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Mornin! First, let me apologize if you thought I meant your horse looked crappy, I totally didn't. I was referring to my adventures in trying to find a feed program that suited my horses and at one point I had several who were eating me out of house and home and still looked like refugees from Auschwitz.
Your horse has a lovely long neck and big gorgeous eyes and I'm first drawn to her neck and it looks thin to me, both sides. On the right she's kind of 'stretched' and the lighting and angle are a bit different than on the left. The left is a more natural pose that, to me anyway, more accurately reflects what the horse looks like. It's hard trying to tell someone how to feed without being able to put your hands on the horse in all the places and do your own Hennecke scoring. Based on pics alone, I'd score your horse in approximately the 4-5 range. One thing that I see, and btw is a hard one to fill in, is the concave look to her flanks on the left side. Once you get that flank and hip filled in, then your horse will probably be more in the 5-6 range. Her hip bone seems to be a little pointy to me as well, but I'm not sure on camera angles there.
The difference between Omolene 200 & 400 is that 400 is designed to be a complete feed and 200 is a calorie dense supplement, both meet their minimum daily requirements for Vitamins & Minerals. I started with the 400 because the hay here in OK just is not up to the standards I'm used to from CA and AZ. I have always fed a little alfalfa with good bermuda grass, or straight alfalfa in AZ because I was right in the middle of Alfalfa fields and could get awesome alfalfa for $4/bale and grass was $14/bale. When feeding a lot of alfalfa hay, I supplemented with a grass hay pellet and beet pulp to balance the calcium and phosphorus intake. The grass hay out here is cheap compared to AZ & CA but it's just not as nice. This is cattle country and finding good grass hay is pretty difficult. Also, I have a couple of OLD horses who have a hard time chewing grass, so dampened 400 was perfect for them. They did better on it than on Senior feed, go figure.
Since you seem to have a good supply of grass hay, meeting their forage requirements with the feed isn't really an issue for you, so the 200 seems like it would meet your needs. You also feed consdierably less of it than you do of the 400 because they expect you to give XX amount of hay for the forage, so I think it might end up being more affordable.
Anytime you ask a horse person for an opinion on anything, but especially feeding, you're going to get a bunch of folks who think their way is the only way and have very strong opinions. So let me say that:
A) if feeding nothing but grass hay ends up working for you, then great, but I'd keep a bag of something (oats, corn, beet pulp) so you could give a complete vitamin supplement and minerals because grass hay doesn't usually have EVERYTHING they need. That's why in the wild they would travel a bit and eat grasses, flowers, bark off trees, various things to balance their diets. Now that they are in our care and we restrict their movement, it's up to us to provide everything they need to be healthy. I've tried the 'they only need grass theory' and it doesn't work for me.
B) if you find something local that you like better or as well as Purina, and it's more economical for you, that's great too. I'm only using Purina as an example because of all the feeds I've had personal experience with, I like it the best and have had the best results. It's also usually pretty universally available.
C) Oats. I love oats, but again, you need to provide vits & mins to make things balanced. I gave up because I had too many horses to design a diet for everyone and it took me hours to get done feeding all my horses. So, I prefer a supplement that has the oats, corn, barley, vits, mins and all, right in it.
D) Don't forget to either add at least 1 oz of salt to your horses ration or provide salt licks for her. That's regardless of which feed you decide to use.
E) Ration Balancers. Those are great if you can get them. I live in the middle of a horse feed wasteland and nobody carries them. My choices are Purina, Nutrena and the local mills floor sweepings after they make the cow feed. A ration balancer could work for you if you have access to them. Again, I'm only recommending what I'm familiar with and know works.
F) Weigh your feed, especially the concentrates to make sure you're giving consistant servings. You'd be amazed at how much different feeds vary in volume for the weight. Smart Pak has a measure that looks like a tall cup and is marked for pelleted and texturized feeds and I've found it to be reasonably accurate. Coffee cans are notoriously inaccurate.
G) Ultium. I love this stuff. It's high fat which means you can put weight on fast and they love it. None of these feeds should make the horse silly, I feed my stallion a full ration of 400, plus a couple pounds of Ultium to keep him really tip top for showing and he's a piece of cake to handle. I would only feed the Ultium if your horse doesn't seem to be filling in the way you want her too or if you should decide to start showing. Ultium is NOT cheap, I pay $26/50 lb bag and I've heard that it's more in other parts of the country. Since you only feed a pound or 2/day it's not prohibitive but if you don't need it, why use it? The 200 will probably be at least $10/bag less expensive than the Ultium.
Combo de-wormers are Zimectrin Gold, Quest Plus and I'm sure there are several others, but those are the 2 I can usually get my hands on. Zimectrin Gold is Ivermectin/Praziquantel and Quest Plus is Moxidectin/Praziquantel (I think on both of them). If you're not comfortable with Moxidectin, that's the one in Quest that got such a bad rap because people don't follow dosing directions, then use the Zimectrin Gold. I rotate both of them and use the Quest Plus in fall and Zimectrin Gold in spring. The key is to not use anything too much because the worms are building up resistance to the various ingredients.
Picking up your pasture is not a requirement, but if you don't then I'd expect it to take a year or 2 of de-worming every 2 months RELIGOUSLY to get the worm load down to the point where you could cut back to de-worming only once or twice per year based on fecal analysis. If you pick up your pasture, then I'd expect that to speed up significantly. The only reasons to go with the fecal analysis and de-worming only when indicated are the worms resistance to several of the de-wormers on the market and the lessening of the need to feed a poison to your horse on a regular basis.
Remember that your horse is only 2 and in Arabians that is still considered a baby. She will have growth spurts until she is 5 years or so and meeting her caloric and nutritional needs during this time is really important for her to reach her full potential.
