In probably most, though I don’t know how much of a majority, of cases, feeding like this is more $$ for horses who need relatively significant calories beyond hay/grass.
The ration balancer serves as the base of nutrition (in addition to the hay/grass). That’s all well and good, and if that’s all the horse needs, perfect. If they need a little help in calories, a couple/3 pounds of 1000 cal/lb additions like beet pulp or alf pellets (not sure what the soy hull/beet pulp pellet has but probably pretty close) is nice and not that $$. Beyond that, and it’s almost always cheaper to feed the 4-6lb of a regular commercial feed instead, for the nutrition and calories.
That doesn’t mean it’s a bad way to feed, there’s nothing wrong with it. At wholesale, sure, it’s going to be pretty affordable. But feeding that way commercially generally isn’t cheaper.
I do think coconut oil is way over-hyped, but one of it’s benefits appears to be in the form that its fat is in, making it safer/healthier than most other saturated fats. At least, that’s the current word on the street But I agree, that seems an odd way to go about this, as whole flax, or flax oil, would be a much better way to get Omega 3 (as they just don’t need more Omega 6).
Scribbler, yes we actually do weigh the hay. We have been using a fish scale also, but the Purina rep gave me a handy little digital one that I already love. By this point I would say I have a pretty good feel of how many lbs I’m holding before putting in the hay net, but any time the size/weight of the flakes vary, we hang the net on the scale to be sure.
We have already upped the hay, and so far have simply returned to our program of choice. Interestingly, both horses appeared far more comfortable by this evening. We indeed plan to start here for the next 2-3 weeks while we research the best sources for the additional fats recommended.
The coconut and hemp oil, (along with most of the program) was actually recommended by Dr. Ober (USET’s show jumping vet). The coconut oil is a medium chain fatty acid, is antibacterial and antiviral, which particularly for the one horse will aid the immune system. It’s also easily digestible, and easily accessible to the horse for energy.
The hemp seed oil has the full balanced chains of Omega 3-6-9 in the right ratio, which makes it anti-inflammatory, and it also has GLA, which helps the hindgut and stomach.
Keep in mind this is already in addition to freshly ground flax, and the Renew Gold, which is a combo of Cool Stance coconut meal/rice bran/flax. We did try to bolster at one point with rice bran oil, but there was some imbalance reason that we stopped. Unfortunately it’s escaping me at the moment but for some reason I want to say maybe it was pushing the Omega 6 out of balance…?
BTW, thanks for the links! Very interesting table & info. I will run it past the nutritionists, as I have wondered about using flaxseed oil instead of the hemp seed.
[QUOTE=Scribbler;8463334]
A barn friend of mine has been hired to start up a new, stand-alone, SPCA horse facility for the region, just in time for the winter season. She’s pretty busy!
The local farmer’s co-op feed store/ feed mill is helping out by sending their nutritionist consultant and selling the SPCA feed at wholesale, which is terrific.
His feeding plan for the horses is based on good alfalfa and timothy hay, alfalfa cubes, a soy hull/beet pellet mix, and a ration balancer. He’s drawn up weekly feeding plans for the various horses, since you can’t just stuff a starving horse. The horses are doing well on this.
None of these horses are currently in work.
I found this interesting, as there are no end of commercial feeds manufactured by this mill. But he has gone with affordable basics.
My friend says the nutritionist is really enthusiastic about the project, and she has learned a lot from him. I’m pretty sure he’s the same person I talked to about my hay analysis last year, and he was very helpful.[/QUOTE]
Just wondering why the nutritionist is recommending supplementing with alfalfa cubes and a soy hull/beet pellet mix? If the horses are not in work, and a good quality alfalfa & timothy mixed hay is being fed at a rate of 2% of body weight or more, there should be more than enough calories to meet their needs.
I think this may depend on ingredients used in the regular commercial feed. If the commercial feed is using cereal grains or by-products of cereal grains as its primary source of energy to get caloric values >1300-1400, then yes it probably will be less $$$. I’d also be hesitant to feed 4-6 lbs of a regular commercial feed to a horse that may be locked up in a stall for >12 hours a day.
From what I see, the degree of supplementation that exists in the horse industry suggests to me that there is almost no such thing as a true commercial feed diet. Regardless of the class of feed, i.e. growth, performance, low carb, senior, etc… a very small percentage of horse owners feed as directed by the manufacturer for any number of reasons. I couldn’t begin to count the number of horse owners I’ve met that spend less than $30/month on horse feed, but will think nothing of spending $100 or more on supplements.
