Help with endurance horse diet, any opinions greatly appreciated

[G Dog]

Wow.As you see everyone feeds differentlyAlthough I must say that advice on feeding an endurance horse from a non endurance perspective won't do you any good.
Best advice I can give is get an equine nutritionalist to do you a proper balanced diet based on the grazing in your area.It costs about 70 bucks and it will be balanced to the enth degree for your horse when in heavy,light and no work.
All endurance riders do it differently generally because they find something that works for them.Many won't even tell you what they feed
It can be a very difficult task when you don't know what to feed.
Whatever you do don't just change a diet suddenly.Especially an endurance horse.If you do it too close to a ride you'll end up in the horse hospital.

[rosieroxsox]

So how much dry speedi beet should i put into the water?
I will cut the garlic and just feed the oil and he has supplements and electrolytes.
Thankyou so much everyone for your great help

[bayer]

If you are getting into endurance some great reading about nutrition and other topics can be found in a magazine called Endurance - Beginners to Advanced (there are four or so volumes of this). Also, check out the info on the endurance websites.(e.g. aera, nswera & qera). You may have done this already. If not though, they are full of great info - I am constantly going back to re-read things...

[gg_vice]

Wet! I like to feed soppy wet!

[NikJ]

Speedibeet can be fed damp or sloppy but it should be fed wet and with access to water.

I feed a full one litre (1 kilo) dipper with 5 litres of water.

Its funny about the no grain comments - I feed whole oats to a riding pony and I dont get any fizz at all.

[CateH]

Speedibeet should be mixed with at least a 1:4 ratio of speedibeet to water. In other words, 1 cup speedibeet to 4 cups water minimum.

More water is OK, less is not. It swells up with moisture, and you can use hot water to speed the preparation process.

We then mix in 1 scoop wheaten chaff, and small amount of protein. it's a great feed, but the wetter the better!

[Garryngirl]

Speedibeet is also great for mixing supplements into as the horse can't sift them out...mmmwwwaaaahhhhhaaaaa mmmwwwaaaahhhhhaaaaaaa.

[wild_spot]

Just to put the cat amongst the pigeons - Speedi-beet is perfectly safe to feed dry. The whole 'swelling in the stomach and rupturing it' myth has been debunked.

Of course, all horses should be fed with access to water, and dempening feeds is often beneficial - I still soak my speedi-beet but for horses who don't like sloppy feeds it can be fed dry.

Horses already pre-disposed to choke should have all feeds wet, including speedi-beet.

[WBIT1973]

Totally agree with G Dog make sure you gradually change the mix. Agree also that Speedibeet can be mixed wet or fed dry, however if you are dampening feed anyway then soak it, I sometimes add even more water or sometimes enough just to make it wet. You can also use warm water which will absorb quicker and makes a nice warm feed. Feed amount as per instructions on the bag. Speedibeet can be used to gain or remove condition so just start with a cup and work from there.