Nutritional Needs

With Kitty being an almost-frustratingly easy keeper and not yet in a hard enough training/working schedual to afford any extra feed, I wonder how I would go about feeding her any missing nutrients. Right now, she's on a lower-quality round bale and that fact, I can't change unless I switch barns. Now there isn't any indication so far that she is missing anything but this is just something I was wondering about. So the simple question is:

How do you supply an easy-keeper with a missing nutrient(s) (i.e. Calcium) when changing the type of hay being given is not an option?

I use a ration balancer like Kent's Topline32 or Buckeye's Gro N Win or Purina's Enrich32

It's basically a flintstone vitamin on steriods

You can be guaranteed that if she is eating a low quality hay with no green grass available, she is missing something. Are the horses offered some type of loose mineral/vitamin blend (not the trace mineral block)? The hay should be low in Ca and Vit A just for starters. Another thought, is what you are calling an easy keeper actually a horse that is eating a huge amount of high fiber hay looking for those missing nutrients? The high fiber will be slow to digest and give them a bloated gut. I'm not saying a lower quality RB hay doesn't have a place in the diet as it does provide chew time and improve digestive health by having something in the gut at all times but you have to balance it out. As far a loose mineral, look for something with 2X the Ca:P and 100,000 IU Vit A/# or higher. I use MoorMan's, mix it 50:50 with loose white salt and just leave it a bucket on the fence. If that's not in the cards, they also make a pelletized product (I think it's called mintrate?) that you feed like grain. 3-4 times a week is better than nothing.

Thanks. That's what I thought. I'm not 100% sure if they are, I'll ask the BM. If not, I will request that one be put in, I'd even be willing to go and buy one. If not, I think I may consider moving. We've had other nutritional disagreements in the past.

I will have to look into it. At this very moment, I won't be able to afford it but, in the next couple of days I should be receiving my paycheck so I could get some then.