Rice Bran

Hi Everyone!
We feed our horses Tucker feed in the black bag. http://www.tuckermilling.com/equine.htm
I am taking care of a friends 20 year old 14.2 hand tennessee walking horse mare and she has lost some weight this winter. We just switched to this feed a few weeks ago from purina senior because my dressage trainer reccomended it. After reading alot on here we decided to add some rice bran and got some stabilized powder from the feed store today. How much should I be feeding her? Thanks! She also has free choice hay.

I'd feed 1-2 lbs a day. I ended up feeding mine 3-4 lbs a day and she gained weight fast(within a month and a half).We also fed her alfamo,alfafa cubes and grass hay. I would start off with 1 lb and see how she insides accept it first and then add more. Also depends on how much weight you think is needed.My horses needed 150 lbs to gain.

Thank you! I have a purina scoop that up to the line is 2lbs, do you think it will be about the same weight wise?

Your best bet would be to weigh it.

Rice bran is a good choice for a weight builder, good luck!

I will, thank you! Do you all continue to use it once the weight is on?

If you have to use it to maintain weight, then yes. If the horse can maintain the weight on only hay then that's what you need to feed the horse. Taper off feeding the rice bran very slowly and if the horse starts dropping weight at any point then up the rice bran again until you find the point where the horse maintains weight.

If you don't have a 1lb scoop I would get a scale. Sometimes you can get lb lb scoops...they are very convienent!

And if your horse can maintain weight without it then yes you would want to "wean" your horse off it. I did it for a short while..2 months max for me and now the vet said she is fat..seriously vets are never satisfied,lol. Now I just have her on rich clover hay and alfalfa pellets so she will eat her supplement.

Anyways I hope it works out. Some people are against rice bran but I totally am for it as my horse lost a lot of weight from poor quality hay at one time(didn't know it was bad hay as someone told me it was excellent hay..whatever). I learned my lesson.

I've been feeding my old gelding 4 cups, it I don't think my scale is very accurate, but it looks to be about 1.5lbs, I haven't really seen a difference in his weight, but it's hard to tell because his fur is like 2" long and I have only felt under his blanket since it's been so insanely cold lately I don't want to take it off

You should need feed more than 2 lbs a day of rice bran. Horses can only digest so much fat and more than 2 lbs is too much. Generally, 1 lb a day is enough for weight gain for most horses. You'll need to weigh it to figure out just how much that is. The last time I fed rice bran, 1 cup weighed about 1/2 lb, but different brands may weigh differently.

The scoops with weight lines on them ONLY work for the EXACT feed it was made for. That same amount of anything else is not necessarily going to weigh 1lb... I feed alfalfa pellets and whole oats. 1 qt of alfalfa pellets weighs about 1 lb and 1 qt of whole oats weighs only 0.5 lb.