Pregnant mare & alfalfa amounts

[Small_Stars]

Greetings!

We have raised the full size horses for years, but as I've gotten older, we got rid of the full size horses and got a couple of miniatures that I thoroughly enjoy. Anyway, I'm having a little trouble scaling down feed to such a small amount. We have a mare that is due in February. At the present time she gets 1 flake of Brome hay, 1 1/2 cups of Purina Miniature Horse & Pony feed, 1 1/2 cups of soaked beet pulp both am and pm. Here's my question though. I wanted to add some alfalfa to her diet for the calcium for the growing foal and for milking ability, but I'm having trouble figuring amounts. It's hard to find decent alfalfa hay where we're at and blister beetles is always a concern. So, I opted for Standlee alfalfa cubes. What I've been doing is filling up about half of a large styrofoam cup and soak them, which after they're soaked, fills up the cup.

Anyway, after adding it to the feed, it seems to bulk it up an awful lot and seems like a lot of feed and I sure don't want to make her sick or anything. Sooo, for those that feed the alfalfa cubes and soak them...is there a guideline on amounts? And how do you feed the soaked alfalfa? Do you mix it with the feed? Anything else I should think about?

Thanks

 

[happy appy]

How many times a day are you feeding the grain/cubes? Is the one flake of hay devided up in the day too? Is the flake of hay weighed for 2% of her body weight? Have you thought about mare and foal feed for this time in her pregnancy?

 

[Becky]

Feed your cubes as you would hay. Measure the weight dry. 1 - 2 lbs per hundred pounds of body weight dry cubes per day. Adjust the amount up or downdown if you are feeding other hay. Soak if you want.

 

[targetsmom]

This year I add soaked alfalfa cubes to the grain/soaked beet pulp mixture that we feed our broodmares twice a day. We did have a mare develop hypocalcemia (thumps) last May when her foal was 2 weeks old and I learned there are other ways to add calcium to the diet too, but I think the alfalfa will certainly help. You can buy a supplement at Tractor Supply that is for cows, but is very high in calcium, and you can also get calcium pills to give, but I would only use those if you have an issue like we did. Our mare and foal ended up in the hospital for a few days but suffered no lasting effects although the vets were quite concerned about the foal not getting enough milk. That is the foal in my avatar.

 

[Small_Stars]

I Thank you for the replies. I have thought about Mare & Foal feed, but I read that it's feeding instructions are geared towards larger horses and when trying to size down to a mini, becomes unbalanced and that the Purina Miniature Horse & Pony feed can be given all the way to birth? If it's better, I can switch her to Mare & Foal feed.

On the measurements I gave, that is both am and pm. I'm feeding her the amounts that the breeder suggested that we feed her, but she doesn't feed alfalfa, so I wasn't sure on that. I'll have to weigh it and see for sure what it is. But should I feed it separately or mix it in with the feed even though it bulks up the feed?

 

[disneyhorse]

The "bulk" of the feed is irrelevant... It's the dry weight that matters.

Small scales are inexpensive and will help you out a lot.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

I'm not sure where you are or how cold it is but I have just started feeding my broodmares (today) and I can tell you they are very happy about the bulk they are getting, in fact the bulkier the better. They get free choice grass hay, (they were on grass until yesterday when it snowed- that sort of threw a spanner in the works!) so I give them some soaked alfalfa pellets in their feed, which I "pad" out with chopped , freeze dried grass, beet pulp and grain ( I make my own mixes so, no molasses!) they get flax and corn oil and groundnut oil and rice bran oil (I mix it together in slightly unequal parts and then put a cup in the feed) I weighed it out and they are getting 6 kgs between seven of them, but remember some of that is the water content of soaked beet pulp and pellets. This is distributed in eight feed bowls so no fighting! I can only feed once a day but they seem OK with this, and the hay is always there so they are never empty- it really has been bitter here the last few days and if I don't want to go outside I am pretty sure I don't want to even think about my horses being cold! They would not give you a thank you for a stall, and they have a shed that they pointedly ignore, preferring to hunch up in the hedge line, so I am guessing they are alright!

