What do ya’ll add to your feed (that’s not grain) to help with weight gain/management? Interested to see the ways people add fat/calories to their horses diets without increasing grain rations.
My go-to is alfalfa, but if you’re talking about something in a bucket, I use a lot of oil.
Another option is to switch to a higher calorie grain. You often don’t have to increase the poundage to increase the calories–going from 1100 kcal/lb to 1800 kcal/lb can make a difference.
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Increase hay, add Alfalfa and/or oil.
Empower Boost.
I like Cool Calories a lot
I’ve found a more generic bag of dried vegetable fat at the feed store which is more cost effective but it isn’t as palatable as the Cool Calories
We use Envision, which is a fat supplement from Progressive.
Switch feed to Purina Ultium, same amount as the old. Guaranteed more calories for the same amount of feed.
I like using canola oil and rice bran to put weight on. I was using a generic form of weight booster which the horses ate readily but it wasn’t very cost effective.
If you can add more or better hay, that is almost always the best option for the horse and your wallet.
What are you feeding (brands and amounts) now?
Switching from a low quality feed to a high quality feed is sometimes all it takes.
I’ve seen others have really good results with a quality senior feed, or addition of oil or rice bran.
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All you can eat hay that’s high quality for a start.
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What’s the current diet situation? What might be a reasonable suggestion for a horse who is currently only getting decent quality hay, might not be reasonable for a horse who’s maxed out at 5lb of feed and can only be fed once a day, might not be reasonable
What is your definition of “grain”?
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TL/DR: veg oil is the most calorie dense feed.
Generally, all else being equal (teeth, worm load, warmth, sufficient hay, other health issues like ulcers etc, and exercise level relative to diet) you’re looking at adding calorie-dense feeds.
Here are some calorie amounts of various high fat feeds. Some are quite variable - rice bran is all over the place for example. Check your bags, and check my math too 
Fat has 9 calories per gram, protein and carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram, and you can add about 2 calories per gram for the fiber. There are 453.6 grams per pound, and you can use that to figure out roughly how many calories per pound.
Feeds:
Purina Athlete 1,900kcal
Purina Ultium Competition = 1900 kcal/pound
Purina Ultium Growth = 1700 kcal/pound
Blue Seal Omegatin 1800 kcal/pound
High fat supplements:
Buckeye Ultimate Finish 100: 3,900 kcal/pound
Buckeye Ultimate Finish 40: 2,050 kcal/pound
Amplify 2000 kcal/pound
Nutrena Empower Boost: 1773kcal/pound
BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) = 2600 kcal/pound
Rice bran (crude) @ 20% fat = 1450 kcal/pound
Whole flax = 2400 kcal/pound
1 cup veg oil @ 100% fat = 2000 kcal
Of course you can only feed so much fat before your horse gets diarrhea, and only so many carbs before they become explosive and use more energy bouncing around than they store as fat Usually people don’t feed more than 1/2 a pound of rice bran, BOSS or flax.
Many other weight gain supplements are really based around adding nutritional support so horses can better digest what they’re eating, and have relatively little calories in them.
And of course price comes into play. I find canola oil is the cheapest way to get calories in per pound, and the highest in calories for the volume, as well as being consistent with a low NSC PSSM diet and preventing rocket rides
Another way to adjust and calculate calories going in is a membership to FeedXL.com. It can calculate the digestible energy (in calories) for your entire feed program, or you can enter one feed at a time and see the calories for only that specific item. They have a very long list of feeds in their database.
Most premium feeds are roughage based and don’t have much “grain” in them. For weight gain, I let them have access to 24/7 pasture and hay, and feed Triple Crown Senior.
If you are interested in rice bran, Manna Pro has a $5 off coupon on their website and tractor supply has the meal on sale. I got a 40lb bag for around $18 and should last a while. I’m just adding a cup for the winter.
Your question is very vague but I generally start with free choice pasture and/or grass hay plus 3-5 lbs alfalfa per day. If they aren’t maintaining with that plus their token amount of grain to hold supplements & vit/mins, then I actually do prefer to add a high calorie feed rather than a bit of this/ bit of that in supplements. I personally like Ultium or TC Senior
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