I was reading old threads and saw that people preferred Triple Crown products. Do we still? I know they had some changes in the mills (or something).
Input is welcome, I’m taking over a boarding barn and all are on Purina Senior right now. I’ve fed a little bit of everything through the years, but currently evaluating what will become my barn feed.
I have been feeding ProElite Senior for about a year now. The barn I board at had most of their horses, and a few other boarders all on Purina Equine Senior. In the last month, they made the switch and put them all on ProElite Senior instead. It makes them bloom! All ages do well on it (of course not weanling/yearlings) and you need to feed less of it than the Purina. Without looking at each tag, I recall that the fat in Purina is 7% and in ProElite it is 11%. Really boosts their toplines.
I only recently switched my mini to TC Sr on vet’s recommendation after a near-founder episode.
He’s not a Sr, turns 7 this month, but he’s in great shape on 1 cup 2X daily (with Thyro-L).
For a horse, I’d think consumption could make it a pricy feed.
IIWM, I’d compare the ingredients & nutrition in both brands & decide which was more economical.
I’m considering a switch to the TSC Sr feed after doing the above research.
Oh anything I do I’ll be researching further for sure, I just wanted a place to start and to hear why people like what they like at present.
The horses at this barn are mostly elderly, but my guys and a young guy will be going there, as well as steadily moving the needle to a younger equine crowd so I do need to have a range. I believe in a very forage-first approach, so I’m looking for something that also has a range that includes some chaff/forages, and so far TC is the only brand I see (initial glances) that really has that as an offering.
Triple Crown is still a very solid, high quality feed option, and the mill change hasn’t altered that, no 
I feed Purina Enrich as mine are easy keepers. I used to feed Triple Crown but pony wasn’t finishing his feed and would be obese on minimal amounts of the senior.
Nothing wrong with TC senior but if your not feeding minimal amounts, you are better off feeding a ration balancer and adding beet pulp if needed.
I’ve also feed Tribute, Legends, and Pro-elite. Nothing wrong with any of them, Purina is just easiest to get and always fresh at my feed store
There really are a lot of high quality brands with high quality feeds out there. TC is one of them. Tribute has recently improved their nutrient profiles, increased them a bit, closer to TC, so they are an option as well. TC is for sure made in ionophore-free mills. Tribute is allegedly made in one
ProElite is made by Cargill and while some of their equine feeds are made in ionophore-free mills, not all are, so if that’s a big concern for you, find out where your PE is made
I’d choose TC Sr over Purina Sr any day simply because of the sugar and starch. That doesn’t mean all horses will do well on it, but if you’re considering a change, it’s a change I personally would make
Depending on how much each horses gets, you may need TC LIte and/or TC Balancer.
I switched to TC (senior for the teenage Morgans and then the Growth & Balancer for my yearling Morgan) and have been super happy with it. Originally the switch was for the lower NSC but even discounting that, I’d stick with it.
I really like TC Senior Gold. I switched my gelding from the original (Tc senior) to the Gold a few months ago and he has bloomed on it, as has a couple other horses at my barn. It’s only $4 more per bag, which well worth it to me
I’ve been pleased with Triple Crown, Poulin, and ProElite. My horses are in a barn with a sponsored trainer, so they’re currently eating ProElite and look great on it. I used to feed a lot of TCS, but I’ve trended towards purchasing fatter horses (lol) and don’t have any that can eat so much anymore.
I spent quite a bit of time on the Purina website recently. I moved to another barn and the BO uses it, and quite a few vets recommend it. I’ve been using Blue Seal Sentinel LS for years for my 27 y.o. gelding. it’s appropriate for senior horses and hard keepers. High Fat, high fiber, low carbs, extruded the same as the senior formula. It is manufactured in Vermont (we are in Maine), sometimes in New York. I was looking for a reason to change so i didn’t have to buy my own grain. I didn’t find one. In fact, there are a few things that I don’t like.
There are two Purina senior formulas. Equine Senior Active is the original Purina senior formula. Senior Active is performance, concentrate, pelleted. Senior is Special Needs, complete, pelleted and extruded. The complete feed has hay included so it can be substituted when the horse can’t chew enough hay. The concentrate can be used if the horse can eat enough hay.
What didn’t i like?
No list of ingredients on the website. I looked at bags in the grain room, they used a tag.
Senior products are either all pelleted or a combination of pelleted and extruded.
Purina website: “Your horse has nutrient requirements to feel, look and perform his best – not ingredient requirements. As a result, it’s important to pay close attention to what nutrients are in your horse’s feed and where those nutrients are s…”
“Least-cost” formulations allow a manufacturer to adjust and even switch out ingredients based on cost if the formula still meets the guaranteed analysis."
“However, changing ingredients can dramatically change how the diet affects the horse.”
“Let’s look at soybean meal and cottonseed meal. These two ingredients have similar crude protein levels, but cottonseed meal doesn’t provide the same quality of protein (i.e. amino acid composition) to support growth as soybean meal.”
