Pregnant mare feed

[gotkiger]

I have a 13 year old Kiger mare who is pregnant with her second foal. She is a super easy keeper to begin with. When she was bred someone told me to give her Safe Choice by Nutrina according to the bag for fetal development. While she was away being bred she was put in a 12x12 stall and fed good alfalfa for 2 months and was not taken out once. This would have been fine but I am still having trouble maintaining her weight. She looks pregnant and she is only two months pregnant. I have free access to good alfalfa so that is normally what i feed during the summer when the flies and mosquitos are out as they aren't as bad in the corrals but are super bad in the pasture. But during the winter and colder months i turn her out into the pasture.

Is there a better pregnancy supplement to give her that is "low fat" or does she even need it at all? And should i invest in a different hay and get her away from the alfalfa.

This is my first pregnancy (not foal) so I am not quite sure what i should be doing for her.

Oh and with the alfalfa as I have two horses in the corrals (two corrals, 1 75'x105', 1 75'x75' joined together in the middle and both are open), I take a few flakes out and break them apart and spread it around so they have to find it.

Also my mare had low progesterone at the beginning of her pregnancy so she was receiving regumate in a bran mash (she loves her bran mash but i give her very little or what i consider very little, 2 cups dry bran then add water and a little molasses.)

Thanks

[sbutter]

Just double checking, is the alfalfa your feeding the same that the dairy cows get? Because that grade of alfalfa is too rich for horses. All of our broodmares are on platinum performance. We tried it out a couple of years ago and all of our horses blossomed. We also noticed that foaling out was a lot easier for the mares and the only thing that we had changed was the platinum. We had one older mare that was always miserable right before foaling, but since the platinum she has had no problems.

As far as regumate goes (we have had to deal with it a lot with the Thoroughbreds), you can always retest and see if she still needs it, some mares have problems holding on to their pregnancy in the very beginning, but then their bodies catch up and produce enough.

[gotkiger]

She gets retested today for her progesterone and to check to make sure she still has the foal. The hay is the same as the dairy cows but it is the dry cow hay which is a lesser quality then the milk cow, not as rich. I have actually bought a few bales of alfalfa for horses and they were better then this stuff. As my husband says, to good to waste on a horse. I will be taking in a sample to the vet today and then to where ever they send me with it.