gaining weight?

ok so i put this on the halter forum didnt get much help, so im trying it here.

so my yearling needs to gain some weight. if i up his feed he wont eat it.
this is what i feed him am/pm
4lbs of alfalfa pellets
4lbs of oats
strongid c (daily wormer)
dac colt grower
dac oil
rice bran

now im almost out of dac oil and i had someone tell me to get soy oil?

now i feed my horses my self, so i do not have a place to feed alfalfa. that is why i feed pellets.
if i try adding a scoup to his feed he just wont eat it. i dont know what to do.
he gets worked between 3-5 times a week depending on my schdule.

Back off on the rice bran. its a filler. If you can get him out more, that should help him be more hungry. Can you switch to alfalfa CUBES, rather than pellets? They to swell in the belly and make them less hungry. The Cube would not. Just a thought.

ok i can do that. now heres the thing ive never bought cubes before. how much should i feed him?

How about some good old fashioned corn?

what kinda corn? corn on the cob?
or corn oil

How about adding some beet pulp. My horses hated it at first now they just love the stuff.

You can buy cracked corn at almost any feed dealer

Cherie, about three weeks ago I started using WeightBuilder. I REALLY liked it and am giving it to all of my horses. What's nice is that it's not that expensive, especially for one horse and it has more benefits than just weight gain. You get the nice healthy skin and coat from it too. It got my colt's ribs covered up in just under a week.

I would follow Triple J's suggestion on switching to the cubes. Make sure he always has food in front of him, it's really too bad you have no way to feed hay... I'm all for adding roughage before concentrate.

Be careful with soy. It will put your protien way out of range. A little soy bean mill will help bring on muscle. But, it's 46% protien. I only use 1/4 cup once a day on the feed.

Corn can work. But, it's full of fat.. I would stay with the DAC oil. It has all the OMEGA's in it.

Most halter yearlings are eating 10 to 15lbs of oats a day. Many of them are at 15lbs. The cubes are better then the pellets. You should be feeding at least 10lbs of those a day on top of the grain..

Keep in mind that yearlings are growing fast and it's hard to keep up with them. A really good weight builder (if you have Alegra feeds avail in your area) is Cadence.. Has all the rice bran, beat pulp and other goodies that will put on weight and keep it on..

i tried that weight builder on Star and i didnt like it.

beet pulp he hated it he wouldnt eat it!! ugh
ive been uping his oats to 3lbs am and pm. ill start uping that also. now i am feeding whole oats. this is what im suppose to be feeding? im going to the feed store tomorrow so ill see if that have that Cadence.

should i just stay away from the soy oil? and just use the dac?
now i did call dac and they told me to up the dac oil to 2oz am/pm and get bloom. what do u think?

I feed the whole oats only. The Bloom would help and upping the DAC oil might. He should be getting 2oz oil a day. Try upping the oats, and adding the bloom. I just put my yearling back on bloom and he is gaining a lot of weight. I am not fitting so do not feed him as much as you need to..

Remember that up up up thing these kids do is hard to keep up with..

lol this is the first time ive fitted up a horse like this.

ill buy bloom next weekend. im kinda broke until then LOL.

I started feeding rice bran several years ago to a thin horse we got in. Then I discovered rice bran oil. It adds fat but isn't as filling.

have you tried some probiotics it helps to get the hind gut working more efficiently then you get max benefit of the hay and fiber you are feeding.

I started on the hay cubes this morning and i hate them.
my horses hate them they looked at me like what the hell is this. i had to water them down.
im ordering some DAC bloom and more oil.

My horses took a while to get used to eating the cubes. Then they decided they liked them. I've got some who seem to think I'm trying to poison them when I feed pellets. It just takes a while to get used to the change in feed.

REINING CHICK wrote:

I started on the hay cubes this morning and i hate them.
my horses hate them they looked at me like what the hell is this. i had to water them down.
im ordering some DAC bloom and more oil.

It better if you let them soak for a while. Just be careful with all the additives. I use a balanced feed and you can see my yearling, under showing. and She was just running out in the pasture getting grained twice a day.

Im like TJ not a huge fan of adding a bunch of different additatives I think it is really easy to send things out of wack. I believe that the people who create feeds are the nutritionist and true specialists not me. I like a ration balancer then add your hay and oats maybe fat if needed. Simple and well balanced and created by somone who has studied the nutritional components. If you adding a bunch of different stuff just be really careful by the time you see something in the bones and joints it is usually pretty serious damage.

It really depends on what you start with before you add things. If you are feeding a grain that claims it has it all it can get you in trouble. If you are feeding a grain that is just that and add you likely will not have problems..

I mix my own for one reason. There is no grain that has what I want and the amount I want in it. If you believe what the so called professionals tell you then so be it.. I don't simply because they are not doing what I do and they are selling a feed that normally cost much more then mixing your own.. There is never enough of what I want going in. Some have it all. Just not enough to do anything for the horse. I am a label reader and get the best I can buy for the money.

If you follow the feed directions on a bag of feed you can also get in trouble. Like when the bag tells you to feed 1.5lb per hundred pounds of horse.. Do the math. If it make sense then do it..

I only add vitamins/minerals, probitotics, MSM and daily wormer. The DAC oil has the Omega 3 & 6 fats in it that even humanes need.. I also weigh and measure everything I put in. I do not guess.. I do not feed grain that is sweet. And, do not purchase expensive products that claim they will do this and that.

The forage you put in the horse will make a difference in what you want to add to the feed.. You have to bal calc/phos and protien. People forget that if they are too high in protien you will have just as many leg problems as the imbalance of calc/phos will give you. They all work together..

When you are halter fitting it's a whole different ball game.. And, you will feed differently then someone who is just maintaining or feeding a working horse.. If you have some thing that works for you then keep it going. If you don't then try some thing different.. I have many times..

very well said bluejay. thats what ive been so conserned about.

REally boils down to what you are doing with the horse. Halter fitting is done very different from all the other things we do.. I know some think it's easy. But, it isn't and does take a lot of work and thought. What works today may not work next week..

I know it took me a long time to find something that worked for the halter fitting and fit with the others on maintenance. When you have a lot of horses to feed you really have to find some thing that works for every one. Then do things just a little different with the halter fitting.. I know I sure do.. I hate having 3 different types of hay around. I sure don't want to add grain to all that..

I like the whole oats because the horses love them, less expensive, everyone gets them, and they are high in calories and low in protien. I can add the protien with soy bean meal to those I think need it. You can soak them if you see a lot of it coming out in the poo.. I don't have to do that. But, I have friends that do. And best of all, they do not turn your horses teeth brown..

WOW Oats are higher here then my formulated feed. Oats can sour, during hot weather if being soaked, becareful there.

we can get oats at the co-op for about 7.00 a bag but they are sooo blahhh, dusty etc.. the nice clean race horse oats I like to feed are really pricy.

My vet told me not to feed whole oats because they can be like little harpoons...especially if a horse has chewing problems.

the oats i get are in an 85 lb bag for 20 bucks and they are nice! lol

When I did feed them, it was cracked. cleaned oats. Cha Ching