Setting Temperament

[Raikit]

My poor ponies wish they were on your heavy training program. My guys are almost completely done by 3 years and almost always done by 3.6. But then I usually don't train more than two horses at once. XD (I also train stamina first so I can fit in more time with each horse per day.)

This filly has been keeping pretty even. She's at 25% hay, 60% performance, and 15% weight. That's at the line for protein and sugar and just below the line for fiber. I'm going to try it with the colt and see if he stays steadier with that mix.

When do you start your training?
Did you move that filly to even and then change her feeding program? Or did you fix her feeding program and she moved to even and seems to be staying there? Do you also know what she started at?
(If you haven't clued in, I'm using this as further study for feeding)

I start as a newborn ideally. Right now I have a few horses that are far behind because they were born while I was still working with others, but I haven't tried to tweak their feed yet.
She was bombproof from being in the pasture until two years (I don't remember what she was born at). I moved her to the barn and got her to even then modified her feed. The colt that I told you about moved to spirited the first day on that same mix, though.

[BlackOak2]

I start as a newborn ideally. Right now I have a few horses that are far behind because they were born while I was still working with others, but I haven't tried to tweak their feed yet.
She was bombproof from being in the pasture until two years (I don't remember what she was born at). I moved her to the barn and got her to even then modified her feed. The colt that I told you about moved to spirited the first day on that same mix, though.

That should mean that there's too much sugar in his diet.

You could try letting the fiber fight the sugar.
50 corn and 50 alfalfa cubes will offer a little more sugar than fiber.
40 corn and 60 cubes will offer a little more fiber than sugar.

The 40 corn/60 cubes should... should slowly drop his temperament. That is if he's that easy to move.

Of course, doing all this may mean diddly when our feeding errors are fixed. Then it's almost back to square one.

Oh... and I find starting them under one is just a little too difficult trying to keep their energy up. When I do train, I end up around 4, so you're training seems to be just as 'heavy' as mine.

[Raikit]

That should mean that there's too much sugar in his diet.

You could try letting the fiber fight the sugar.
50 corn and 50 alfalfa cubes will offer a little more sugar than fiber.
40 corn and 60 cubes will offer a little more fiber than sugar.

The 40 corn/60 cubes should... should slowly drop his temperament. That is if he's that easy to move.

Of course, doing all this may mean diddly when our feeding errors are fixed. Then it's almost back to square one.

Oh... and I find starting them under one is just a little too difficult trying to keep their energy up. When I do train, I end up around 4, so you're training seems to be just as 'heavy' as mine.

What issues do you have keeping energy up? I put my guys out on pasture and so for the first six months they're usually fine (possibly one day around 4 months when they don't have enough food for energy but then they're still usually at 97%). Then at six months they switch from mother's milk to weight gain keeping them just above 100% (between 104 and 109 usually) so that they have enough to grow and maintain energy.

[Raikit]

Also, my colt can't eat 60% cubes - it's too much food. But he's not quite four so maybe that will change once he's older?

[BlackOak2]

What issues do you have keeping energy up? I put my guys out on pasture and so for the first six months they're usually fine (possibly one day around 4 months when they don't have enough food for energy but then they're still usually at 97%). Then at six months they switch from mother's milk to weight gain keeping them just above 100% (between 104 and 109 usually) so that they have enough to grow and maintain energy.

I'll train them until their energy is nil (however long it takes or whatever training, like you, usually just stamina). But for the first 8 months, every other turn and certain foals, every turn, they can't eat enough to gain weight and fill their energy reserves. I had one foal quite some time ago that couldn't gain more energy than about 57% every turn until it... (he?) was about 7 months. It was... irritating.
But it could just be that they just can't ingest enough food for that (which I'm working on that secondary project about being big eaters).
At just over 1 year, I can stuff enough into their gullet to fulfill weight growth and energy refill. If I try to start early, I do get somewhere, but it's slow. It's just easier to wait until they breach that 1 year mark.

But if it is genetically linked, then that makes a bit of sense to me. Some bloodlines would be one way, some another and others different yet.

I still wonder though, how much I'm imagining and how much is actually programed to happen.

...

Hopefully your colt certainly should (eventually) be able to ingest that much. He is a big boy. He's not quite fully grown and even now is eating more than his parents.

[Raikit]

I'll train them until their energy is nil (however long it takes or whatever training, like you, usually just stamina). But for the first 8 months, every other turn and certain foals, every turn, they can't eat enough to gain weight and fill their energy reserves. I had one foal quite some time ago that couldn't gain more energy than about 57% every turn until it... (he?) was about 7 months. It was... irritating.
But it could just be that they just can't ingest enough food for that (which I'm working on that secondary project about being big eaters).
At just over 1 year, I can stuff enough into their gullet to fulfill weight growth and energy refill. If I try to start early, I do get somewhere, but it's slow. It's just easier to wait until they breach that 1 year mark.

But if it is genetically linked, then that makes a bit of sense to me. Some bloodlines would be one way, some another and others different yet.

I still wonder though, how much I'm imagining and how much is actually programed to happen.

...

Hopefully your colt certainly should (eventually) be able to ingest that much. He is a big boy. He's not quite fully grown and even now is eating more than his parents.

I've never had a foal that had that much trouble from any of my bloodlines unless I kept them in the barn. I found that no matter what food they were on in the barn they wouldn't have enough energy (even if by all accounts they should have - more than 100% fed and not so much that it was more than their max) but that they could eat as much grass as they wanted and be completely content. If one of my pasture-kept ones was having trouble it usually meant that the pasture they were in was getting to sparse and I'd move them over.

And I'll keep an eye on him. Right now he has trouble eating a lot of any of the high-fiber foods.

[Raikit]

Update: I have the colt on 30% Alfalfa Cubes and 70% Performance Mix and he has been holding steady at even-tempered.

[BlackOak2]

Update: I have the colt on 30% Alfalfa Cubes and 70% Performance Mix and he has been holding steady at even-tempered.

Perfect!
I'll add these notes to my study for later.

[Nate]

I keep mine even-tempered at 35% alfalfa hay and 65% performance mix. They're of pretty average size, so its probably easier than if I had tinies or monsters.