Review - Honeychop Natural Choice Alfalfa

I jumped at the chance to try out a bag of Honeychop to review. I was dying to try out the Alfalfa version they have, having tried 'Lite & Healthy' with success but finding I couldn't get her to eat any straw based feed alone before exercise I needed to try something else. I had recently made the change in her feed to Alfalfa without any molasses and I was having success most days in getting her to eat this however there was some days where she would just pick the nuts out of her feed and leave the rest. I really needed to find a feed she would happily eat a full scoop of, I was finding it super annoying with not only money lost when she didn't like something but also finding it so frustrating as the lack of grass in the field meant she was dropping weight as it was and really needed to be eating her full feed.

Silk checking out her new feed

Honeychop Natural Choice Alfalfa, free from molasses, is a non-heating low sugar, slow release fibre feed blend with alfalfa, timothy grass and oat straw. Coated with linseed and rapeseed oil Natural Choice Alfalfa is perfect for fuelling work and promoting condition which is just what I need for Silky stuff. Then came an extra bonus that not only will she eat a full scoop of it, she will also eat it alone!!! (😅) 

So my mind is now at ease when she has her scoop before exercise to help prevent ulcers but then she will also happily eat another scoop with her full feed & supplements after work.

The only negative thing I have found for Honeychop for myself, not in the feed itself but my feed store supplier doesn't let them know when it's not in stock so I'd ordered a bag ready for running out, went to collect it and it hadn't come in. So I had to go back to my molasses free alfalfa temporarily until they got stock back in, this sent me straight back into seeing half buckets of feed eaten and had me worried to the point that I ended up buying her some small bales of haylege to get the fibre into her. So now I order well in advance to prevent this happening.

Overall - I absolutely LOVE this feed. Hands down it's then best I've found since having Silk and trust me - we've been through an awful lot of different feeds to find the right one for this picky, sensitive and hard to keep girl 🤣 - just as well I love her!

Find out more about Honeychop HERE

Review - Horseware Horse Pal Sensor

The lovely people over at Horseware sent me their new Horse Pal Sensor to try out.  I had been looking at a similar item so I was over the moon to try this!  Coming packed in a lovely little box but with very little instructions I spent a few minutes watching a video and I was ready to go and attach it to Silks rug.

The sensor syncs with the app when near the sensor,  sometimes it was hard to connect up at my yard but I did always managed to get the results transferred.  You can connect other people to the sensor so if your horse is on full livery they can sync up and you can read the results from home.

So the concept is to make you more aware of just how warm/cold your horse is under their rugs,  monitoring temperature and humidity.  Let's face it, so many of us horse owners over rug however myself I thought I was a bit tight with rugs but this little sensor proved me wrong!  After about a week of using the app I eventually managed to get within the right temperatures for Silk to be classed as comfortable.  I had been following the apps guide which advised rug weights as per the weather and it was only when I went lower than this that I found the right weight for her.

But seriously who would have known to put a Thoroughbred in an 100g rug at minus 2.5degrees!   I'd only been putting her 100g liner under her 100g rug which to me is just a medium weight and that's what was suggested.   Just comes to show that each horse is different!

A screenshot of the readings from the app

The sensor I believe is still not available from the shops but will be around £60 which I think is an affordable amount for such a great item.  I only found one major negative for the sensor and that is that mine is currently in a waterlogged field somewhere,  the fasten to the rug just isn't strong enough.  I used the advised way to fasten it to the rug which was through the rugs lining with the ring clip but Silk managed to loose it twice!  Luckily the first time was in her stable so I managed to find it again but the second time being in the field it's long gone.  :(

Horseware Website