I would love some reviews. I feed Nutrena but it took a while to find the ingredient list and had no idea it had so much soy and sugar (molasses). I think my ulcer prone horse would do better on something with less sugar. The triple crown has no soy or sugar.
Nutrena is a brand. Some of their feeds are high NSC, others not so much. What does “so much” sugar mean to you? If you don’like many of the Nutrena feeds, you might not like TC Naturals at 20%.
If you are choosing to avoid soy (what does “so much” mean here?), or the horse is allergic then Naturals is a place to start, if you don’t mind 20% NSC
So yes, Naturals DOES have sugar. Its 3rd ingredient is oats - 50% sugar. Alfalfa has sugar. Most main ingredients have some sugar.
Compare to TC Sr - contains molasses, but only 11.7% NSC.
So, what are you actually trying to accomplish? That will help choose a feed you like better.
2 Likes
Ulcers have nothing to do with soy. You should be keeping roughage in front of the horse 24/7, which is your best defense against ulcers. Don’t buy into the “soy allergy” hype. Horses commonly don’t have food allergies.
And it’s worth noting that “Triple Crown Naturals” is also a brand, or rather a line of products:
https://www.triplecrownfeed.com/naturals/
The pelleted feed is one product out of several that carry the label.
1 Like
Never say never. But regardless, she didn’t say it did 
You are correct - I sort of assumed that the context meant we were talking about the pelleted feed.
My gelding ate TC Naturals Pellets until about 6 weeks ago. He has a soy allergy (breaks out in hives with too much soy) and it was the only complete grain we could find for him. Unfortunately he is having ulcer problems so he’s now on a forage only diet. I don’t know if it’s the ulcer treatment or diet change but he’s finally filling out (he’s a hard keeping TB). My vet looked at the grain and wasn’t thrilled with the NSC for my horse so we will be staying on a forage diet.
1 Like
Horses rarely have food allergies. Unless you are feeding straight soy, and were able to increase/decrease the level of soy with the hives appearing at a specific level, you honestly do not know what caused the hives. If you are feeding a product that contains soy, check the list of ingredients and then explain why you think it is soy and not one of the other ingredients.
Must be my bad luck…this is not my first horse with food allergies. I’ve been through allergy testing and I’ve been through elimination of diet, topical products, and environmental - all with my vet onboard. My current gelding is a horse that was on a high soy diet (grain+oil) and was suffering from severe hives. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to taper off dex we tried the elimination first with environmental control and eventually diet control. Diet is the only thing that controlled the hives and allowed us to taper and stop dex. He was definitely more severe and complex to figure out than my previous horse who tested high positive for his allergies, but diet control works so we stick with it. I still keep dex on hand, but I read everything he consumes and so far haven’t had anymore issues. He is by far the scariest case of hives I’ve dealt with as at one point they were starting to impact respiratory.
Strange, most people feed roughage based diets. I’ve never heard of a high soy diet. I’d consider a concentrate that is over 12% protein on the high side, and most feeds have multiple sources of protein, plus dozens of other ingredients.
I feed my IR pony TC naturals Timothy balance cubes exclusively. I like the product and so does she!
I feed the TC Naturals pellets. My horses are doing amazingly well while on them. I do not know if it is coincidental, but I have owned my horses since their birth and I have lived at my farm for 20+ years. Two of my mares used to have hard tight muscles, and muscle trembling, and one of my mares went through a period where she was covered in protein bumps. One of my mares had chronic colics, and all of my horses had much more incidence of colic than normal, despite religious care with tons of turnout and hay fed four times per day. I did not do allergy testing but I did test my well water, hay, and selenium levels. I tried supplementing with magnesium, vitamin e, hoof supplements. Nothing really helped. After I started feeding the naturals these problems have all gone away. The mares are doing great. The colics have stopped (knock wood). I have used the same hay grower all along.
I do not know if the feed change and improvement in my horses is coincidental or causational, but I am not going back. I suspect they might be sensitive to some chemical in the old feed or possibly the soy. When doing some research I was interested to see that soy causes intestinal inflammation in many fish species. I know fishes and horses are not the same, but it was interesting nonetheless. For example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3720926/ The geldings are on ultium but I use the gastric version because a few of them are prone to ulcers. I do wonder if they need the antacid to counteract the gastric irritation from soy (?).
I am tempted to just feed oats and alfalfa pellets because I think that is even more natural and affordable, but the pellets are easy and the horses like them better.
I feed Triple Crown Naturals to my soy allergic mare (her hair fell out in patches, she was bloated all the time). She does really well on it. (And for those who have had this issue, it took about 3 or 4 months to get her to normal). Yes, it has some NSC in it, less compared to lots of feeds, but she only gets 4 cups a.m. and 4 cups p.m. I balance her vitamins/minerals with Omega Grande. I really like Triple Crown feeds. I like that their minerals are organic and the ingredients are not byproducts. If your horse is used to a lot of molasses in the feed, they probably won’t like this though.
1 Like
Wheat middlings is the second ingredient. And you do understand what an organic mineral is, right?
Is this a trick question? Organic=more bioavailable because bonded to a carbon molecule. You are right about the wheat middlings…still would rather have that than soy…humans also eat wheat midds (durham semolina, used for pasta, is a middling).
2 Likes
