In partnership with SPILLERS™

Cutting calories is essential for weight loss but shouldn’t come at the expense of providing a balanced diet. While forage can easily meet or exceed calorie requirements for many good doers, forage only diets may be deficient in key nutrients including copper, zinc, selenium, lysine (an essential amino acid) and vitamin E.

Due to the concentrated nutrient supply and low daily feeding rate, balancers are the ideal way to provide good doers with the vitamins, minerals and amino acids needed to balance forage, while adding minimal calories, starch and sugar to the diet.

Balancers are also a great way of ‘topping up’ vitamin and mineral intake in those that maintain a healthy body condition on less than the recommended amount of compound feed – as a guide, feed half the recommended amount of balancer if feeding half the recommended amount of compound feed (or other feed containing added vitamins and minerals).

Did you know?

  •  A 250kg pony could consume enough calories to fuel a 500kg racehorse (equivalent to over half a bag of conditioning cubes) every day from spring grass alone!
  • The recommended amount of a pelleted feed balancer (typically 500g per day for a 500kg horse) is around 5-6 times lower in calories than the recommended amount of a low-calorie cube?
  • Some balancers, such as SPILLERS™ Ulca Balancer also bring the added reassurance of carrying the BETA® EGUS approval mark and/ or include ingredients to help support stomach health.

SPILLERS™ Ulca Balancer is a multi-vitamin and mineral balancer with added gastric and digestive support:

  • Includes apple pectin and lecithin to help support the stomach lining.
  • Contains a natural source of calcium and FOS to help maintain a healthy pH in the
    stomach.
  • Formulated with probiotic live yeast alongside prebiotic MOS & FOS to support
    digestive health.
  • It’s also whole cereal grain free and low in starch and sugar making it ideal for horses and ponies that maintain weight easily on forage alone.
  • For more information visit spillers-feeds.com/ulca-balancer

If you have an overweight horse or pony who is prone to gastric ulcers and would like to speak to a nutrition advisor, SPILLERS™ would love to help. You can call their Care-Line on 01908 226626, Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm or visit their website www.spillers-feeds.com for more information.

Have you heard about Your Horse’s #FitNotFat campaign? Equine obesity is an enormous welfare problem and we’re on a mission to provide owners and riders with the knowledge, skills and information you need to keep your horse in tip-top health. It could be life saving! Find out more

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