. The Performance is the higher fat one, so that’s probably where I’d start.

[Briggsie]

I second Ultium, and a top dress of TC Ration balancer. Without fail, I have fed Beet pulp lunch too. I feed Orchard grass/Tim mix and for my dressage horse, who I am riding at I-1, and ride at least 4 days a week, he and my goats (who are his pasture buds) get nice alfalfa.

For perspective, I took in a rescued donkey in 2016. She literally had no neck. just a spine covered in skin. slowly fed her the same diet as above, and now she’s a tank.

I swear the ration balancer really does the trick to fill in the gaps.