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In the UK we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to feeding our horses, but if you’re the owner of a good doer, you may be wondering if your horse really requires a bucket feed at all — especially in spring when there’s so much more grass.
Although your horse may not need any more calories in their diet, there are reasons to give a bucket feed to a good doer alongside their forage ration, as I will explain in this article.
Why does my horse need a bucket feed?
Unlimited access to spring grass provides more than enough energy for those equines in light work to maintain weight. However, grass commonly lacks the trace minerals copper, selenium, and zinc.
While these are only required in small amounts, their importance shouldn’t be underestimated as they are vital for many functions in a horse’s body.
The consequences of deficiency may not always be immediately obvious, but poor skin, coat, and hoof condition are some of the signs we may see from the outside.
If your horse is on restricted grazing and receiving soaked forages and/or straw in a bid to manage spring weight gain, then nutritional deficiencies can become even more significant.
To compensate for nutritional deficiencies in pasture, or from weight management regimes, we can add these nutrients via the bucket feed to ensure our horse gets a balanced diet.
Keeping it simple
Feeds fortified with added vitamins and minerals will provide your horse with a balanced diet if fed at the recommended daily quantity, so no additional supplements or balancers are required alongside.
An example of a fibre-based, low-calorie feed with added vitamins and minerals is Dengie Healthy Hooves Molasses Free, which combines chopped and pelleted alfalfa and straw with a light rapeseed oil coating, vitamins, minerals, MSM, and garlic and supplies 8.5MJ/kg Digestible Energy (DE).
Healthy Hooves Molasses Free is suitable for those prone to laminitis and supplies biotin at a level to support hoof quality and MSM for additional hoof, skin, and coat condition, as well as joint support.
The recommended daily feeding rate of Healthy Hooves Molasses Free is 500g (approx. 1 Stubbs scoop) per 100kg of bodyweight. Therefore, a 500kg horse requires 2.5kg or approximately five large round Stubbs’ scoops per day for a balanced diet.
Many people are surprised by the number of scoops, but it is important to remember that compared to a mix or cube, a chopped fibre weighs much less in a scoop and will keep your horse chewing for much longer.
When using Healthy Hooves Molasses Free as part of a weight management regime, it may be necessary to include its recommended feeding amount as a part forage replacer to keep weight in check.
Keeping it flexible
Using a supplement or balancer alongside a low-calorie fibre feed allows you to adjust your fibre feeding quantities, while maintaining a balanced ration. Low energy fibre feeds can also be used to supplement or replace higher calorie forages.
When feeding a balancer, adding a chopped fibre feed slows the rate of intake which is particularly beneficial for those with equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) and those who are laminitis prone.
This advice has stemmed from research that found that even a low non-structural carbohydrate feed elicited an exaggerated insulinaemic response in horses with insulin dysregulation (Macon et al 2021).
In this study, the feed was consumed within 10 minutes, so relatively rapidly. Emerging evidence seems to point to the fact that it is not only the non-structural carbohydrate content of a feed that is significant, but the rate that it is consumed.
If your horse is particularly at risk of laminitis, dividing the feed into two meals and ensuring a good amount of chew time by using chopped fibre feeds is advised.
Ideal for laminitics
Hi-Fi Molasses Free combines chopped and pelleted alfalfa and straw with a light rapeseed oil coating, mint, and fenugreek.
At 8.5MJ/kg DE and only 2.5% sugar and 1.5% starch, Hi-Fi Molasses Free is one of Dengie’s lowest energy, sugar and starch feeds combined, making it very appropriate for those that are laminitis prone.
Hi-Fi Molasses Free can be fed as a bucket feed or in larger amounts as a part forage replacer up to 1kg per 100kg of bodyweight daily.
Low calorie and low sugar feed
Hi-Fi Lite combines chopped alfalfa and straw with a light molasses coating. At 7.5MJ/kg DE, Hi-Fi Lite is a low-calorie feed that it is also low sugar.
Powder vitamin and mineral supplements can take some encouragement for the horse to eat up so using a big scoop of Hi-Fi Lite not only gives enough product to sufficiently hide the power in, but its light molasses coating enhances palatability.
Hi-Fi Lite is also a great option to replace forage as it provides more chew time for less calories and sugar than typical UK hay.
Combatting obesity
Regularly body condition scoring (fat scoring) your horse can help to identify whether more action is required to keep your horse’s weight in check.
When every calorie counts because your horse needs to lose weight, removal from pasture gives you more control over what’s going in but increases reliance on conserved forage such as hay.
If fed to appetite, hay can still provide more energy than a horse in light work needs. Whilst some dietary restriction may be required to encourage weight loss, first and foremost we should focus on using the lowest calorie forage available to allow a greater quantity of forage to be used to keep your horse happy.
Choose mature hay that feels coarse and stalky or gradually replace up to half the forage ration with straw to reduce energy intake whilst maximising chew time.
Feeding straw
Some people are reluctant to try straw in their forage ration, as they have heard that it increases the risk of impaction colic and gastric ulcers.
While we do need to be aware of the colic risk, the biggest risk is from sudden dietary change, or from a horse that is unable to chew efficiently.
If you want to try straw as part of your horse’s forage ration, the key advice is that your horse must have good dentition, and that straw must be introduced gradually to the feeding regime.
Research by Jansson et al (2021) has shown that feeding up to 50% of the forage ration as straw is acceptable and doesn’t increase the risk of gastric ulcers.
The study also found that the use of straw slowed the rate of eating so significantly that the insulinemic response was negligible.
This is particularly beneficial for those that have equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) and are laminitis prone, further supporting the use of straw for laminitis and weight management.
Forage replacers
If straw is difficult to source, you can replace some or all of your horse’s forage ration with Dengie Meadow Lite with Herbs.
This feed combines chopped straw and grasses with a light rapeseed and linseed oil coating, pea hull fibre, cinnamon, thyme and postbiotic.
Meadow Lite with Herbs is Dengie’s lowest calorie fibre feed at only 5MJ/kg DE. It is also low in sugar and starch, at 3% and 0.5% respectively, and is suitable for laminitis prone individuals.
For further help and advice about feeding your horse, the Dengie Feedline team can be contacted on 01621 841188 or by filling out a Feed Advice Form.
References
- Jansson, A., Harris, P., Davey, S.L., Luthersson, N., Ragnarsson, S., Ringmark, S. (2021) Straw as an Alternative to Grass Forage in Horses—Effects on Post-Prandial Metabolic Profile, Energy Intake, Behaviour and Gastric Ulceration. Animals, 11, 2197. https:// doi.org/10.3390/ani11082197
- Macon et al (2021) Postprandial insulin responses to various feedstuffs differ in insulin dysregulated horses compared to non-insulin dysregulated controls. Equine Veterinary Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/evj.13474
