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2 year old and feed

Sorry I’m back :sweat_smile:. I recently switched my 2 year old quarter horse who is 15.3/16 hands and prolly mature to 16.2/3 ish and 1400 lbs maybe (he is a halter horse but i of course don’t feed him up) he is pssm1. But I recently switched him to California trace plus last Thursday from being on Vermont blend for 5 months bc it was just to hard to get him to eat the Vermont blend even split up serving. He eats the California trace plus with no issue. I was recently told from dr kellon (don’t know if anyone knows her, she’s big in the metabolic ir world) that I need to feed something like tc30 and still feed ctp because calcium in ctp isn’t enough for a growing horse. Now I haven’t feed anything besides Vermont blend flax vit e salt in alfalfa pellets or Timothy pellets with free choice grass hay not tested, since I got him in October. I’m wondering if I really should add tc30 or just say feed 3 lbs of alfalfa pellets which his meal. He gets feed am and pm and always with free choice grass hay in a hay chix net.

FWIW, VB Pro is half the serving size of VB, if that makes a difference for the future.

Dr K is mostly right, but without a forage analysis it can’t be definitively stated.

A horse your age and expected mature weight needs around 47gm Ca

Grass hay averages .47% Ca, so if he’s eating 15lb means 32gm total. So just based on an average grass hay, Dr K is right.

TC 30 is min 4% Ca, which is min 18gm Ca per pound. For a horse your size you should be feeding at least 1.5lb if not 2. So that’s and additional 27-36gm Ca.

For that reason, I WOULD use a ration balancer for any horse still growing

Alfalfa cubes average 1.5% Ca, pellets are probably very similar, as that’s very similar to regular alfalfa hay in general, that’s 20gm Ca in 3lb. Is that enough? Without YOUR forage analysis it’s not possible to say. If your hay is average then yes, it’s enough Lots of grasses are much lower than .47%, so maybe not.

Ration balancers just make it much easier/safer for growing horses.

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K. Thank you. Yes it’s hard to know without testing hay but surly not every one does with a growing horse so I can’t be the only one! Idk how much be eats tho bc I just fill a big net full last 2-3 days before I need to refill if. I stuff it bc we feed off a grass round being not many ppl make little squares around here anymore and we are buy one round at a time until we make ours. We will be making some grass hay here if it ever grows enough so i will test that batch but that’s who knows when. I feel a bit worried working up to 1.5/2 lbs tc30 and California trace plus on top of it but maybe it won’t be a big deal. Being she said to keep the ctp for the copper and zinc. I do have just plain copper zinc here from California trace I could use instead of ctp but then I have all this ctp being I just started him on it after I finally finished Vermont blend. I did start him on tc30 when she said it. So he has been on 1/2 lb of it since Sunday night. Working up to correct amount obviously.

You’re right, probably most don’t test, but that’s why you hedge your bets to help ensure you’re well-meeting the requirements, especially of the growing horse who has higher nutritional needs relative to his body weight, more like his adult self, but who isn’t eating the amount of forage his adult self will be

You can use a bathroom scale to find out how much a full net weighs to get a rough idea.

I would not add a full serving of CT P on top of the required amount of TC 30. 1/2 serving (2oz) at most. At 1.5-2lb of TC 30, there’s no need for another 300mg and 750mg cu/zn.

1.5-2lb TC 30 is providing 163-272mg Cu and 680-909mg Zn, and his needs right now are around 136mg Cu and 436mg Zn.

You can plug his stats into this NRC online doc to see what his requirements are. You can input diet details you know for sure, and see where things are low, but as you can see, 1.5-2lb of TC 30 is supplying most or all of many nutrients already
Nutrient Requirements of Horses - Working Doc (nationalacademies.org)

Dang. Maybe I should just stop the ctp then

That’s what I would do. It will last a long time, so in another year or so you can start swapping back if you want.