What do you all feed your dales?

[harry11]

I am feeding harry 1/4scoop of saracens shape up at night with 1/2scoop of happy hoof with a dash of oil at night.
Morning he has 1/4scoop of happy hoof.
He goes out every day but not a lot of grass now hence the feed.
Gets soaked hay at night about 3 cakes.

What do you all feed and why?

Is this a little too much as i am a new dales owner and worry i am doing the feeding wrong.

[olivia]

At the moment she has 1kg of Allen and Page Slim and Healthy. Plus lots of apples that the yard sneak into her diet!

She's loosing weight quite quickly now she's fully clipped (with a MW rug) as they are still living out 24/7 with no hay and not a huge amount of grass in the field.

She's not really doing the work to need much more food so I'll play it by ear. She's got plenty of summer weight to loose, so I'll do nothing until that's gone. I'll either ask the yard to add some chaff to her feed (they use highly mollassed stuff chuck full of calories), up the amount she has of slim and healthy or switch her to a slightly higher calorie feed.

I'm hoping that when they start coming in at night and getting hay she'll stop loosing weight quite so fast and I won't need to do anything

[valerie n scout]

Tomas geys a scoop of happy/healthy hoof morning and night and about 4 slices of haylage at night same here no grass...so he tells me he's starving !

[shell]

Mine are on a scoop(small shovel type) of applechaff/mollichaff, scoop of spillers cool mix,(both are on special at our feed merchants lol!) and scoop sugar beet plus apples/carrots/pears/veg of any description! Good grazing alternate days and then hay depends on the grazing they have been on!
Feed really is to replace the lack of grazing and to keep them quiet and they are fed when they come in only.

[felix]

mine are on grass only still.when that gets low/they start to drop weight then il add haylege and when its dec/jan time il probably add winergy equilibrium chaff and sugarbeet if they need it.

[harveydales]

Nov 20, 2010 16:42:01 GMT -1 @harry11 said:

I am feeding harry 1/4scoop of saracens shape up at night with 1/2scoop of happy hoof with a dash of oil at night.
Morning he has 1/4scoop of happy hoof.
He goes out every day but not a lot of grass now hence the feed.
Gets soaked hay at night about 3 cakes.

What do you all feed and why?

Is this a little too much as i am a new dales owner and worry i am doing the feeding wrong.

Sounds about right (but depends on how big your scoop is and how much your hay biscuits wiegh). Maybe monitor his waitline with a weightape to keep check.

Frankie and Dolly get one round stubs scoop of Happy Hoof with a vitamin supplement and a couple of slices of hay out in the field - they live out. Harvey, who is in quite hard work, gets a fair bit more. He gets Winergy Senior at the reccommended rate. No extra hay but he is in a grassy field at the moment.

[jec248]

My pony is out during the day and in at night. She gets 2 mugs of Top Spec senior feed balancer with some blue chip joint supplement and garlic, and as much hay as she wants----ponies are trickle feeders and I believe if I only left her a small amount of hay she would have it eaten quite quickly and then standing for hours with nothing and I fear then she would end up with stomach ulcers. I also buy a sack of carrots each Tuesday which she also eats.

[Deleted]

mine are on 4 lbs. of sentinel safe srart, 1lb. alfalfa, 2 lbs. complete feed ,some oil and flax, and 16 lbs.hay, I have a hard time keeping wieght on as they are

[zeldalithgow]

Both ponies not in work

Prince 19 gets a scant mug of dry speedibeet soaked, with a sprinkle of linseed meal and a couple of handfulls of unmollassed chaff to carry his supplements Feedmark Benevit Advance vits/mins, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, magnesium, nettles rosehips, hawthorn and one other herb I can't remember at the mo

Daisy 24 gets a mug of dry speedibeet soaked, 400g ish of linseed meal, couple of handfulls of unmollassed chaff plus Feedmark Benevit Advance vits/mins, ginger, turmeric, magnesium, nettles, hawthorn, rosehips and the same one I've forgotten

[harry11]

Interesting.
Will be doing the weigh tape every week as i need to be sure he is not gaining.
Has lost a bit as is now down to 574kg and was off the tape before so doing well.
The scoop i use is the round scoop approx 1kg of weight but this depends on what it is.
I use scales too which i have.
Do not think he needs much as not in hard work but just a bit for energy and to supstitiute lack of grass.
Gets a good sized net of hay each night but do notice he eats too fast. Going to see if i can get him a tiny holed net.

[greydales]

Mine get nothing as they are fat blimps!!

How big (tall) is Harry? 574kgs sounds like quite a weight - if it was me I'd feed according to how fat they look/feel hence why mine get nothing extra. I don't tend to measure them, I can see their condition visually. Most Dales can get fat on air and you do need to be careful of extra feed unless they are poor doers or in hard work.

[NFK Dumpling]

I use a weight tape to monitor the weight of my two as I suffer from the opposite of anorexia where they are concerned and think if I'm cold then they are starving

This is what they get currently but if they consistently lose or gain weight then I will adjust it accordingly esp as Musk is still growing:

James (21) has 500g of Allen & Page Vitality for Veterans (aka "Old Gits Feed" by my feed supplier!) and 4.5 to 5kgs of hay twice a day + the odd apple, carrot or parsnip.

Musk (3) has 250g of Allen & Page Fast Fibre and 3.5 to 4kgs of hay twice a day + half an apple or the odd carrot (no parsnips as they make him totally batty!)

James is hacked once a week this time of year and Musk is not worked at all. They have access to half an acre of field each. They both have a multivitamin supplement added to their A&P feed.

[Deleted]

I feed my dales simple systems feed as he has an intolerance to most other feed types ie sugars, cereals, preservatives etc. He is doing really well on it as are my two shetland ponies.

[harry11]

Very good info.
May reduce feed a bit more.
Just there is little grass now in the field so maybe hay is sufficient.
With little feed.