# What Do You Feed Your Welsh Sec D?



## Cheshire Chestnut (21 October 2013)

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 Advice Needed![/h]Hello, 

New to this forum but need advice on what to feed a hungry Welsh D? 

I just want to get his feed right going into the winter. He was a stallion until last year and wasn't really ridden much. He's now in full time work with me and has been since June. Just used for hacking/schooling/odd jumping session - nothing strenuious. He lived out all last winter with him not being ridden but now I will be keeping him in at night (due to the awful weather he be coming in at the end of this week), with him being turned out for 7/8 hours a day too. He was fine on just grass over the summer and nothing else - he kept his weight well. However, now the grass is going I have been making sure he has two scoops of Happy Hoof and a haynet a day too. Happy Hoof recommends 8kg of food a day (hay & feed combined) for his size but I think he'd explode with that! I'm used to feeding my TB who had a large breakfast and tea so I'm at a loss to what to feed him - it has been about 15 years since I had my New Forest pony and I cant remember what/how much he had. I certainly can't feed him what I did my TB, he'd look like an Angry Bird within a week!

He is a 'good doer' and I don't want to over feed him, then again I don't want him to be starving either (even though he always acts starved no matter how much he's fed!).

Should I give him hard feed twice a day for breakfast and tea, plus haynets on a night, plus grass during the day? Or should I just stick with a tea and haynets plus grass? Help!

Sorry for the rambling mess of this message but I wanted to set the scene!

Thank you in advance, any advice would be appreciated as I'm new to the Welshy world!
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## AngieandBen (21 October 2013)

If he's coming in at night, I would give him breakfast before he goes out in the morning, and just hay at night, start off with 2 largish sections then if there's none left in the morning then up it a little.  Feed wise my welsh has  half a scoop of Veteran Vitality ( he's 22 ) but Fast Fibre would work well, just a few hand fulls and give a multi vitamin and mineral supplement.  No need for chaff unless he bolts it down 

If he looses weight you could always add linseed ( I'm a huge fan ) great for coat/feet and joints


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## Cheshire Chestnut (21 October 2013)

AngieandBen said:



			If he's coming in at night, I would give him breakfast before he goes out in the morning, and just hay at night, start off with 2 largish sections then if there's none left in the morning then up it a little.  Feed wise my welsh has  half a scoop of Veteran Vitality ( he's 22 ) but Fast Fibre would work well, just a few hand fulls and give a multi vitamin and mineral supplement.  No need for chaff unless he bolts it down 

If he looses weight you could always add linseed ( I'm a huge fan ) great for coat/feet and joints
		
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That's great thank you. The Happy Hoof was just a quick fix for the end of summer when the grass thinned out so I was going to re-assess his feed for the winter. Good idea about just the breakfast, he will be more than happy to just come in to a full net for night time  

I just wanted to make sure he wasn't getting too much feed for his breed but just enough vitamins/minerals so linseed would be a good option. Thank you!


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## Cheshire Chestnut (21 October 2013)

Forgot to mention - he's 14:1hh and 6 years old!


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## flintfootfilly (21 October 2013)

With my 500kg dales ponies, I reckon on half a decent sized bale of hay every 24 hours, if they are not on any grass at all.  So that is about 10kg hay/500kg pony/day.  I have to adjust for every hour of turnout on grass they have - and of course that depends on how long/thick the grass is, but I work back from that half bale a day to maintain weight.

Happy Hoof isn't intended as a vit/min supplement if fed only in small amounts, so personally I'd ditch it, and instead put him on something like Dengie Alfa A balancer or one of the Blue Chip balancers (which both have around 1mg of organic selenium in; BC also has some inorganic too), with just a handful of chaff to slow him down.

I wouldn't be bothered whether it was fed as one or two meals.  If it's going to keep him more settled to have 2 meals/day (if that's what other horses on the yard have), then I'd split it, otherwise I'd just give the whole lot at once.

It'd only be about 400g balancer and 200g chaff, so only just over half a kilo, so no problem sizewise to feed in one go.

Sarah


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## Cheshire Chestnut (21 October 2013)

flintfootfilly said:



			With my 500kg dales ponies, I reckon on half a decent sized bale of hay every 24 hours, if they are not on any grass at all.  So that is about 10kg hay/500kg pony/day.  I have to adjust for every hour of turnout on grass they have - and of course that depends on how long/thick the grass is, but I work back from that half bale a day to maintain weight.

