With the bag only weighing 3kg and being not much bigger than a bag of horse treats and the labelling saying that it would last 5 weeks I was sceptical to say the least. Having used balancers in the past and not thinking they had done anymore than me increasing the amount of feed fed I was even more sceptical.
Well here’s my dilema, having purchased a new horse in October 2016 who lacked condition and lustre all I wanted to do was give it huge buckets of feed four times a day. Not only does this cost you a small fortune it is totally impossible (as I work full time) but also feed storage is at a premium, and if you’re like me I value my time at the weekends to not want to have to fill my car with bags of feed for my new stead to munch his way through each week!
After having a conversation with the NAF representative and rolling my eyes at his claim of “the NAF Five Star Optiumum Feed Balancer will provide your horse everything it needs, stop the hard feed you are feeing and replace it with NAF Optimum along with some chaff or alfa” I thought okay I will give it a go.
So the packaging advises, for the size of my horse, to feed once scoop per day = 100g/130ml of the NAF Five Star Optimum Feed Balancer along with daily feed ration. As I had been advised to just feed with chaff or alfa I opted for Alfa. So with only a level scoop of Alfa and the NAF Five Star Optimum Feed Balancer, which has a pleasant minty smell that is not overpowering, I looked at the meagre offerings in his bucket and felt sorry for my poor horse. The poor lad will be starving after he’s had that. My horse also looked at the meagre offering I presented him with and gave me that look of “is that it”????
Well to my surprise he wasn’t starving nor was he banging his door and as eager to be fed at meal times like he had been, in fact I was only feeding him once a day. 1 x level scoop of Alfa with the NAF Five Star Optimum Feed Balancer. He slowly and steadly started to put on condition. Also the amount of droppings in his stable had decreased, if you don’t put a huge quantity in you’re not going to get a lot of quantity out. Everyone commented on how well he was starting to look and could not believe what I was feeding in terms of quantity. This horse stands at 16.3hh and was getting a lot less feed in quantity than his stable mates.
So I am converted, my monthly horse feed shop consists of a bag of Alfa and a handy size bag of NAF Five Star Optimum Feed Balancer. So are there any other benefits of this handy little bag? Well its easy to carry, you don’t need a lot of storage space and if you want to feed your horse in the field you just give them one handful as this will provide your horse with everything they need. Ideal also for my retired horse that is living out and will be going on it this winter. I cannot recommend NAF Optimum Balancer enough!