Mornin! First, let me apologize if you thought I meant your horse looked crappy, I totally didn't. I was referring to my adventures in trying to find a feed program that suited my horses and at one point I had several who were eating me out of house and home and still looked like refugees from Auschwitz.
Your horse has a lovely long neck and big gorgeous eyes and I'm first drawn to her neck and it looks thin to me, both sides. On the right she's kind of 'stretched' and the lighting and angle are a bit different than on the left. The left is a more natural pose that, to me anyway, more accurately reflects what the horse looks like. It's hard trying to tell someone how to feed without being able to put your hands on the horse in all the places and do your own Hennecke scoring. Based on pics alone, I'd score your horse in approximately the 4-5 range. One thing that I see, and btw is a hard one to fill in, is the concave look to her flanks on the left side. Once you get that flank and hip filled in, then your horse will probably be more in the 5-6 range. Her hip bone seems to be a little pointy to me as well, but I'm not sure on camera angles there.
The difference between Omolene 200 & 400 is that 400 is designed to be a complete feed and 200 is a calorie dense supplement, both meet their minimum daily requirements for Vitamins & Minerals. I started with the 400 because the hay here in OK just is not up to the standards I'm used to from CA and AZ. I have always fed a little alfalfa with good bermuda grass, or straight alfalfa in AZ because I was right in the middle of Alfalfa fields and could get awesome alfalfa for $4/bale and grass was $14/bale. When feeding a lot of alfalfa hay, I supplemented with a grass hay pellet and beet pulp to balance the calcium and phosphorus intake. The grass hay out here is cheap compared to AZ & CA but it's just not as nice. This is cattle country and finding good grass hay is pretty difficult. Also, I have a couple of OLD horses who have a hard time chewing grass, so dampened 400 was perfect for them. They did better on it than on Senior feed, go figure.
Since you seem to have a good supply of grass hay, meeting their forage requirements with the feed isn't really an issue for you, so the 200 seems like it would meet your needs. You also feed consdierably less of it than you do of the 400 because they expect you to give XX amount of hay for the forage, so I think it might end up being more affordable.
Anytime you ask a horse person for an opinion on anything, but especially feeding, you're going to get a bunch of folks who think their way is the only way and have very strong opinions. So let me say that:
A) if feeding nothing but grass hay ends up working for you, then great, but I'd keep a bag of something (oats, corn, beet pulp) so you could give a complete vitamin supplement and minerals because grass hay doesn't usually have EVERYTHING they need. That's why in the wild they would travel a bit and eat grasses, flowers, bark off trees, various things to balance their diets. Now that they are in our care and we restrict their movement, it's up to us to provide everything they need to be healthy. I've tried the 'they only need grass theory' and it doesn't work for me.
B) if you find something local that you like better or as well as Purina, and it's more economical for you, that's great too. I'm only using Purina as an example because of all the feeds I've had personal experience with, I like it the best and have had the best results. It's also usually pretty universally available.
C) Oats. I love oats, but again, you need to provide vits & mins to make things balanced. I gave up because I had too many horses to design a diet for everyone and it took me hours to get done feeding all my horses. So, I prefer a supplement that has the oats, corn, barley, vits, mins and all, right in it.
D) Don't forget to either add at least 1 oz of salt to your horses ration or provide salt licks for her. That's regardless of which feed you decide to use.
E) Ration Balancers. Those are great if you can get them. I live in the middle of a horse feed wasteland and nobody carries them. My choices are Purina, Nutrena and the local mills floor sweepings after they make the cow feed. A ration balancer could work for you if you have access to them. Again, I'm only recommending what I'm familiar with and know works.
F) Weigh your feed, especially the concentrates to make sure you're giving consistant servings. You'd be amazed at how much different feeds vary in volume for the weight. Smart Pak has a measure that looks like a tall cup and is marked for pelleted and texturized feeds and I've found it to be reasonably accurate. Coffee cans are notoriously inaccurate.
G) Ultium. I love this stuff. It's high fat which means you can put weight on fast and they love it. None of these feeds should make the horse silly, I feed my stallion a full ration of 400, plus a couple pounds of Ultium to keep him really tip top for showing and he's a piece of cake to handle. I would only feed the Ultium if your horse doesn't seem to be filling in the way you want her too or if you should decide to start showing. Ultium is NOT cheap, I pay $26/50 lb bag and I've heard that it's more in other parts of the country. Since you only feed a pound or 2/day it's not prohibitive but if you don't need it, why use it? The 200 will probably be at least $10/bag less expensive than the Ultium.
Combo de-wormers are Zimectrin Gold, Quest Plus and I'm sure there are several others, but those are the 2 I can usually get my hands on. Zimectrin Gold is Ivermectin/Praziquantel and Quest Plus is Moxidectin/Praziquantel (I think on both of them). If you're not comfortable with Moxidectin, that's the one in Quest that got such a bad rap because people don't follow dosing directions, then use the Zimectrin Gold. I rotate both of them and use the Quest Plus in fall and Zimectrin Gold in spring. The key is to not use anything too much because the worms are building up resistance to the various ingredients.
Picking up your pasture is not a requirement, but if you don't then I'd expect it to take a year or 2 of de-worming every 2 months RELIGOUSLY to get the worm load down to the point where you could cut back to de-worming only once or twice per year based on fecal analysis. If you pick up your pasture, then I'd expect that to speed up significantly. The only reasons to go with the fecal analysis and de-worming only when indicated are the worms resistance to several of the de-wormers on the market and the lessening of the need to feed a poison to your horse on a regular basis.
Remember that your horse is only 2 and in Arabians that is still considered a baby. She will have growth spurts until she is 5 years or so and meeting her caloric and nutritional needs during this time is really important for her to reach her full potential.
