Ask The Equine Nutritionist

Chip is 17hh 6yr ID x TB that I rescued. He was a Welfare case and has been very neglected. I am trying to put some weight back on him and to make sure that his nutrition is correct.
He will not be in work for the next 2 weeks because of a splint then we will be doing gentle work. He has a condition score of about 3 but without any muscles.
At the moment he is having:
3 feeds a day of
1kg Alf a
1kg micronized barley
1kg meadow mix
The vet thinks that the barley is not suitable and may make him rather fizzy and want to change it to
2kg Alf a
1 1/2 kg conditioning nuts
1 coffee cup of corn oil
8kg hay while he is in at night to get rid of mud fever.
His behaviour is not too bad but he is rather fidgety.
Someone has also said that with the Barley it may suddenly go to his head and make him uncontrolable; this does worry me as 17hh is a large horse to control at the best of times especially when he has no idea where his feet are, lol.

I need to know if this is acceptable, or if there is something else I should be giving him in addition to, or instead of? He's very quickly become quite special to me, and I want him to feel better as quickly as possible!

Congrats on rescuing Chip and working to get him back to health. Some of the feeds you are using are not familiar to me and I am not sure of their nutritional value (as in energy content, crude protein etc) so I will have to guess. Also you don't say what his body weight is. In general for a resting horse you need to supply 1.5Mcal/100lbs bodyweight. To gain weight he needs a bit over that say 1.75Mcal/100lbs. So if you weigh him you will know how many Mcal he needs per day. Then you can calculate his ration from that. A weight tape that you can get from your tack store or feed supplier can tell you closely enough how much he weighs.

Barley, esp micronized barley is a good source of calories, and so is okay for the horse especially as you are only feeding 1kg(2.2lbs) per day.
I would add some fat to that diet either as suggested in the form of corn oil or in the form of whole flax seed (linseed), don't cook it or grind it just add in 4 oz whole, or as rice bran 1-2 lbs per day. Additional fat will give him the calories without making him as lively as starch calories would.

I also would use some sugar beet pulp in place of the alfalfa, alfalfa is more likely to make him lively than the barley is. He needs calories but in the form of fiber and fat rather than starch. So add in some sugar beet pulp (which is an excellent source of fiber) and some fat (corn oil or flax seed or rice bran) and stay away from any more cereal grains or alfalfa. The same dry weight of sugar beet pulp will help replace the alfalfa calories and he will be less likely to get hot on that.
Make sure that you use one good quality mineral/vitamin mix, pick any good one and use that.

And give him as much good grass hay as he will eat.

His behavior will depend a lot on how he was handled before and as he gains in strength he may try to revert to old less socially acceptable ways, you may need to do some retraining for that.

Dr. Melyni Worth Ph.D. - 2004 (c)

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