Re: feeding linseed meal to my thin horse

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Susan Garlinghouse suendavid@worldnet.att.net
>Susan Garlinghouse suendavid@worldnet.att.net
     Hi Susan,  I have another question re: feed stuffs for ya.  Or anyone
else for that matter.  I am having a tough time putting weight on my new
horse Sky.  I am currently doing the "Panacur purge".  3 more days to go on
it.  He was very wormy when he came to Ca.  He will tie up on grain so I
nixed the c.o.b. mix.  I have him on beet pulp and rice bran.  I had him on
flax seed until I realized it was making him dehydrate.  (Didnt know it also
acted as a diuretic!) Oops.  I just bought some linseed meal to add more fat
to his diet, but,  how much do I feed him????  This is a new feed stuff for
me and I dont have a clue how much to give.  I started with 1/2 of a 1 lb
coffee can today.  First time feeding it.   He also gets bermuda hay in the
a.m. and timothy or barley hay in the p.m. (cant afford too much timothy @
$20.00 per bale!!!)  Any thoughts or suggestions on this matter will be
appreciated.   Thank you in advance.   gesa

Hey Gesa,
The first you oughta know is that linseed meal and flaxsed are the same thing. :-)  One is a whole seed, the other is ground up.  So you haven't changed his diet too much so far.  In any event, there are some better alternatives to linseed for adding fat---if nothing else, linseed is very high in digestible protein, and you're already providing plenty of protein with grass hay.  Since grain isn't working for you, and you're already feeding him beet pulp, then if you want to supply some fat (which is a good idea), then Just Add Fat.  You're already getting some in the rice bran, I personally don't recommend feeding more than two pounds tops per day---given the rest of your ration, you'll be upsetting the Ca:P ratio and I'm not a huge fan of rice bran, anyway, certainly not in large amounts (an opinion that has the rice bran manufacturers out for my head).<g>  For that matter, you might be on the edge of an inverted ratio, anyway.  Ask me again next week after finals and I'll crunch the numbers for you.  Anyway, you can add more fat either in the form of vegetable oil (any type except linseed oil will do), or via one of the dry fat supplements, ie FatPak.  Wouldn't be a bad idea to increase his vit E a bit, as well---just get a bottle of the vit E gelcaps from WalMart and chuck one into his beet pulp.  One cap a day will suffice.

You can probably also increase his beet pulp, it's okay to feed up to about half of his total daily ration (dry weight)in the form of beet pulp.  Or you might try one of the beet-pulp-based complete feeds, like Complete Advantage.  There's some grain in there, but not tremendous amounts, see if he can tolerate that.  You can still add fat to that ration.

Hope this helps you out.  :-)

Susan Garlinghouse