I’ve been feeding safechoice for a few years now, and have seen a uniform feed for all those years. This bag I have now, I’m pulling safechoice chunks out of what I scoop to feed and seeing longer, more brown colored and glossy pellets (I assume a different feed, or safechoice that skipped a step or two in production?) mixed in.
Seems peculiar to me that after the years of consistency.
My understanding in regards to Nutrena is that they do not use a fixed formula. Meaning, ingredients can vary bag to bag. It was one reason I will not feed it, though it is insanely popular in my area.
Have had this happen-
Several times.
Have had icky stuff in bags too.
Switched to different brand.
Now switching of grain altogether
sigh Safechoice is what my vet said I could put to the two metabolic girls on, and is the only “safe starch” type feed locally available. Looks like I need to start looking into a new program. Anyone have one to recommend?
Also, maybe an email to Nutrena with big words such as “quality control” and “dissatisfied customer” is in order?
[QUOTE=Amchara;4362996]
sigh Safechoice is what my vet said I could put to the two metabolic girls on, and is the only “safe starch” type feed locally available. Looks like I need to start looking into a new program. Anyone have one to recommend?
Also, maybe an email to Nutrena with big words such as “quality control” and “dissatisfied customer” is in order?[/QUOTE]
Vets kill me with all their support of Nutrena. What is the deal with that.
Safe Choice is actually not safe at all for metabolic horses, if I remember correctly the NSC values are in the high 20% range.
A ration balancer may be the way to go for your two. Also Triple Crown is notoriously low in NSC and has a lite and low starch version. Blue Seal makes Carb Guard which is a pellet and also Performance L/S which is an extruded feed.
Anyway good luck! Lots choices out there aside from Nutrena.
Actually Safe Choice is/was advertised by Nutrena as being exactly formulated by the label. No generic terms that allow them to substitute. I’ve been feeding it for years, and have never had any thing but gray looking pellets.
I’d contact the Nutrena people about what might be a bad batch. You can ask then if the formula is still consistent.
If you do get in touch with the Nutrena folks, would you mind posting their response?
I got on to the website and sent a short, to the point email: I’m feeding this feed because; I’ve noticed this; could you explain what the cause is; it makes me wonder about quality control. With all of the feed issues I’ve read/heard of (I also noticed Nutrena did not take part in the HorseJournal feed survey, raises eyebrows), I’m not exactly worried about coming off as a bit abrasive if it gets me a response. If I get a response, I will post it.
FlashGordon-I appreciate the suggestions, unfortunately the feeds you mentioned aren’t even available in my state. I can however get LMF, they have a low NSC feed that is lower than 11%, similar to the carb-guard. I’ve emailed a local dealer for availability before I drive out there. Also like the look of LMF gentle balance for my light worked TB mare.
Grey pellets? Hmm, mine are usually a desert sand color.
[QUOTE=Amchara;4363430]
Grey pellets? Hmm, mine are usually a desert sand color.[/QUOTE]
“desert sand” is how I’d describe the Safe Choice I feed … I’m on the fence abt it, know it’s higher NSC than I like, but I only give token feeds so it’s working at this point …
Tarn in OK
I haven’t had any problems with SafeChoice. I’ve been feeding it for years to my IR horses and all of my horses. I tried several LMF products but all my horses literally spit it out and wouldn’t eat it; feed store refunded my money. All my guys love their SafeChoice.
picture
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v692/Shurrayah/?action=view¤t=safechoicechunks.jpg
top- normal safechoice
left-mystery added feed
right-chunks
We get the ocassional “mystery added feed” pellet and I always have just assumed they missed a step in the processing. The chunks scare me a little, never seen those before and wouldn’t feed them if it were me.
I also have fed this for several years, and I have seen the longer darker, “uncut” pellets here and there, I think they may be the parts along the edge of the grain material when it is mashed out and cut into little pellets. They don’t bother me.
Those chunks, however, concern me. They look like that particular bag got wet somewhere-factory, transport, or feed store, and some pellets turned into chunks, OR, at the mill a build up of pellet material on the edge of machinery somewhere broke off, and got down into the bag.
I would not feed from that bag, might be some mold, or nasty things in those chunks.
My pellets are always a desert sand color, too.
I asked a friend down the road about their safechoice, they’ve had no problems, and said I should talk to our feed store people, which I will do tomorrow, in person, with mystery chunks in toe. I’ll also discontinue this bag and get some from my friends, hopefully the feed can be reimbursed by my feed store.
The chunks look like feed that has been wet and has molded and clumped together. Of course, if they are completely dry, they could be some of the batter that didn’t get through the pelleting process but got dried along with the pellets.
Call Nutrena nd tell them about it, and bring the bag back to your feed store for credit on a new bag.
We used Safechoice. For years it worked well. Then it started looking like that, and didn’t work well at all. Now we use carb guard.
Well lately my mini has been NQR, and durtodur, I didn’t think it could be the feed. Definately go get a different bag!
Gray pellets? Desert sandy colored pellets? I fed SC a while back and seems like they were greenish colored, not quite alfalfa-pellet green colored. WTH? 
Personally, I didn’t like the feed and went back to my old basic feed, which is neither here nor there about this post. Wondering about the array of colors for SC feeds.
Where exactly are you, Amchara? I ask because my feed store (Monroe Farm & Feed) has recently started carrying Triple Crown. Could be a trend… and/or perhaps you could get your feed store to start carrying it.
LMF Low Carb Stage 1. I feed it to my 5 year old TB because he is allergic to corn and oats and it has no grain in it or molasses, it does have soy hulls, beet, and forage in it. He eats it and likes it, but not as much as he likes his beet mush and rice bran pellets he gets later in the day.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;4363322]
Actually Safe Choice is/was advertised by Nutrena as being exactly formulated by the label. No generic terms that allow them to substitute. I’ve been feeding it for years, and have never had any thing but gray looking pellets.
I’d contact the Nutrena people about what might be a bad batch. You can ask then if the formula is still consistent.
If you do get in touch with the Nutrena folks, would you mind posting their response?[/QUOTE]
Safe choice does not have a fixed formula. We even have a thread here on it where many of us who were feeding it all checked our labels and many of us had different ingredients. I had five labels here that were all different over a two month period. They substitute ingredients all the time but they still all add up to the guaranteed analysis. I don’t like that and stopped feeding it, I switched to Blue Seal Carb Guard. Blue SEal does have fixed formula feeds and much lower NSC. Safe Choice is 26 where carb guard is guaranteed below 11%.
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