Dodson & Horrell Health Mash – 15kg

Dodson & Horrell Health Mash – 15kg

Health Mash is a wheatbran and beet pulp based mash that soaks ready in ten minutes and carries mint at 4.5%, echinacea at 1.8% and fennel at 0.9%, which is where the smell comes from. Warm water lifts the aroma, and it is usually the feed that gets a fussy or off-colour horse eating again.

Dodson & Horrell describe it as non-heating and suitable for most horses and ponies. It is worth knowing the numbers before assuming it is a low-starch feed: they declare starch at 15.5% and sugar at 5.0%, with digestible energy of 11.4MJ/kg.

Performance & Benefits

• Soaks ready in ten minutes with 200–250ml of water per 100g.
• Mint at 4.5%, echinacea at 1.8%, fennel at 0.9% and cinnamon at 0.1% give it a strong herbal aroma.
• Yeast products supplying MOS at 0.2% and FOS at 0.1%, plus psyllium at 0.1%.
• Crude fat at 7.5%, from vegetable oils and fats and linseed meal.
• Non-heating, in Dodson & Horrell's own description.
• A practical way of getting extra water, or a powder a horse refuses, into a feed.

Suitable For

• Fussy feeders and horses that have gone off their food.
• Getting water into a horse in cold weather or after hard work.
• Most adult horses and ponies in light to moderate work.
• Older horses that manage a soaked feed more comfortably than a dry one.
• Not a low-starch feed despite the mash format — at 15.5% starch, Dodson & Horrell's Safe & Sound suits a laminitis-prone pony far better.

Feeding

• Weigh the mash dry, before soaking.
• Add 200–250ml of water per 100g and soak for ten minutes.
• Feed 100–200g per 100kg bodyweight per day, alongside free access to forage.
• Do not exceed 300g per 100kg bodyweight per day in total.
• Make it up fresh at each feed and discard anything left standing.

Composition & Analysis

• Composition: wheatbran; dried (sugar) beet pulp; barley (flaked); grass meal; oatfeed; vegetable oils and fats; mint (4.5%); maize (micronised); wheatfeed; distiller's dark grains; peas; carrots (dried); echinacea (1.8%); sunflower seed meal, dehulled; soya (bean) meal (GM); fennel (0.9%); calcium carbonate; linseed meal; sodium chloride; yeast products (MOS 0.2% and FOS 0.1%); dicalcium phosphate; psyllium (0.1%); cinnamon (0.1%); blackcurrant; oregano; pomegranate; magnesium oxide; fructose; celery seed; dandelion; nettle; burdock root; and a mixture of blackcurrant, apple, pomegranate, rosemary, soya oil, rosehips and fenugreek.
• Crude protein 13.0%. Crude fat 7.5%. Crude fibre 12.0%. Crude ash 6.8%.
• Starch 15.5%. Sugar 5.0%. Sodium 0.18%.
• Digestible energy 11.4MJ/kg. Bag size 15kg.
• Earlier copy on this page carried a different ingredient list with different inclusion rates, and stated that the feed suited horses prone to gastric ulcers. Dodson & Horrell make no such claim, and both have been removed.

Care & Caution

• Always soak before feeding. A dry mash of this type is a choke risk.
• Starch at 15.5% means this is not a feed for a laminitic or insulin-dysregulated horse.
• Discard soaked mash that has been standing, particularly in warm weather.