Changing Feed

[Mini Mouse]

Hi, I am going to change my horse's feed from Omelene200 to Platform Miniature. He is 18 months old and weighs approximately 250. A little on the heavy side. With his age and weight it calls for 1.5 lbs. per day. Would some of you that switched please give me some advice on how to do this.

Right now he is in pasture all day and I give 1/2 cup Omelene twice a day and a little bit of hay at night.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm going to start with tonights feeding by just giving a little bit.

Thank you!

 

[Irish Hills Farm]

Just slowly start adding the Platform feed to his Omelene, while slowly reducing the Omelene. With as little as you are giving him I would say the change should be complete within a week or less.

 

[CrescentMinis]

I am looking at this issue too.

The two mares I picked up yesterday have been on 1 cup (total) per day of Purina Strategy, and I am switching them over to Platform. Is it the manufacturer wanting us to use more product, or is there a nutritional reason to feed more than what they have been getting? The Platform mini formula contains beet pulp, and if that is more of a forage than a grain, wouldn't t be OK to gradually increase the amount of pellets to be closer to the manufacturer recommendations?

They are both bred, and besides the Strategy, are on eastern Oregon orchard grass hay. They are nicely filled out for the winter, but not too heavy.

How much Platform would you give?

 

[Mini Mouse]

That's what I was wondering also. "How much to give".. 1.5 lbs is a lot of grain compared to what I've been giving which is 1 cup per day. I weighed and measured .. 1 lb platform is 3 cups.

I'm changing because my horse is too heavy and he can hardly have any grain and he LOVES HIS GRAIN.

HELP

:

 

[minih]

Personally I would like to see a picture of your little horse, 1/2 kitchen ? cup of food? That does not sound like very much of food at all......sometimes mini's can look fat when actually it is a hay belly. I am not accusing, just wondering, you may have a very good hay or rich grass which would mean a fat mini also. I am just curious.....

We have a very good bermuda we feed ours, and some of ours tend to go a little heavy, so they only get plain oats with their hay so they can have a few more than if it were a sweet feed.

wanted to add that the plain oats are fed with a free choice mineral that they may be missing by not getting a mixed food.

 

[Shelley]

We did that last year at about this time...

Felt pretty good about it at first, and then watched as our horses got thinner and thinner

and we had to feed more and more of the Platform to keep their weight up....

Changed back to Omolene 200 and all is well again.

Just our experience.

Shelley

 

[Marty]

We did that last year at about this time...

Felt pretty good about it at first, and then watched as our horses got thinner and thinner

and we had to feed more and more of the Platform to keep their weight up....

Changed back to Omolene 200 and all is well again.

Just our experience.

Shelley

Mine too exactly

 

[Mini Mouse]

I don't think I'm being clear as to what I'm asking. So, here it goes ......

My horse is 18 months old he weighs approxomately 250. He is in good pasture all day and I feed him 1/2 cup of Omelene 200 twice a day and a little hay at night. With the Platform it says to feed 0.75 to 1.0 per 150 lbs body weight. So, if my horse weighs 250 instead of 150 that would make me feeding him appr. 1.5 lbs of grain per day. Is that not a LOT of grain. That would be about 4 cups as oppose to the 1 cup he gets now.

So actually, what I need to know is ... how much should I start feeding him of the platform since he is only use to having 1 cup per day? If I jump from 1 cup to 4 cups, won't he get sick??

I tried to post a picture but can't figure it out. But believe me he is NOT underweight .. lol.

 

[Mini Mouse]

Oh Yeah, I think I learned how to post a pic. Hope this comes out.

 

[minih]

Mini Mouse, if that is a recent picture your horse does not look underweight at all, so that answers my question I asked earlier. I feed Omalene and plain oats, depends on the horse. I'm sorry I can't help with your question about Platform. I have such good luck with Omalene I have been hesitant to change to another feed.

 

[Irish Hills Farm]

I do not use the Platform feed, tried to switch a couple of horses over to it for a trial run but they to started losing weight. I think with the Platform feed you have to feed at the recommended weight to maintain your horses current weight as it has been formulated that way.

I feed oats and born to win. No problems here and can't see switching really.