We have over 20 horses on the property. Everything from a couple of Minis, Quarter Horses, Appendix, and 17 hand Thoroughbreds. They range in age from 3 to 26 yrs of age. Some of them are ridden almost daily while others are retired. We keep our program simple by buying the best quality alfalfa/grass mix hay we can buy and feed a minimum 2% of body weight. We supplement with a forage/ration balancer and free choice loose salt & mineral. If we need additional calories, we supplement with a fiber/fat pellet I have made for us. In the last 13 years, no colic, no founder, no laminitis, no IR, no metabolic issues, no obese horses, no hard keepers, and no ulcers. Non of our boarders or us have had to spend any money on additional supplements.
A large group of horses at my barn switched to the exact feeding program that the OP is describing around April. The results were mixed. I didn’t feel like reading 80+ posts, so I don’t have all of the details to compare my case to yours. There are a few warmbloods that look like sausages on the whole food diet. Even in work, they have plenty of blubber. An Arab who is in his late 20’s is maintaining his weight better than he has in years on this diet. He is a “hard keeper” but something about this diet worked for him. And then there are a bunch of Thoroughbreds who are doing okay but not great. We feed raw flax and all of their coats are super shiny, so no complaints there. We feed rice bran pellets too, because adding oil is inconvenient. But some of them still need A LOT of food to keep a good weight. My TB did the worst of all the horses on that diet. It was embarrassing. I bet mine and the OP’s horses look pretty similar.
I put my horse back on Triple Crown Senior two months ago, and he is doing much better. Some horses need more fat than the whole foods diet can provide. He also has so much more energy now, and I feel bad, like for months and months I was depriving him of nutrients, when I should have just left him alone. I had been struggling to develop his top line for a while, and then all of a sudden in two months, he has a neck and a nice booty.
The SPCA horses are generally (but not always) underweight, so I assume the alfalfa cubes and the soy/beep mix give concentrated calories. I haven’t seen the feed charts (or the horses) so I don’t know the quantities fed.
As far as the costs of different diets, our barn is self-board. When I compare costs with barn friends, I’m paying a lot less total than those who use commercial feeds. The economics of feed pricing might be different here in Canada than in the US. Here there is less economy of scale for the feed companies, in both sourcing ingredients and sales, and everything is from fairly small local or regional mills.
I feed one complete vitamin/mineral supplement because I know that our local hay is very low in minerals, and the one I am using seems to have the most ingredients for the price.
Timothy and alfalfa hay are both about $500 a ton delivered around here this year. Local grass hay should be about $360 a ton, but the bales are lighter than advertised this year, putting it at least $420 a ton in reality. Still, the most affordable option is grass hay, with oats, alfalfa cubes, beet pulp, flax and a supplement.
My coach also feeds this at her boarding stables, and like Brian: no colic, no IR/founder/laminitis/metabolic issues, no issues generally, despite the rather scary sugar levels in our local hay. If one of the tbs needs a boost, she will feed a high-cal high-fat feed.
I’ve increased the alfalfa and beet pulp this past 6 months, partly in response to JB pointing out there wasn’t nearly enough lysine in my supplement and am seeing a lot more energy in my mare, which I wanted.
Triple Crown has a new soy-free corn-free pellet that is fixed formula. TC Naturals Pellet. It is based on alfalfa, oats, flax and flax oil. It has gut conditioners and an excellent amino acid profile as well as magnesium. at 5gm per 2.2 lbs.
I use this, uckele sport horse pellet, ground flax (TC Omega Max) and alfalfa pellets. I balance between the TC pellet and the the sport-horse pellet for minerals and extra amino acids, add flax and alfalfa pellets for fat and calories as needed. Right now I feed 2.2 lbs TC pellet, 1/2 lb flax, 4 oz sport horse and 2 lbs alfalfa pellets split into 2 feedings. The TC pellet is a new addition to my program which added so I could remove an extra Mag supplement and gut conditioners which I had been supplementing. The whole program costs about $65/month to feed. We also have pasture and round bales.
I did a Google on coconut oil. It’s true that the medium-chain saturated fat seems to digest differently than long-chain saturated fat. But to the extent that the medium chain fats are delivered to the liver for use as energy, rather than stored as fat, it seems an odd choice for weight gain. I don’t know how true this is; it is one of the scientific factoids picked up by the “Wonderfood!!” style websites.
