I have a new horse in training (OTTB) that just came in and has been getting fed a whopping 10 lbs of Purina Equine Senior per day. My horses are all on Blue Seal feeds. Some are on Blue Seal Sentinel LS. None of my horses get more than 4 lbs of BS LS.
This horse has been off the track for several years and has been in light work. I was trying to compare the two feeds. As far as analysis the LS is higher in fat and fiber and lower in protein, which is fine with me. The funny thing is that no where in my on line search can I find a list of ingredients for the Purina feed. It was easy to find the ingredients for the Blue Seal feed.
I guessing this means that Purina is using least-cost formulation? The first few ingredient on the tag that I ripped off is wheat middlings, then dried alfalfa meal, ground soybean hulls, corn germ meal, cane molasses, oat hulls. http://www.purinamills.com/horse-feed/products/equine-senior-horse-feed/
Well the BS is higher in fat and fiber and also has added probiotics. I’m not sure of the mcal of the Senior but I’m willing the bet the BS also has more calories per pound than the Senior. So you could probably feed less of the BS as well. Plus the BS is just a better quality feed IMO. It’s a no brainer for me, I have my boy on the Sentinel and he does fantastic on 6lbs a day.
What about the forage aspect? How much hay/pasture was the horse getting before, and what are you feeding?
It’s usually more convenient to just feed one feed to the barn, although not always possible. I think your discussion with the owner should also include the hay/pasture part, since that is the bulk of what is fed.
I find that if a tb is a good hay/grass eater, I can feed less concentrate. But they get free choice hay/pasture.
Almost any feed brand is better then purina,i go with the sentinel LS, or if you can get TC senior i’d do that. Although i got an entire load of TC senior that’s moldy 10 bags…
Yes, Purina almost exclusively uses a least-cost formula - you’ll see “products” or “by-products” listed.
If you’re referring to the Performance LS, that’s about 16% NSC. It’s hard to know about the Purina Sr, as it’s difficult to get a straight answer from them. At one point it was 22%, but some sources indicate it was reduced to 17%. Assuming that’s true, it’s about the same, BUT, I’d still much prefer a fixed formula product
[QUOTE=JB;8598085]
That’s a problem with the feed store, not TC :)[/QUOTE]
Most, if not all feed manufactures will have a code printed on either the tag or on the tape sewn at the bottom of the bag. The code will usually include the Julian date, Year, and shift when the feed was made. i.e. 60891 would mean the feed was made in 2016 on the 89th day (March 30th) during the first shift.
The order or sequence of information may vary by manufacturer. The easiest way to be certain is to call the manufacturer, give them the code and they can tell you when the feed was made.
I prefer a fixed nutrition product rather than a fixed formula as there can be considerable variation between the nutrient content of one batch of an ingredient and another. By going with a guaranteed nutrient content that is maintained by making minimal alterations to the exact content, the risk of deficiencies is decreased without increased risk of colic.
As for ingredients such as wheat middlings, soy hulls, etc. There is no issue with feeding these according to equine nutritionists. Neither is being a by-product necessarily a bad thing, after all beet pulp is a by-product. What is important is the digestibility and that it helps meet nutrient requirements.
You don’t mention the age or quality of teeth with this horse. If the prev. owner was feeding 10 lbs of Equine Senior, I’m betting that there is some dental issue or that age is affecting his ability to digest feeds.
I talked to a Blue Seal nutritionist at Equine Affaire last fall, because my b/o uses Sentinel Senior, and I was interested in the difference between that and Sentinel LS. LS does indeed have more fat and fiber, but it is also extruded like Senior, so the digestibility of LS is pretty much the same as Senior. B/O has always fed Blue Seal, considers it the best. I’d prefer to have him on LS, but she doesn’t seem to “get it” and if I buy it myself it will probably disappear, since our grain room isn’t particularly roomy for extra bags of feed.
After I figured out what was in Purina Cat Chow years ago, I stopped being a Purina customer.
[QUOTE=Ryle;8598296]
I prefer a fixed nutrition product rather than a fixed formula as there can be considerable variation between the nutrient content of one batch of an ingredient and another. By going with a guaranteed nutrient content that is maintained by making minimal alterations to the exact content, the risk of deficiencies is decreased without increased risk of colic.
As for ingredients such as wheat middlings, soy hulls, etc. There is no issue with feeding these according to equine nutritionists. Neither is being a by-product necessarily a bad thing, after all beet pulp is a by-product. What is important is the digestibility and that it helps meet nutrient requirements.
You don’t mention the age or quality of teeth with this horse. If the prev. owner was feeding 10 lbs of Equine Senior, I’m betting that there is some dental issue or that age is affecting his ability to digest feeds.[/QUOTE]
In theory, aren’t all feeds “fixed nutrition” products by virtue of the guaranteed analysis? The use of “specific terms” on the label as opposed to “collective terms” eliminates the possibility of interchanging oat hulls or rice hulls with beet pulp unless feed ingredient tags are reprinted. All three are “roughage products” (collective term), have crude fiber values, and yet all all three have varying degrees of digestibility by the horse.
I used to make the same bet as you in regards to the use of Senior feeds. However the longer I’m around horses and horse people, the more I believe Senior feeds may be the most “misfed” class of feed on the market.
I was under the impression that if Purina Senior was both feed and a forage replacement, one should feed in the neighborhood of 15 lbs per day for a 1000 lb horse. If the horse has access to and can eat forage, feeding Senior is not a very good idea because it’s formulated as a forage replacement and the numbers would be different.