 

[Minimor]

Personally, if I were going to change him over I would simply substitute the 1/2 cup--or more probably 1-2 cups--of the Platform for the 1/2 cup of Omalene, if he will eat it that way. A 1/2 cup is virtually nothing in terms of grain so I wouldn't be concerned at switching right over to something different, or even in doubling the amount. Going from 1 cup to 4 cups divided into 2 feeds per day isn't a huge increase in my experience. I have surely never had a problem with an increase of that amount.

If the horse doesn't want to eat the new feed, then I'd keep on with the usual omalene & add in some of the platform. Once he learns to like it then I'd switch over completely.

 

[CrescentMinis]

Reading this thread, I was starting to get worried I may have chosen the wrong feed, but the girls are loving it, and Minimor, your post was reassuring. I will tape them tonight to figure out a baseline weight, and watch that they don't get thinner visually either. They are going from 1 cup of Strategy once a day, to being fed Platform twice a day in the larger amount the package describes for broodmares, eventually when we work up to it.

 

[Cathy_H]

We are in the process of changing a foal we bought over to our grain. The new grain bag said to make changes over a 7-10 day period changing 10% at a time......... What we have done in the past has been to swap about a third of the old grain for about a third of the new grain & feed like this for several days then go to half then two thirds etc............ With you having to increase the Platform amount so much I think I would decrease the old by about half, add about a cup of Platform for a few meals then gradually add more every few meals & then cut out the old grain after about a week..... Is there a number on the bag that you can call ? ..................................................

If the horse doesn't want to eat the new feed, then I'd keep on with the usual omalene & add in some of the platform. Once he learns to like it then I'd switch over completely

We've had to do this with several foals - going very slowly - adding a bit at a time until they got to where they would eat it. Usually put it in at night & they would nibble then start eating it toward morning.

 

[stormy]

My question would be if what you are using is working and in smaller quantity and your horse is used to it, why are you changing to a more expensive feed that requires a greater quantity be used??

 

[Mini Mouse]

My question would be if what you are using is working and in smaller quantity and your horse is used to it, why are you changing to a more expensive feed that requires a greater quantity be used??

My poor Baby only gets 1/2 cup twice a day and he's overweight. I don't think he is getting enough grain to get the vitamins he needs. I was hoping for a feed that he could eat a little more and still keep the weight off. Price really doesn't matter if it works for what I want. He's my Baby ... I don't have a herd to buy for.

Is anyone still using Platform!!!

:

Maybe I should of switched to Nutrena Lite Balance. Does anyone use that?

 

[dawnsminis]

 

[mad for mini's]

I haven't tried the Lite Balance but all of my mini's are on the Nutrena Safechoice , which I am totally satisfied with .

: It is cheaper than Platform and you are still feeding a fairly large amount of it. I tried the Platform feed but didn't like the results , I would never feed my horses the platform again. Here is the web site for Nutrena if you want to check it out for yourself. Hope this link works for you.

Nutrena

 

[JMS Miniatures]

We feed the platform feed and we love it.

Our horses, like yours, tend to get too heavy on the other feeds. So we switched over to the Platform late last year and have been on it eversince. My horses that we worked out to death last year was only getting a cup of Equine Adult, but they were so overweight, and they were exercised believe me. This year, they weren't getting worked with as much, just didn't have the time, but their weight was fantastic, they are still only getting a cup of Platform. The key thing to remeber is this feed needs forage, I learned that over the summer time when my pasture was running out of grass. It's 50/50 they need some type of forage or the feed won't work. And yes if you are exercising heavly you will need to feed more, but aren't most feeds like this?

According to Platform it says to make the change gradually for atleast 7 days. If you decided now not to go with the Platform another feed I do believe in is the Equine feeds. The Equine Adult did not help with my overweight horses but I have fed the Senior to a senior horse and did really well on it. And I switched a weanling colt from Omelane 200 to Equine Jr. and he looks fantastic on it. I have given Omelane in the past and its not a bad feed, my horses just don't do well on it. But most of my Jr. horses are still on it and are doing just fine. Next year tho all of my horses are going to get fed the mini feed.