Was talking to a fellow boarder, we were discussing feed. The question is: Have others here had Ultium make their horses hot, unfocused or spooky? Boarder’s (new) horse is young, in modest work and has shown more misbehavior in the several weeks it has been at our barn. Am familiar with another, 7ish who was switched from ration balancer to Ultium as he has been working harder. Also seems to be a bit spookier, more reactive. No other changes except that we are getting a smidge of grass growth down here in Fla.
Ultium is a very calorie dense feed at 1900kcal/pound. It’s not a stretch to imagine that a jump from a ration balancer (concentrated nutrition with minimal calories) to Ultium would potentially cause excessive energy that would result in spooking, reactivity, etc. I switched my 5yo Thoroughbred from Seminole Wellness Dynasport to Ultium and didn’t notice any changes in behavior or attitude. What feed did they switch from?
That said, if the horse is new to the facility, under new ownership - is it also changing training programs/turnout schedules/workload? The feed is a good thing to check but I wonder if it might not be the only factor at play.
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How much balancer, and how much Ultium?
As Amy said, the minimum feed rates of each makes for pretty significant jump in calories.
What “misbehavior” is he doing? How old is he?
In the case of the younger horse, yes, there are lots of things that have changed (he’s 4 I think) and came from Europe. New owner is trying to untangle what is “him” vs what might be related to change. We just happened to be talking about feed as one of the possibilities.
In the second case, (the older one), the Purina rep had mentioned that it could make him a bit hot; that situation being evaluated. This on has less moving parts and just came up in the last few weeks.
It’s easy enough to test if a given feed is causing a problem. Just cut out the feed cold turkey and go straight hay for a week. Then you have your answer.
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Any horse can react to any feed. My young horse was on Ultium ( 4 pounds) when I brought him home. He was sweet and calm.
My dealer couldn’t get it fast enough so I switched him to Impact and he did wonderful on it but he became extremely mouthy, a bit unfocused and quite excitable over time.
I put him on just a RB and noticed a huge difference in about a week. He was losing his bloom on the 3 lbs of RB , so I switched him to Strategy Healthy Edge( 4 lbs) and not only has he gotten his bloom back , he is sweet and quiet as well.
Sometimes they do react when no one else’s horse does.
No problems with my young horses on Ultium. It is a high fat feed which should actually calm them down. A high sugar or carb feed would make one sillier.