Happy Hoof isn't intended as a vit/min supplement if fed only in small amounts, so personally I'd ditch it, and instead put him on something like Dengie Alfa A balancer or one of the Blue Chip balancers (which both have around 1mg of organic selenium in; BC also has some inorganic too), with just a handful of chaff to slow him down.

I wouldn't be bothered whether it was fed as one or two meals.  If it's going to keep him more settled to have 2 meals/day (if that's what other horses on the yard have), then I'd split it, otherwise I'd just give the whole lot at once.

It'd only be about 400g balancer and 200g chaff, so only just over half a kilo, so no problem sizewise to feed in one go.

Sarah
		
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Thanks Sarah. I agree about the Happy Hoof - it was just to stop him from thinking he was starving when the grass thinned out at the end of the summer in the wet weather. I wanted to find something that would do him good and fill him up, without having tonnes of it as he will balloon pretty quickly. I will look into Dengie Alfa A so he's getting enough vit/mins over the winter without porking him up. The chaff is a good idea, will bulk the feed out a bit without adding too much energy wise too. 

Thank you again for the advice


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## SuperH (21 October 2013)

I have two Ds.  They are out in the day and in at night.  They are both in reasonable amounts work, one does more than the other.  They get hay at night and as much straw as they can eat (are bedded on it so can help themselves).  I don't feed anything else (they have access to a mineral lick).  I won't feed extra unless they start to tail off and lose condition as they are full of beans as it is.


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## Cheshire Chestnut (21 October 2013)

SuperH said:



			I have two Ds.  They are out in the day and in at night.  They are both in reasonable amounts work, one does more than the other.  They get hay at night and as much straw as they can eat (are bedded on it so can help themselves).  I don't feed anything else (they have access to a mineral lick).  I won't feed extra unless they start to tail off and lose condition as they are full of beans as it is.
		
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That's great - thanks! Makes me feel better for not feeding him much as people at the yard have older horses and TB's so they are fed a lot more and I was worried he wasn't getting enough. He does seem very hungry at the moment but he hasn't been brought in yet and currently out 24/7 so that might subside once he's in at night and has a net.

Thanks again


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## bellacharliejane (21 October 2013)

My Welsh D x is in moderate work, and is just on half a scoop of Winergy Equilibrium Balancer and a haynet when he comes in at night. 
He does down his food quite quickly though, so I'm experimenting with stuff to see if I can get him to take his time! Haynet within a haynet seems to work quite well - I don't know what else I can do! xx


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## Cheshire Chestnut (22 October 2013)

Thanks Bellacharliejane - It was his first night in last night and I gave him a small scoop for his tea and then a large haynet, he seemed over the moon! Much better than a soggy field so he thinks he's in a 5* hotel now lol. I have a haynet with really small holes so that will hopefully slow him down as he's a greedy little tike when it comes to hay, he can't pace himself at all. Doubling up the haynet is a good idea, I will try that if my small hole net doesn't work  x


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## Kikke (22 October 2013)

Welsh cob are always hungry 

Well mine is when she has finished her food, hay etc she starts on her bedding.

Anyway she gets two haynets a day (smallish) half a scoop of competition cubes and half a scoop of hi-fi and a magic supplement splint in two over breakfast and lunch. 

Then She goes out at 4pm till 9am and lives on grass unless there is snow on the ground.


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## pottamus (22 October 2013)

As little as I can get away with without him trashing his field or stable!!! He is obscessed with food and gets stressy very quickly if left without - and we are talking less than 1 hour. He is fed wetted hay (weighed) at night when stabled and restricted grazing during the day. Other than that he has a few handfuls of chaff to put a supplement into. 
It is the grass I have to watch - either bare pickings or strip grazing - but a balance between him having enough to 'nibble' but not too little that he starts pacing up and down and trashing the place! 
Tricky to balance! He does not lift his head when eating...just never stops chewing!


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## Cheshire Chestnut (22 October 2013)

God that sounds so much like him - he's so greedy when it comes to food and if he's put in his stable he tucks into his haynet that quickly I don't even have time to do his head collar so then I have a battle to get it off him with his nose stuck permanently in his net! Honestly he acts as if I starve him. He's the sweetest natured pony but if any other horse (even his beloved gf) goes near him while he's eating he is the grumpiest thing ever... I'm starting to shout at him about it now as he's getting worse with it, so possessive over food it's unreal - does anyone else have this problem?