The consensus from actual nutritionists is more guarded. They seem to be saying that it won’t kill you to use a little coconut oil for cooking, especially if it is a staple of your particular national cuisine. But they advise using it sparingly.
As far as hemp seed: well, I live in the epicenter of the “legalize marijuana” movement, as well as in a full-fledged narcoeconomy (seriously). And whatever the benefits of hemp as a food, or as a fabric, I’ve yet to come across anything promoting hemp that wasn’t an offshoot of an effort to legalize marijuana as a recreational drug. I don’t have a problem with legalization, but I am skeptical whenever people start making outsize claims about the health benefits of something as a back door to promoting it as a recreational drug.
Same as with red wine. Love it. But health benefits from red wine? You’ve got to be kidding.
Anyhow, I’d want to see actual scientific studies on hemp plus some longitudinal studies before I’d start eating it or feeding it. I’ve lived through so many fad diets, miracle foods, and then followup warnings and health scares, etc., that I’ve become quite conservative on nutrition, for me and my animal.
I wouldn’t blame that on a whole food diet, I’d blame it on just too many calories and/or too many sugars (assuming grains were part of the diet). You could fatten up many WBs just by giving them some alfalfa, or allowing them access to all you can eat hay or grass.
An Arab who is in his late 20’s is maintaining his weight better than he has in years on this diet. He is a “hard keeper” but something about this diet worked for him. And then there are a bunch of Thoroughbreds who are doing okay but not great. We feed raw flax and all of their coats are super shiny, so no complaints there. We feed rice bran pellets too, because adding oil is inconvenient. But some of them still need A LOT of food to keep a good weight. My TB did the worst of all the horses on that diet. It was embarrassing. I bet mine and the OP’s horses look pretty similar.
One thing about many “whole foods” (outside of hay) is that pound for pound they tend to be fewer calories, so it takes more weight of food, and sometimes more more volume, a LOT more volume, when you get into the lightweight feedstuffs like oats and beet pulp. This means it’s much harder to get enough calories in.
I think almost any horse can be fed a “whole food” diet and do well, IF you start with really, really good hay, but that’s not an option for most of us. You just run into issues if caloric needs are on the ends of the bell curve, as the lower calorie needs horses will have a harder time getting all their nutrition in, and the highest caloric needs horses might just not be able to eat enough food. But most in most of the middle could be maintained, even if it did cost an arm and a leg.
I put my horse back on Triple Crown Senior two months ago, and he is doing much better. Some horses need more fat than the whole foods diet can provide. He also has so much more energy now, and I feel bad, like for months and months I was depriving him of nutrients, when I should have just left him alone. I had been struggling to develop his top line for a while, and then all of a sudden in two months, he has a neck and a nice booty.
TC Sr is higher in fat, sure, but it really isn’t providing huge amounts of fat, and depending on your definition of “whole food diet”, you could probably get the same amount of fat in that way too
[QUOTE=Scribbler;8463882]The SPCA horses are generally (but not always) underweight, so I assume the alfalfa cubes and the soy/beep mix give concentrated calories. I haven’t seen the feed charts (or the horses) so I don’t know the quantities fed.
[/quote]
I’d assume that too, in addition to the alf and the soy providing protein and lysine which are often low in grasses
As far as the costs of different diets, our barn is self-board. When I compare costs with barn friends, I’m paying a lot less total than those who use commercial feeds. The economics of feed pricing might be different here in Canada than in the US. Here there is less economy of scale for the feed companies, in both sourcing ingredients and sales, and everything is from fairly small local or regional mills.
Could be. I’ve just done enough cost comparison with my own herd, and for other people, to know that using most decent commercial feeds, at even the lower recommended amounts, is cheaper than starting with a ration balancer and adding enough alf pellets/beet pulp/etc to make up the calorie difference, more or less. And it’s a lot cheaper than starting with a v/m supplement and then adding amino acids and some extra minerals and the extra calories, which is unfortunately where some people are in their quest to avoid allergens of soy and alfalfa, for example.
I switch 3 of mine to TC Sr (1) and a ration balancer (2) for the Winter because it’s the cheaper way to feed the calories they need. My easiest keeper has to stay on his handful of alf pellets, a v/m supplement, and Nutramino, which is more than the 5lb of TC Sr the one gets.