 

[rubyviewminis]

I was just getting on here to update my other post in the Marestarers forum so this is good timing. My 33" mare had a laminits event that I caught early, she is entering her last trimester now, and with my vet's advice and hay testing we have a good diet started. I have alfalfa and alfalfa/orchard mix that I bought for her when it was confirmed she was in foal because our wonderful grass hay had a fescue mix in it. The alfalfa/orchard mix turned out to test at a high almost 13% NSC which is too high in starches/sugar but our straight alflafa tested below 10% so she is being started on the alfalfa again slowly until we get her at 3 lbs for her weight of 275. I am also giving her 1 cup dry beet pulp soaked, rinsed off, and divided into two feedings daily with Timothy pellets and her salt, Omega Horseshine, and LMF supplement. Since I could only find 3 bales of Timothy for her that I soaked until now, she is tolerating it well and I also use Timothy cubes which are 8% NSC and they are weighed in with everything else dry first so that she gets 2 % of her total weight for daily diet.I always weigh dry, not with water. I have found as a general rule (but always weigh) 3 cups = 1 pound. It really does look like a LOT after puffing up cubes or beet pulp with water, but it is water weight. Very good for them especially in winter, and I sprinkle 1 teaspoon of salt daily into their feed.

I use a kitchen scale which is a wonderful tool, then I can minus out on the scale what I use to hold the contents with. I use trash can lids for hay weight, and use 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 cup measurements for supplements, cubes, pellets, and pelleted feeds. I also use tablespoon, teaspoon measurements. I generally break everything down from the 1000 lb weight listed for large horses and divide by 4 which will give you what you need for your mini. The breakdown does not dilute the item. Everything is geared for weight. I use a calculation of girth, length, height for finding the weight of my mini's from the Kentucky Equine Research center, and it is always within 20 lbs of my vets floor scale weight we get. You can get any kind of weight conversion for cups, oz, ml, etc online just google it and print it out. I keep many in the barn with my scale and then never have to guess at anything. I have hay nets that I know exaclty what each will carry in weight for hay from weighing hay on lids on the scale. It becomes very easy. Probiotics will help a lot when it comes to slowly changing your mares feed, as I am now changing back from timothy to alfalfa.

I always used Safechoice Original and Safechoice Special Care as they are one of the few feeds I was able to get where I live. They are a good choice for mare and foal feeding. My vet is haveing me use LMF super supplement now for my mare since she is now sensitive during pregnancy and the Safechoice has just a little too much for her to handle right now. I would strongly suggest slowly putting your mare on one of the better feeds, but it is only my opinion. Many others here have very good ideas for pregnant mares, and a lot of experience. Hope you can post pictures for us.

 

[Small_Stars]

Thank you Rubyviewminis. I weighed the alfalfa tonight and it weighed about 5 ozs before soaking. So, not even a half a pound. I guess my main concern is, I've heard a lot about how easy it is for the minis to founder and so I'm ultra paranoid about what I feed and amounts, so I just wanted to make sure I was on the right track.

 

[Becky]

Alfalfa is highly unlikely to founder a miniature unless your horse is overweight to start with. As has been pointed out above, alfalfa is actually quite low in NSC and is a diet some foundered horses can tolerate. Every horse I own is on alfalfa in some form. Plus my client show horses. From pellets, to cubes to chopped dehydrated bagged alfalfa. It's an excellent source of nutrition for most miniatures at any life stage. Alfalfa supplies several important vitamins and minerals as well as protein. .

 

[Small_Stars]

Thank you Becky. That makes me feel much better.

 

[rubyviewminis]

With the only exception being that there are some miniatures that are sensitive to alfalfa. In those cases there are other things going on also.

I also was paranoid about over feeding with my first mini's. It's very difficult to judge what and how much to feed them when you have your first and are used to big horses

 

[HGFarm]

Alfalfa does NOT cause founder, however should not be fed to a horse that has already foundered. I, and most people I know, have fed alfalfa for years (about 40 for me personally) and never had a problem with it. The horses maintain good weight up over their backs and toplines, dont get big fat bellies, etc....

