How useful a fibre source is to the horse in terms of weight gain or energy provision depends on its digestibility. There are many factors that affect digestibility including the type of plant, environmental conditions during growth and particularly the age of the plant when harvested. The more mature a plant is when it is harvested the more fibre it will contain and the less digestible it will be. Straw and late cut hay that feels coarse in the hand are examples of fibre sources with low digestibility. Whilst these types of fibre can be great for helping to manage the weight of good do-ers they won’t be as useful to the horse that needs to gain weight. Examples of fibre types with higher digestibility include early cut, soft leafy hay, haylage, grass, alfalfa and sugar beet. For horses that need to gain weight we should therefore focus on using these types of fibre. Dengie Alfa-A Oil which combines alfalfa with a rapeseed oil coating has as much energy as a conditioning mix/cube for example, but is based on entirely slow-release energy sources.