Mare and Maintenance is indeed a ration balancer, perfectly fine to be fed by itself to horses not needing the extra calories or starches found in grains. However, these products were really designed to be a supplement to forage and straight grains - especially oats. If your horse is underweight to begin with, then the Mare & Maintenance should be used as a supplement to the diet which could be primarily hay if you like, or you could add grain, either sweet feed, oats, or other commercial products.
Regarding: BOSS. This will provide some extra calories, most of which will come from fat, but has a low to moderate mineral profile, so shouldn't be thought of as a high nutrient source when fed in the small amounts (1/4 cup or so per day) that we give our minis.
Regarding Beet pulp: Yep, you know I would recommend this for any underweight horse. It is a very safe calorie source in that it can be fed in very satisfying (to the horse) amounts without fear of laminitis or founder such as might be the case when feeding large volumes of grains or grain products.
Sweet feeds or any other grains will provide calories and nutrients, and can be fed at volumes needed by the individual horse. Obviously a horse who is underweight or in hard work should be able to utilize the higher calorie level provided by grains than the easy keeper, maintenance horse who converts those extra calories to fat.
That being said, I am going to shock some of the above posters and tell you that even my horses shown at the national level are only fed 1 cup of a ration balancer at each feeding and if any grain at all, it's just a handful of straight oats. They get a variety of other supplements as well as beet pulp and probably more hay than the average person feeds their show horses (plus pasture....eegads!) and they are still very competitive. Don't get me wrong -- I don't have anything against graining horses WHEN THEY NEED IT (like yours probably does), but the only thing that gets 2-3 cups of grain per feeding at my farm is late gestation/early nursing moms. If I fed any of my other horses in those volumes (8-12 oz per feeding), they wouldn't fit through their stall doors. BUT that is at MY farm....not yours!
So....while many minis may need grain at higher levels due to their metabolism and/or exercise schedules, not ALL minis do. It's important to remember that horses should be fed as the individuals they are -- some will need more and some will need less feed, hay, grass, calories, fat, protein -- even when they are of the same age and at the same level of exercise. Basic metabolism will dictate how they utilize the feed they are given. It's very similar to humans where one person can eat ice cream every night and never gain an ounce, in fact may STRUGGLE to keep weight on.....while another person can LOOK at ice cream and feel like they gain 5 lbs. Similarly, we can't generalize with our horses and say that ALL horses NEED grain or that 3/4 cup of grain isn't enough. 3/4 cup may indeed be not enough for YOUR horse, but may be too much for MY horse. In addition, feeds differ, so 3/4 cup of one feed is not the nutritional equivalent (vitamins, minerals, fat, protein, calories) to 3/4 cup of another feed...... in the same way that a cup of ice cream differs from a cup of yogurt -- both dairy products, but with a very different nutrient profile.
Bottom line, 3/4 cup of sweet feed (or other grain) may indeed be enough for your horse -- then again it may not. At this point, feeding free choice hay is wise approach as you experiment with the amounts of grain your horse needs to gain weight. You may not even notice a change in his weight until around the 30 day mark at any rate. And while the Mare & Maintenance is providing plenty of good vitamins/minerals and some protein, and the hay will add nutrients and calories, too, it may still not be enough. As such, you may want to provide an additional calorie source over and above these two items. If you'd rather not use sweet feed as a calorie source, you might consider straight oats, beet pulp, BOSS, vegetable oil, flax or a combination of those items. Take some "before" photos, and then take some more in about 30 days to gauge his response to the additional food.
Robin C
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