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Free choice hay 2x/day. Sweet Feed evening only.
Sweet Cup&Cakes (1,450 lbs, maybe more this winter!)gets 3 flakes of hay/morning, 4 flakes of hay, evening and 3 lbs sweet feed.
Buster Brown (1,100 lbs) and Moon Eyes (1,150 lbs), 3 flakes of hay/2x/day and 2 lbs sweet feed.
In the winter I feed sweet feed only at night. In the winter it produces heat in the hind end gut, when radiational cooling makes it the coldest time of day.
When they have been turned out, they expect to find their stalls cleaned or stripped and rebedded, full water bucket and sweet feed in their feeder. This gets them looking for me, and I never have to retrieve a horse from the (3 acre) north pasture.
In the summer, I also feed sweet feed only at night. It's cooler at night when it's digested, and horses are quieter then, less likely to go running and playing before their grain is digested.
Also, they look for me to feed them sweet feed. Sometimes, If I'm working and busy, they get their grain in 3 rubber buckets on the other side of the fence. I sometimes move where I grain them and bang a metal coffee can to let them know where I am. Yes, there is some reshuffling and pushing around, but it's summer, there is plenty of grass and I own three easy keepers. I have owned hard keepers, and THEY will lose weight this way. Sometimes I have them line up at the gate and I tie them up to grain them, the way I used to handle my old herd 30 years ago. This is training and pays off when I want to ride.
You ALWAYS monitor your horse's intake and you get to know when the flake is light and the flake is heavy and you adjust, instead of deciding how many flakes to feed a particular horse and stick to that, like a robot.
Sweet Cup&Cakes (1,450 lbs, maybe more this winter!)gets 3 flakes of hay/morning, 4 flakes of hay, evening and 3 lbs sweet feed.
Buster Brown (1,100 lbs) and Moon Eyes (1,150 lbs), 3 flakes of hay/2x/day and 2 lbs sweet feed.
In the winter I feed sweet feed only at night. In the winter it produces heat in the hind end gut, when radiational cooling makes it the coldest time of day.
When they have been turned out, they expect to find their stalls cleaned or stripped and rebedded, full water bucket and sweet feed in their feeder. This gets them looking for me, and I never have to retrieve a horse from the (3 acre) north pasture.
In the summer, I also feed sweet feed only at night. It's cooler at night when it's digested, and horses are quieter then, less likely to go running and playing before their grain is digested.
Also, they look for me to feed them sweet feed. Sometimes, If I'm working and busy, they get their grain in 3 rubber buckets on the other side of the fence. I sometimes move where I grain them and bang a metal coffee can to let them know where I am. Yes, there is some reshuffling and pushing around, but it's summer, there is plenty of grass and I own three easy keepers. I have owned hard keepers, and THEY will lose weight this way. Sometimes I have them line up at the gate and I tie them up to grain them, the way I used to handle my old herd 30 years ago. This is training and pays off when I want to ride.
You ALWAYS monitor your horse's intake and you get to know when the flake is light and the flake is heavy and you adjust, instead of deciding how many flakes to feed a particular horse and stick to that, like a robot.