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## pottamus (23 October 2013)

I would not say my lad is possessive over food just cannot be happy unless eating...which in a way is fair enough when they are born grazers. I have had to accept it in a way as how he is although it makes managing him tricky, particularly in the field. I have tried various methods to reduce what he eats and they all result in an un-happy horse stressing, so it is not worth it in the long run as he is happiest eating and causes no problems when doing so. I just buy in the previous seasons hay, soak it etc to reduce calorie content and then I can feed him more than normal.


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## Morgan123 (23 October 2013)

I do endurance, sponsored rides and just started hunting my sec D - in the six years I've done all those things regularly with him, I've never fed him anything more than a small handful of happy hoof a day. They REALLY live on air.


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## Cheshire Chestnut (23 October 2013)

Morgan123 said:



			I do endurance, sponsored rides and just started hunting my sec D - in the six years I've done all those things regularly with him, I've never fed him anything more than a small handful of happy hoof a day. They REALLY live on air.
		
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Brilliant! Thanks - he seems to do well with the Happy Hoof and his hay. Going from a TBX to a Welsh D is like going from a 2ltr petrol to an economy diesel - it's great!!


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## BayLady (23 October 2013)

My Haflinger x Welsh D boy is 4yrs old and in light work.  He put on quite a lot of weight whilst I was on holiday recently, due to coming in for most of the day and eating tons of hay (out overnight on a new field so lots of grass).  He's now in for about 5 hours a day with 3.5kg of hay double netted.  He does run out on occasion but as he's not in for long I'm not too worried about it, other than he looks for things to amuse himself with and last week peed all over the rugs of the horse that's stabled next door, he pulled them in, wee'd on them and then buried them in his shavings!

He's lost a bit of weight thankfully but not much.  In terms of bucket feed he gets half a handful of alfalfa chop with a couple of grass nuts thrown in for texture and a scoop of ProBalance vit & mineral balancer.  I don't imagine I'll be feeding him any more than this for the foreseeable future.


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## Morgan123 (23 October 2013)

Cheshire Chestnut said:



			Brilliant! Thanks - he seems to do well with the Happy Hoof and his hay. Going from a TBX to a Welsh D is like going from a 2ltr petrol to an economy diesel - it's great!! 

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Yeh - I have him and an elderly TBxHanoverian. I just added up today what I spend on average on hard feed for the TB through a year (£35 per month - and that's averaged so more like £50 in winter) - and with the welsh, it's more like £30 per year!!! He looks and feels great on that. The only thing I ever add is salt/electrolytes when he's working hard, and sometimes a bit of garlic for the flies in summer, but that's all. 

In terms of keep, I frequently marvel at how awesome he is to own compared to the many arabs and TBs I've had before. Good hard feet, no shoes, barely any feed, no need for rugs unless I want to (though he is clipped now of course - but even still he's so hardy he barely needs anything), I don't need to fuss over him, he's got these massive strong joints so he's never lame - perfect really! It's just the personality that is the issue ;-)


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## Cheshire Chestnut (23 October 2013)

Morgan123 said:



			Yeh - I have him and an elderly TBxHanoverian. I just added up today what I spend on average on hard feed for the TB through a year (£35 per month - and that's averaged so more like £50 in winter) - and with the welsh, it's more like £30 per year!!! He looks and feels great on that. The only thing I ever add is salt/electrolytes when he's working hard, and sometimes a bit of garlic for the flies in summer, but that's all. 

In terms of keep, I frequently marvel at how awesome he is to own compared to the many arabs and TBs I've had before. Good hard feet, no shoes, barely any feed, no need for rugs unless I want to (though he is clipped now of course - but even still he's so hardy he barely needs anything), I don't need to fuss over him, he's got these massive strong joints so he's never lame - perfect really! It's just the personality that is the issue ;-)
		
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This made me laugh and what a coincidence - my mare was a TBxHanoverian too! She wasn't as spindly as a full TB but she needed to stay warm and plenty of food otherwise she'd drop weight. Used to balloon on grass though!

Yes I love that he has sturdy joints and legs, very hardy and he only has front shoes (that's because the bridle paths round our yard have quite a few meters of small stones every now and again and I felt bad!) 

Attitude wise he's very cheeky and likes to get his own way. When he's not getting his own way he likes to push the boundaries. I begin to think he actually enjoys annoying me! Love him though, he's a dude


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