horses nutrition

Question
Dear Goergie
I live in Afica and have 7 horses, 2 thoroughbred mares aged 15 and 17. I thoroughbred colt aged 3 and 4 ponies. The horses are all out to grass all day and are stabled at night. All horses are used primarily for hacking and are ridden about 3 hours a week each. The paddocks are 10 acres. I cannot get any commercail feed where I live so make up my own mix from foods that are available. I feed corn bran, rice bran, groundnut, green alfalfa 3 times a day and have a mineral lick containing mollasses, salt, ground lime stone and MCP in equal quantities avaialable for the horses to eat ad lib. I suspect that I am not feeding enough calcium and my thoroughbred mares are both a little on the thin side in spite of eating a 15l bucket of food 3 times a day. I would like to add ground limestone into their ration but am not sure at what ration I should be adding this. Please help
rgs Jenny

Answer
Hi
So you can't go out and buy grain right? Because if you could you should try sweet feed. But I dont think you can according to your message. If you have oats I would try feeding that to them. Maybe more alfa hay. Just try stuff that you think that would fatten them up. Just to let you know the throughbred breeds are usually skinny but I'm not quite sure how skinny your throughbreds are, try asking your local vet what he thinks. I hope I helped you. Good luck with you and your horses.