I’ve increased the alfalfa and beet pulp this past 6 months, partly in response to JB pointing out there wasn’t nearly enough lysine in my supplement and am seeing a lot more energy in my mare, which I wanted.
That’s great!
[QUOTE=Stacie;8464281]Triple Crown has a new soy-free corn-free pellet that is fixed formula. TC Naturals Pellet. It is based on alfalfa, oats, flax and flax oil. It has gut conditioners and an excellent amino acid profile as well as magnesium. at 5gm per 2.2 lbs.
[/quote]
The TC Naturals? It’s in the 25% NSC range IIRC, if that matters.
[QUOTE=Losgelassenheit;8450410]
I could, but quite frankly I’d be mortified. You are correct, they have lost just about every ounce of fat on their bodies. Top lines have withered away, hind ends more pronounced, ribs in your face.
Calories were indeed lower in the new diet, but the increase in forage/hay was supposed to fill in that gap rather than fat (or corn, or molasses…) if that makes sense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working, so we increased the ration slightly, but that is when I lost their brains. I wouldn’t say they continue to lose weight at this point. But they certainly aren’t gaining, or filling out the way we need them to.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Losgelassenheit;8450410]
I could, but quite frankly I’d be mortified. You are correct, they have lost just about every ounce of fat on their bodies. Top lines have withered away, hind ends more pronounced, ribs in your face.
Calories were indeed lower in the new diet, but the increase in forage/hay was supposed to fill in that gap rather than fat (or corn, or molasses…) if that makes sense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working, so we increased the ration slightly, but that is when I lost their brains. I wouldn’t say they continue to lose weight at this point. But they certainly aren’t gaining, or filling out the way we need them to.[/QUOTE]
why would the pony from SC want to go to this barn?
oh wait, chill rider has already preserved this post.
what about the old old thread about the horse with colic by OP?
OP, not sure if you have figured this situation out yet but I saw you said you had Seminole Wellness line available but hadn’t tried it yet. I had similar issues that you reported on Ultium but also, my TB mare had way too much excess, nervous energy on it. I switched over to Show n Sport and she settled down, summer sores on boarders gelding resolved, no more sun bleached manes and tails, etc. Not too long ago, Seminole came out with their Dynasport feed which has even less NSC than Show n Sport (9% vs 13%) and 14% fat vs 12% fat. Switched to that and both horses look amazing, mare settled down even more and coats and weight was great. My mare isn’t the easiest keeper and isn’t a huge fan of large amounts of grain. She just won’t eat it. So when I found out about Renew Gold, I tried it so I could reduce the volume of feed and still maintain weight but do more hay (when I tried it with just the Seminole feed by dropping to 1.25# twice a day for example and added hay, she didn’t maintain exactly where I wanted her). Plus my gelding is a head shaker and I liked that RG was GMO free etc so less chemicals for him. They have been on the Dynasport and RG for a little over a year and I am very pleased with the results. My geldings head shaking is rarely an issue, he is getting to the point where I will likely drop him to the lowest amoubt of Dynasport I can but keep the guaranteed analysis, and my mare is fantastic even at 22 years old. I can now put pasture blocks out of OnA (they were on peanut flakes) and have cut even my mares grain back a little more. The same horse that I tried to feed 10# split of Ultium to and she just wouldn’t eat it all but needed it to maintain weight is now getting her feed cut back even more. With the Dynasport, you may be able to feed just that and at still lower amounts than the Ultium or try it with the RG you are already feeding. I tried the oats, beet pulp, alfalfa cube and pellets, flax, etc diet and my horses just did not look good on it. I tried fat supplements, tri amino for the amino acids, etc and not until I went back to a bagged high quality feed and found the brand and line that worked best did they finally look good inside and out. But if you are still working on this and havent tried Seminole, I would def recommend it.
I can’t speak for others but my horse ( s) would rival the goodyear blimp. You are right though, my horses are positively glowing with good health. All due to abundant, good grass.
Mine are out from 7am to 4pm and that is about all they can take right now.
But I agree, that seems an odd way to go about this, as whole flax, or flax oil, would be a much better way to get Omega 3 (as they just don’t need more Omega 6).
Very interesting table & info. I will run it past the nutritionists, as I have wondered about using flaxseed oil instead of the hemp seed.