“We make very small adjustments in the amounts of ingredients utilized in the formula to maintain consistent nutrient concentrations in the finished product.”
I haven’t figured out how they can say they make small adjustments in ingredients to guarantee nutrients for their complete/concentrates products. A manufacturer using “least cost” can make small changes in ingredients based on cost as long as they meet the guaranteed analysis for nutrients.
Blue Seal has a list of ingredients on the bag and the website. If they decide to change a recipe the ingredients list and the new bags are required before it goes on the shelf.
I understood that extruded products are easier to chew and digest than pelleted products. That makes me wonder if Purina manufactures common parts of several formulas as pellets and mixes them into several different products.
Blue Seal marked 150 years manufacturing grain in New England a couple of years ago. Kent Nutrition Group comprises Kent and Blue Seal. Not quite small and local, but I’ll take regional organizations who can tell me where the product is manufactured. What’s in the bag is on the bag.
The biggest hump with Purina in my experience was back in the 70s. I was feeding Purina Cat Chow to my kitty and he was always throwing up. It was the grain swelling up after he ate it and there wasn’t enough room in his stomach.
I am not a part of the “we”. I always feed Purina. If it is working well for the horses you are feeding why mess with success ?
Well part of it is that my personal horses aren’t on it at present, and are also moving in (they are at a barn that feeds Buckeye Performance at present and one is underfed nutritionally because he became a blimp on it, and the other is cushinoid and shouldn’t have that much starch) Secondly, I really like the idea of adding some chaff to the blimp’s diet with ration balancer, and I don’t see a comparable product from Purina’s lines. And finally, I don’t particularly love Purina feeds, and have had some quality issues in the past. The horses that are there do need some reassessment, which I won’t do until I get a good hay analysis, but I’d like to start thinking about it now. I’m a bit of a planner when it comes to this stuff!
I’m in Texas and Nutrena is a good option here. I’ve always had OTTBs at various life stages and through long lives. I’m kind of a forage-first feeder, per my vet, and I’m blessed with a LOT of pasture and turnout. SO,…that said, my current guy gets Nutrena ProForce Fuel high-fat/low starch feed. He came from 12 lbs/day of a similar feed in KY, but he’s on about 4-1/2 lbs with a flake of alfalfa and about a pound of timothy hay pellets per day. Only because he won’t eat the coastal hay here. He also gets a half dose of Platinum. He’s turned out almost 24/7 and prefers that (I think he’s going feral with the longhorn steers!) And he looks fabulous. He’s the shiniest horse I’ve ever had!!
I fed Purina Sr. to an OTTB I lost in Feb. (age 10) who had had chronic colic issues. We’d been to Texas A&M twice and that’s what they fed him. Turned out he didn’t have gut issues, he had a massively enlarged spleen which was causing gut issues. Purina is available, but not my first choice usually. But I wouldn’t hesitate to feed it to a non-Sr. horse.
I’ve been feeding TCS for some time now. Occasionally, I consider switching things up but I never find a good reason to do so. I was going to try the TC RB but the horse in question is slimming down with increased turn out so he’s staying on the Senior at this time.
I’ve heard of horses that didn’t like the TCS but I’ve never actually met one.
It is a bit pricier than Purina Senior.
Locally, Seminole Dyna Sport is very popular.
I have fed Triple Crown feeds for a while - both Senior and Balancer. Due to recurring supply issues with my feed store I recently looked hard at other feed companies but could not find any feed that met my criteria of low starch and sugar, good nutritional profile, and made in a facility that is ionophore free. I couldn’t find anything that compared to Triple Crown, so I am toughing it out with my feed store.
I am currently feeding the Gold line and like it even better than the original TC feeds. It is really good stuff.
Ingredients on tags or bags doesn’t mean a thing. A company that might have a slightly different ingredient list based on region would use a tag, so the bags can stay the same. I know for a fact Purina has different formulas for at least Strategy, depending on the area (I don’t remember now if that was more northern vs southern, or eastern vs western). That doesn’t mean a region’s Strategy is changing all the time.
It’s not that hard. If the beet pulp portion of the feed (for example) tests a little lower in calcium this time, they just increase the added calcium. If something tests higher or lower in lysine, they alter the amount of lysine added.
Livestock and pets are entirely separate entities in the US, and have been for a very long time. Livestock = Purina Mills = Land O’ lakes.
Pets = Purina
You could feed the yearling the Senior, simplify, and reduce the NSC The current Sr formula is very similar to the old Growth formula.
I have one! She’ll eat it fine for awhile and then get pretty “meh” about it.
Because of that (and the super annoying winter bricking issue with TCS) I have them all on Legends CarbCare Performance, which has been fabulous. Miss Picky has been eating it for years now with no issue and it’s the DENSEST feed I’ve found out there. Super handy for those horses who start walking away from the bucket when there’s too much volume.
I fed TC products for years, but it became too difficult to get locally. I tried ProElite for a while, but have settled on Tribute. I use/offer boarders Essential K, Kalm Ultra, and K Finish.
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