Every feed I’ve seen with a fixed formula also has a guaranteed analysis/guaranteed nutrient content.
There isn’t any difference really, in that sense:
In the fixed formula which lists oats as the only grain, let’s say Oat Batch A has Y% lysine, but Batch B has only 90% to that lysine level. One can increase the amount of oats (not as likely, as that would too easily change the NSC), or one can increase the added lysine to make up the difference.
We still know it’s only oats, we still know it’s .07% lysine (or whatever).
In the least-cost formula, let’s say the cost of oats was too high this time, to the amount used was decreased, but barley was cheaper, to it was added to the formula when it wasn’t previously there, which is totally acceptable and legal since the ingredient list only says “grain products”. Even if the mixing of the 2 grains altered the GA on the label, they can still modify how much of the appropriate added nutrients they use to come out the same.
A fixed formula doesn’t mean they use exactly the same amount of every ingredient every time - it just means they don’t change what those ingredients are.
Being least-cost doesn’t inherently make a bad product. It just means you don’t know if suddenly this batch there is some added corn or alfalfa or other allergen that you have to stay away from (if that’s a concern). I don’t have that particular concern, most owners really don’t, but I want to know exactly what’s in the feed.
As for ingredients such as wheat middlings, soy hulls, etc. There is no issue with feeding these according to equine nutritionists. Neither is being a by-product necessarily a bad thing, after all beet pulp is a by-product. What is important is the digestibility and that it helps meet nutrient requirements.
Agree - by-products often get an automatic thumbs-down, but for me, I only do that if it doesn’t list exactly what that by-product is. I won’t use anything that just says “grain by-products” or “forage by-products”
Purina Sr, and many other feeds, is a “complete feed”, meaning it could be fed as the sole ration to horses not able to eat regular forage, for whatever reason. It has enough fiber to meet the bare minimum fiber requirements of a horse when fed in large amounts.
15lb (or more) is only for a horse who isn’t eating forage. That is not the amount fed to a horse getting normal forage rations.
TC Sr is a complete feed. Many Sr feeds are. Even some Growth feeds are.
I can’t speak for Purina. I can discuss Blue Seal Sentinel LS.
The old Vintage Senior became labeled as Sentinel LS. Then the manufacturer figured out how to strip more of the fat out of the distiller grains, so the fat content of the Sentinel LS dropped. The original Vintage Senior formula is now the Performance LS. We found this out when a horse who had been on the original Vintage Senior and then the Senintel LS for years began inexplicably to drop weight in the fall. A call to the company and a new somparison of ingredients cleared up the problem, the switch to Performance LS was made to get him back on his old formula, and the weight came back on over the winter. If you are looking at an extruded formula with the higher fat content, it is a good place to start. If extrusion is not a necessity, they aslo have an excellent product with the higher fat content called Dynasty.
The horse in question is 10 years old and was on 4-5 flakes of hay at night (not sure what kind of hay) and sparse winter pasture during the day. He was turned out by himself in view of other horses because he didn’t seem to get along or was running around too much with the other horses.
He came to me monday evening and was out with my mini-mules on tuesday with no problem and out with two of my geldings today, also with no problem–just gleeful frolicking.
He is getting 4 or 5 flakes of orchard grass/alfalfa hay at night.
I am starting to switch him over to the Blue Seal feed. I think he just needs a better feed. He will get his teeth looked at in the next couple weeks. We might check for Lyme. Not sure yet.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;8598630]
I was under the impression that if Purina Senior was both feed and a forage replacement, one should feed in the neighborhood of 15 lbs per day for a 1000 lb horse. If the horse has access to and can eat forage, feeding Senior is not a very good idea because it’s formulated as a forage replacement and the numbers would be different.[/QUOTE]
It should be fed according to the instructions on the label. It’s really not a forage replacement, but in some situations, it can do the job. I feed free choice hay/pasture, and then add the Senior feed within the amounts indicated on the label. I absolutely love it for my hat rack tbs that come in for r&r. They put on good muscle weight, their coats are shiny and their hoof quality improves. If I’m going to fork out good money for a feed product, I want the horses to extract every possible benefit from it. I think it’s a fabulous feed for a hard keeper or a horse that needs to gain weight.
[QUOTE=Palm Beach;8599612]
It should be fed according to the instructions on the label. It’s really not a forage replacement, but in some situations, it can do the job. I feed free choice hay/pasture, and then add the Senior feed within the amounts indicated on the label. I absolutely love it for my hat rack tbs that come in for r&r. They put on good muscle weight, their coats are shiny and their hoof quality improves. If I’m going to fork out good money for a feed product, I want the horses to extract every possible benefit from it. I think it’s a fabulous feed for a hard keeper or a horse that needs to gain weight.[/QUOTE]
The senior feeds can replace the forage part of diet,there are some senior horses who can’t eat hay. Maybe not the best option for forage replacement,but it will do if its only option.
You just have to feed enough to meet those forage requirement 15 + pounds a day,depending on the horse. Would be better to also have alfalfa cubes for a good part of forage replacement,so horse gets more chew time.
My feed store had a book comparing Purina and Blue Seal products and IIRC Ultium was most comparable to Sentinel LS. My horses were on Strategy but I wanted higher fat so switched briefly to Ultium and then Sentinel LS. It seems very comparable in terms of the amount I feed and their weight. The Sentinel pellets are larger and for a day or two one horse cared. Then he gave up. For my horses with basic needs I saw little difference between Ultium and Sentinel. I do prefer the fixed formula of Blue Seal.
