Balancers are a great way to give your horse all the recommended vitamins & minerals without having to feed multiple times a day or giving them a bucket full of feed. Depending on the choice of balancer you will be giving them no more than 2 cups of feed and that's for a 16hh+ horse.

It has always been a big no no to give your horses bigger feeds as it can increase the chance of colic among other things but giving your horse 2-4 feeds a day isn't always readily available for some people. The more times a day a feed is split up into the better as it keeps the digestive system working correctly as fit's with the way the horse has always eaten, little and often. Splitting the feed up is also a good way to help put weight onto your horse as it will give the system plenty of time to take up all the nutrients needed from each meal.  

Some of the benefits from feeding a feed balancer with ad-lib forage are:

• Better digestive efficiency
• Reduced risk of loose droppings 
• Reduced risk of colic 
• Reduced risk of laminitis
• Reduced risk of stereotypical behaviour (once called ‘vices’) 
• Reduced risk of ‘tying-up’ 
• Reduced severity of gastric ulcers
• Reduced risk of DOD (an umbrella term covering abnormal limb development) 
• More relaxed behaviour with improved focus 

Feed balancers can be fed alone like the Naf Optimum or can be added to a chaff to add a little bulk and more of the horse to eat.

Some balancers come in a pelleted form like the Naf Optimum or they will come in a powder form. From experience I've learnt that the powdered ones will be the ones you come across in a small tub such as the Equine Answers 365 Balancer starting at 1Kg (I've done a review on this product, which you can read here), but the Naf Optimum also comes in a smaller bag starting at 3.7Kg. 

There are now many different types of balancers each suited to your horses needs:

- Performance

- Lo-Cal/Lite for laminitis prone or the fat

- Conditioning

- Weight maintenance

-  Joint

- Hoof

- Veteran/Senior

- Stud

- Donkey

What's great about balancers as well is that they will be low in starch & sugar meaning they won't heat up or fizz up for horse. 

The 2 balancers that have worked really well for Legacy are the Naf Optimum & Equine Answers 365 Complete 

Do you feed a balancer to your horse?

*Images are from this article

*Italicized list is from this article

New Page! Legacy's Feed!

I don't know if anyone's notice but I've just added a new page in the header bar. It's called Legacy's feed, it's a page where I show and write about what she get's in her daily meals from hard feed to supplements. It's just a little breakdown as to why she's on that feed and if she's doing well on it so far. Who knows the page might be changing quite a bit of the time depending on if she's stays well on them or I decide to add anything extra in, keep an eye out. Hopefully sometime soon I will also be posting reviews on the supplements mentioned if I haven't done one already. 

You can either find the page on the header or click here to check it out.

Equine Answers 365 Balancer Review

Back in May I had another situation with Legacy where her hard feed was making slightly on the fizzier side, and as she was already having below the recommended amount and at the time I wasn't driving so riding her more to reduce the excitement wasn't an option at the time, I had to change her feed. I had a recommendation from the yard owner to put her on horse and pony cubes or a fibre mix with a balancer. 

I then had the struggle of finding a good balancer which will tick all the boxes of giving her a good coat shine, all the vitamins and minerals needed and helped her put weight on. There are a few people on the yard who use the online company Equine answers for a variety of products from calmers to joint supplements. After hearing about the company from them I decided to try out their balancer and contacted them about a sample for a review. 

The feeding guide lines are as follows:

Small Ponies: Feed 15-25g per day

Horses (14-16 hands): 20-40g per day
Horses (16+ hands): 30-50g per day.

The scoop which is provided is aprox 20g.  

I was feeding Legacy aprox 1 1/2 sccops per day meaning she was getting 30g. 

To start off with she was on one scoop to introduce her. At the time of starting she was having her mix dry with added supplements. She then started to get a little fussy and start flicking through the feed and leaving the supplements, after starting to add water with her feed she was happy to eat it all.

It took about a month for me to start seeing any difference in her, since being on it she has started to fill out, maintain a good healthy weight and be very happy in herself (the odd gallop around the arena before work she tries). Topline wise I can't say much has really changed as she's still in a very early stage of gaining any muscle there, her head carriage is still naturally high. One great thing about this balancer is that it also let her stay level headed, not once did she heat up while she's been on it, even when her daily amount had risen. 

For the review I was sent a 1KG tub which is said to last 50 days for your average horse. This is priced at £21.95, this is a great price for the size of the tub, the amount you're getting and how compact it is. No more 20KG bags for balancers please. 

Here is a balancer comparison, between a range of great quality balancers on the market.

365 Complete feed balancer includes MSM to help joints, biotin to help hoof structure, pre and pro-biotics to aid a healthy guy and all the major minerals and vitamins your horse needs to stay healthy. Many feed balancers claim to include pro-biotics but in many cases this is just yeast, 365 Complete contains two true pro-biotics in Lactobacillus Acidophilus & Bifidobacterioum PLUs a pre-biotic.

What's also great about this balancer is that it's safe for horses who have or are prone to cushings and laminitis. 

Here are now some pictures of Legacy after she's been on the 365 Balancer.

Please ignore her mouth, she enjoyed her feed and I put a little too much water in it, oopps!

Can't wait to get her working more now where she can start to build up her topline!

You can find the 365 Balancer on the equine answers page with prices ranging between £21.95 for 1kg tub (50 days supply) £36.95 for 2kg tub (100 days) to £62.95 for a 4kg tub (200 days supply).