 

[rubyviewminis]

My vet (very grateful she is here) studied and researched equine nutrition with one of the top nutritionists in the west, and consults him too. What she explained to me, and gave me print outs on, is that it isn't the forage or grain per say, it is the starch and sugar content in total for Non-structural Carbohydrates NSC in an amount under 10% ideally, and should be absorbed into the small intestine of a horse before reaching the cecum and large intestine. This points to slow feeding so there is no binging, or sudden large rise in bloodsugar that overpowers the small intestine. When these extra NSC's end up in the large intestine/hind gut where they are rapidly fermented it leads to a series of events causing digestive upsets - such as toxins -which culminate in colic and laminitis. Lets just say you overloaded yourself at Thanksgiving and then put on high heels to go shopping for 6 hours nonstop. Your feet would swell and feel hot and hurt (I know mine would). Horses can't take off the wall of their hooves for relief. (I give bad analogies)

The under 10% for NSC is "per meal" and then you consider WSC Water Soluble Carbohydrates (simple sugars) + Starch = NSC. Then you have Soluble Carbohydrates or beet pulp, alfalfa meal, etc.Digestable Energy, Non Fibrous Carbs, Ethanol Soluble Carbs and so on. Numerous, maybe continuous feeding is what horses, we all know, are built to do. Two or three large meals, high in NSC, or grazing rich young grass, and little continueous exercise overloads the system. My alfalfa tested at 9% total from 8.0% WSC + 1.0 ESC. She is getting alfalfa only because she is in foal. I still soak it 60 minutes in warm water with her Timothy and will increase amounts slowly as I lessen the soaking time(very hard this time of year) and keep a close eye on any possible mild laminitis starting. I also give her probiotics which help her digest normally and keep things going smoothly.

This can get complicated, or can be very simple. Once you read up a little it all starts to come together, and you understand ALL of the variables involved. So yes, alfalfa will not cause laminitis/founder in itself just as Safechoice or Timothy would not. It depends. I have had two rescues, previously foundered completely on alfalfa because they were over fed once a day, confined in a small area, no vit. or mineral balance, never wormed or vaccinated. So they could not have alfalfa since their system was sensitised to it already. I am not allergic to milk, but I can't have it because I have a sensitivity to it, and once ended up in the ER from having too much of it at once with nothing else that day. Make sense? I can't give my mare Safechoice now since it was involved in her digestion the last two laminitis episodes, which thankfully I caught early. The pain of laminitis could cause release of hormones and chemicals I can't remember what she told me, that would cause abortion. Fescue toxicity can also cause not only laminitis but abortion too which is why I pulled her off our grass mix early October instead of waiting.

You just have to evaluate the total diet, and whatever factor, diet related or not, that might have caused an episode. From their you evaluate everything and try to eliminate triggers, change to a bland, high fiber diet until you can have your hay tested or work with a nutritionist. Each horse is different. Missy eats VERY slow, is VERY picky and is VERY active normally. She is one I watch to keep her weight on in winter too, so she is not what you would consider the usual candidtate for this. If whoever has read through this without propping their eyelids open with toothpicks yet is interested, I am also putting my other minis on more restrictive diets. That means no more winter carrots, or the occasional bread slice treat. More exercise than all of us have been doing, especially me! And switched to LMF Super Supplement which is really a balancer of the best source since those who started that line of feed also are involved in www.safergrass.org.

 

[rubyviewminis]

On another note, I just wanted to say that I have found if I take my miniatures off of alfalfa before age 3, they get bloated bellies, are always hungry, and just aren't at 100%. It doesn't matter what feed I give them with grass hay, probiotics, salt, etc.although the probiotics do make a difference. When I start them back with alfalfa, they look so much better, are safisfied, bloated tummy goes away, and have that twinkle in their eye (which here means brat). I don't care what feed I try, or what % of protein is in it.