Well hello strangers, welcome back to the blog. It’s actually not been that long, i’m totally being dramatic but what an exciting one to come back to. I can officially reveal what Dengie Horse Feeds, Cols and I have been working away on in the background for what seems like forever now.
If you’ve followed me for a while or know me in real life you will know that im a little bit of a nutrition geek, I can tell you what’s in most kinds of feed, what you can gain from them and why certain ingredients do better than others but I am by no means an expert. Luckily for me (and Colin) the amazing team at Dengie have been helping us out on his transformation.

Cha Cha Changes
In a panic over giving Cols too much sugar and blowing his brain the other products I had originally chosen were completely wrong for him in all the other ways, they were low calorie which obviously isn’t what we needed and previous products were too high in starch and I will get to why this is important in a minute. After a lockdown video chat with the ladies at Dengie as well as pictures and videos of him exchanged we had discussed every aspect of not only his dietary needs but behaviour and everything in between. Normally a face to face yard visit and even home weighing can be achieved but yah know the C word of 2020 meant we have had to mix things up a little. The decision was made and he was going to try some Healthy Tummy and Alfa-beet in a combination.

How we came to the decision and why
Dengie Healthy Tummy is a nutritionally balanced fibre feed, it can be fed stand alone as your horses main hard feed diet. It contains protexin gut balancer in a pellet like form as well as yummy herbs to make more it palatable for the horses. Now onto STARCH, Starch can cause problems in the gut. Things like gastric ulcers in horses as well as laminitis and tying up can all be linked to starch. It is digested in the small intestine which actually has very little capacity for this so horses should be fed a low starch, high fibre diet and that’s what Healthy Tummy is, it was an easy choice for all of us. Healthy Tummy is a medium level calorie feed and as Cols was so poor we opted to give him some extra. Next comes the Alfa beet, high fibre, higher calorie, low starch (music to my ears) and sugar soaked feed which is easy eat and helps with hydration.

If you’re new here and have made it through my babbling then here’s a reminder of what Colin looked like when he arrived in December 2019.

and this is what he looked like at the start of his diet change four months later;

The Result
Thoroughbreds are known to be fussy eaters but as Cols is Labrador x Thoroughbred we knew we would have no problem in trying something new for him. Cols was suffering from very loose droppings before starting Healthy Tummy, in the vet nursing world they were classed as just a bit more than a cow pat which isn’t an ideal way of doing your business as a horse, especially a horse trying to gain weight and condition. After a week of eating Healthy Tummy his droppings were completely normal and after two weeks became less tail swishy and fidgety when girthing, I wouldn’t go as far as saying he was suffering from gastric ulcers but now he has tummy kind feed he’s so much happier. Now Cols hasn’t exactly made it easy for us on being able to put this to the full test, about half way through he had a complete meltdown with life, he wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink and practically melted away with stress, so maybe he did help us in a way he’s thrown everything at the diet and its still continuing to work for him. Whilst he was having his meltdowns I did have peace of mind that I could contact the Dengie team at any time and air my concerns.

I think the pictures speak for themselves, he is utterly thriving on this diet combination, I’m upping the work anti to help him keep building those muscles safe on the knowledge that his diet is perfect. I also need to give a huge shout out to the team at Dengie who have believed that Cols was a perfect subject to test these on and for giving me the opportunity to work alongside them. I look forward to working closely with them moving forward as we prepare him for winter with plenty more blogs and even cheeky Vlogs to come.

Love Always Leah and Cols x
#fedondengie #teamdengie #coliniscool

If you’re looking for feeding advice CLICK HERE to be able to contact the team of experts.