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Re: [RC] feeding young horses - Rae CallawayTimely question/response. See, I knew this, but just recently a friend brought one of her foals to a show. This filly was 10 months old, very well filled out, sleek and tall. I thought she was a short 2-3 year old, so was surprised that she was born the same month as one of my colts. The difference? Other than genetics, (the filly's mare is short and stocky and her foals do grow up fast, but not big; whereas my mares are tall and their foals grow awkward, but big -- same sire for both), my friend fed the filly 3-4 lbs 16% sweet feed twice a day with one flake of coastal hay. My colts get 2 1/2 lbs of 10% pellets with about 3-4 flakes of coastal hay a day. My boys
may be a bit weedy looking, but I think they're going to grow up fine and last a good long time! :o)
Rae
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From: "Susan E. Garlinghouse, DVM" <suendavid@xxxxxxx> To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Tuesday, April 8, 2008 2:40:19 PM Subject: [RC] feeding young horses I agree with Ed’s comments, that overfeeding and early riding causes a lot more joint and lameness problems than almost anything else in young horses. A halter breeder once told me that there’s no trick to feeding young horses---you just “bury them in straight alfalfa until their knees buckle, then back off 10%”. He had very successful quarter halter horses, but not one of them was sound or even rideable.
You don’t mention what type of hay she’s getting at the barn and during the winter. If it’s a nice mixed, high quality grass, great. If it’s straight alfalfa (or more than about 25% alfalfa), it’s too rich. A yearling doesn’t need much additional protein, but if the grass hay tests out less than around 16%, you could add a very small amount of a broodmare/foal pellet or some other balanced soybean meal-based protein supplement. Do NOT overdo the protein!!! No horse on earth needs more than 5 lbs of alfalfa a day regardless, and most need less than that. Most good quality grass hays will supply adequate amounts of protein, but just a pound of a protein supplement won’t go amiss if there’s no alfalfa at all in the hay. A large number of the growth commercial formulas are labeled to feed a pretty large amount on a daily basis, sometimes exclusively. IMO, you can’t develop a great fermentative vat hindgut on anything other than by lots and lots of real (quality) forage or pasture. I wouldn’t recommend Ultium for a young horse---I’d probably go with TizWhiz, or Omolene (it’s either 200 or 300 that’s for broodmares and babies) or something similar like that. There are plenty of great lines out there. If you have Triple Crown in your area, they have good formulations.
Of course, here’s the management disclaimer that you don’t know exactly what’s in the ration unless you get your hay analyzed. Skip the hair analysis gimmicks, they’re a total waste of money unless you suspect heavy metal poisoning.
Regarding young horses growing to a shorter mature height on less-rich rations---actually, unless so undernourished that they are stunted, horses will grow to the height they are genetically programmed to grow. On a high-octane diet, they get there faster, but often with lesser quality bone quality. So, diet affects the quality and speed of growth, but not so much the quantity of mature growth. On a proper ration, they will still grow every bit as tall---it just might take longer to get there. But, since endurance people (or at least the smart ones) don’t put their horses to serious work until much later in life, that’s perfectly okay, even very desirable. Slower bone growth generally means the matrix has adequate time to lay down quality bone and that’s GOOD. Very rapid bone growth generally means lesser quality, plus in a young, growing horse, also means a higher likelihood of developmental orthopedic disease.
JMO. Susan Garlinghouse, DVM
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