This is a review that is well over due but due to the events that I explained in my last update post here, I've not been in the mental state to be writing reviews. 

Not long into this year I was approached my Spillers to trail out the Conditioning Fibre and write up a review on it after them seeing my previous post on the Speedy Mash Fibre.  

During the time they contacted me Legacy's had lost any shape she had in her bum due to the first set of temperature drops this year, so because of that I thought it would be a great time to try this out. 

I'm a firm believer of the horses diet being closet to it would within the wild meaning mainly fibre. I try to keep concentrates to a minimum with Legacy & Cloudy's food. The Conditioning Fibre is great for this as it's a complete feed meaning when fed at it's recommended amount this is all you need to give your horse. The Fibre is filled with natural fibres to bulk out the food to keep them eating and to prevent them from rushing their food. It has good protein sources and rapeseed oil added to help build up the condition without excitability, this is a great selling point for this product as their are so many people that want to add condition without compromising their horse's behaviour which may happen when feeding traditional cereal based conditioning feeds. The energy from this comes from the fibres and oils which make them slow releasing, compared to the cereal based feeds which uses the cereals for quicker releasing energy.  

 Amongst the rest of the natural ingredients their is also grass nuts added in for a bit of something different.  

The stats on the feed are:

Digestible Energy - 11MJ/kg

Oil - 10%

Protein - 12%

Fibre - 21% - High in fibre

Starch - 7% - Low in starch

Legacy's recommended amount is 3-4kg a day, this was spread out between 2 meals, morning and night. In each meal she had 2-3 Stubbs scoops per meal. Each Stubbs scoop holds 0.6kg of the fibre, meaning she had between 1.2kg and 1.8kg a meal. This is keeping it under the 2kg per meal feeding recommendation. For Legacy's meals she would have the fibre and a small scoop of sugar beet to add some moisture into the meal for her. This feed can be fed dry or damp but Legacy prefers her food dampened hence why I add the sugar beet with her feed. 

Here are some before and after pictures of using the feed for aprox a month and a half. For a 500kg horse a bag would aprox last about 2 weeks. I used 3 bags of the feed with her. Although in the after pictures of her side on she looks like she's lost a bit of weight compared to putting on but the way she puts weight on is that originally it will go onto her belly then over time it will disperse over to her bum to where she needs it. 

Overall I really enjoyed using this food with Legacy, it was simple and there was no worry about her not getting enough of everything she needs. It cut the feed making time in half and she would just have scoops of this and beet, then mix. She definitely enjoyed this as she's never been the quickest of eaters but when having this meal she ate all her food quicker than Cloudy. Out of the 3 bags used on Legacy I was given 2 for free and I purchased the 3rd one as I realised I wasn't giving her the correct amount per day so I bought another one and fed the last of the first bag through to the 3rd at the correct amount. As she got up to the weight I wanted her to be at she's no longer on this feed but if I ever felt that she needed to put weight on again I would definitely consider this for her with how well it worked. 

If you've got a horse that needs to put on weight or just some added shine and condition I really recommend this as there's nothing in there which could excite your horse and the starch is low which is also an added bonus.

*Although the bags of feed were provided for free all the opinions within this review are my own and Spillers had no influence over my views.

Spillers Speedy Mash Fibre Review

I recently tried out a bag of the new Spillers speedy mash fibre to try out on the 2 horses. They are already on fast fibre so with this being pretty much the same I thought I would give it a go to see how they got on. Even getting the bag I was a little sceptical as it gives out an apple aroma and taste for the horses, now this would be great for most horses but knowing Legacy is a little iffy with apples and apple tasting products I thought she'd be a good judge. 

Some of the product features are: 

- Fast soaking in 60 seconds.

- It's safe to give to laminitics and those prone.

- Cereal & Molasses free, high in fibre and low in starch and sugar making it great for good doers and those in light work.

- It contains prebiotic fos and probiotic live yeast to help support optimum digestive health.

- It supplies quality protein to help maintain topline and muscle tone.

- It includes vitamins and minerals including chelated zinc and copper to help maximise absorption.

- It's great for older horses with poor teeth and those who are struggling to chew long fibre.

What Legacy and Cloudy thought of the product:

To first try this product out on the horses I got a sample bag of it, which was then halved and put into their feed for that day along with their graze on grass and some fast fibre to build up their feed amount. Cloudy went over and ate his food like normal without a care in the world, apart from having his ears back at the birds that wait around to pick at his left overs. Legacy was a little more suspicious with hers and gave it a little smell but then started to eat it up as usual.

After them eating the food I had a bag to try out with the two of them. I gave them their usual feed the first day trying it out, swapping the usual fast fibre out for the speedy mash. Like previously Cloudy dove right in and ate the food, Legacy on the other had was a little different. To start with she started to eat the food as usual then ended up sifting through the mash looking for the mix and grass. In the end she ended up leaving her food and heading over to the haynets to eat. We tried her out on the speedy mash again the next day and she just left it again, resulting in Cloudy eating what she'd left over. 

After trying this out I bought her a bag of fast fibre to put her back on while keeping Cloudy on the speedy mash. 

Here I've done a comparison of both the fast fibre and speedy mash dry, these are both 1 stubbs scoop worth which is 1.5kg dry weight of fast fibre and 1.7kg dry weight of speedy mash.

And here is a comparison of the two feeds wet and 60 seconds.

Since finishing the bag with Cloudy Legacy has started to go over and start to steal his food when he still has some left over. This has left me thinking that she will eat the food but only in small amounts. With this food biggest competitor I would say is the fast fibre I feel the apple aroma and taste gives the speedy mash a good edge and opens up to some more customers who like the idea of the apple, it will also close out some customers who have fussy horses like Legacy. 

Verdict from Legacy: Bit Iffy with it so I won't feed it to her.

Verdict from Cloudy: Will eat it. 

If you're looking for a high fibre feed or a soakable feel to keep your horse fuller for longer I would definitely give this a go, as it's high in fibre and low in starch & sugar but if you're horse is already on fast fibre and doing great personally I wouldn't change over and I can't see it doing much different than fast fibre.

You can find out some more info and work out how much to feed on the Spillers website here, or you can try it out at a reduced introductory price of £7.99 (£9.49 RRP) here.

*I did receive a bag to try out for free through my work but have received nothing for this review and all opinions are my own (and my horses).