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Feeding the growing endurance prospect



Title: Feeding the growing endurance prospect

Well, we found a growing four year old gelding for our next endurance horse.  we brought him home 3 weeks ago.  He is 14.3H, moderate build, red-bay.  Crawl into your pocket friendly.  Great conformation & very typey head.  Polish/CMK female line, CMK male line.

We haven't had a youngster in quite a while, so we are unsure what his nutritional requirements should be.  He came to us eating 2.5 measured quarts of a sweet feed twice daily - locally mixed in PA, unknown protein, vitamin, fat & mineral content plus what hay his old owners could find in the drought stricken East.  He was wormed every 6 weeks with alternating strongid and ivermectin.  He has a body score of about 4.5.

He's eating what seems like a LOT of food compared to our two mature horses who are WORKING.  They are getting 1 quart twice daily.  Razz is a pasture ornament who is getting used to a saddle, lounging, and general handling - no real work yet.  We are feeding Purina Athlete 12% Protein sweet feed to our guys.  (We have limited feedstores around here - Purina is the best quality we can find in a 60 mile radius.  Our Purina dealer will order any of Purina's line of equine feeds for us if we ask.)  We are feeding a moderate quality, slightly mature Timothy grass/Orchard grass hay (that's the best that we can purchase right now with the drought and it is our usual type of hay)  Razz TORE INTO a mineralized salt brick, leaving a regular salt brick alone.  We then added a bucket of water with enduralytes in his stall.  He'd drain it dry in preference to the regular water.  Only now is he slacking off on the lytes.

Can anyone offer some guidelines for nutrition in an adolescent (4 year old) horse?  Thanks!

Linda Flemmer
Bruceton Mills, West Virginia



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