How can I keep my horse healthy during the COVID-19 lockdown?
For the majority of horses, grass, fibre and a suitable balancer will be enough to keep them healthy. Feeding a balancer is simple, quick and effective.
Diet
- FEED FORAGE as a base to the diet as always, grass; hay/haylage and quality chaff if needed. As the spring grass comes through, even on forage alone your horse may be consuming plenty of calories, but they need their nutrients too. These can be fed safely with a low calorie diet feed balancer such as Blue Chip Lami Light or a choice from our Super Concentrated feed balancer range.
- PROVIDE PROBIOTICS to assist the good bacteria in working efficiently, maintaining a healthy gut.
- NEED NUTRIENTS - Include nutrient dense feeds in your horse’s diet (such as balancers), as this allows you to feed less bulk without compromising on the vitamin, mineral and protein content of the diet.
- CONTROL CALORIES – Whether your horse is in work or not, a low-calorie diet providing all essential nutrients will keep them doing well as spring grass starts to come through.
- SWAP STEADILY – If you find the need to change the way you are feeding, remember to make the changes gradually, over at least 7-10 days to avoid gastro-intestinal upset.
Reduced exercise?
- Most horses on reduced exercise should manage easily on fibre and a balancer alone.
- Make sure you don’t over supply calories.
- Blue Chip Feed Balancers are low in calories and starch, but are nutrient dense with no added sugars.
- Want to still have fun with your horse whilst advancing their education? Have a look at the BRAND NEW Blue Chip Home Schooling Championships, find them on our FB events. Weekly challenges which are low risk, and can be done both in hand and ridden.
Increased turnout?
- Spring grass is higher in natural sugar and calories, so you can reduce the sugar and calorie intake of the diet if you are happy with your horse’s current weight.
- Ensure sugar and calories won’t exceed your horse’s requirements and lead to exuberant behaviour, weight gain or exacerbate health problems such as Laminitis.
- If spring grass hasn’t started to come through where you are yet, be ready to feed hay in the field to continue providing enough forage.
- Weight tape and condition score on a weekly basis to catch weight gain/loss quickly.
Limited turnout
- Feeding fibre keeps the gut moving and healthy, if you can only visit your yard once a day find a bio-secure way for someone else to top up your horse’s forage ration.
- If your horse is now displaying fizzy behaviour on their current diet and a decreased workload (riding and/or turnout), consider swapping to Blue Chip’s Super Concentrated Calming Balancer. Formulated with Magnesium, L Tryptophan and Chamomile to help horses to relax and de-stress.
- Stable toys – If your horse is on prolonged stable time, try to provide some interactive options such as hanging parsnips, or treat balls (containing high fibre cubes or balancer).
Disrupted routine
- Feeding once a day? Although this isn’t ideal it can also be managed sensibly, especially with a balancer, which can be ideal in this scenario, as it has a smaller feeding rate.
- Make sure the one meal you feed continues to have their full daily nutritional needs, and doesn’t exceed maximum volume of 2kg for a 500kg horse.
- Balancers are an extremely cost-effective way to make sure your horse receives all their daily nutrients.
- Blue Chip’s Super Concentrated range of feed balancers can cost as little as 72p per day for an average horse and from 36p per day for ponies (when on subscription, which gives you 10% OFF RRP).
Your local feed store and ordering online
- We have been working really hard to make sure we have enough stock to cope with demand, so try not to worry, we will not let you down.
- Most retailers seem to be staying open as they provide an essential service.
- Retailers have been increasing their orders for Blue Chip Feed Balancers and supplements to cope with additional demand.
- Orders from Blue Chip are being despatched as usual, by our fast, efficient delivery service. We are following Government guidelines and your delivery can be left in a safe place.
If you have any questions, or are needing feeding advice please do not hesitate to contact us, we are always happy to help.
- Call us: 0114 266 6200
- Email: info@bluechipfeed.com
- Find us on FB and Instagram and we can happily chat there too
