Purina Ultium is the highest kcal/lb feed widely available.
But, again–it is generally less expensive to feed the horse enough hay. If you’re only feeding 15# of hay a day, you’ll need to feed a considerable amount of concentrate, and risk health issues, which are also costly to treat.
Horses are designed to eat forage. Trying to work against that is expensive.
Yes, 15# of hay…that’s a diet, not a weight gain strategy. My TB mare would starve to death on that and she’s retired. When I got her and she was extremely thin and nursing a foal, I was going through almost a bale/day for her plus alfalfa, plus concentrates. If your horse will eat more hay - that’s what they need.
What do you pay for a 30# bale of hay?
Ask around about suppliers, ask your vet, your farrier, neighbors. Check Craigslist, etc. If you need weight gain, there really isn’t a solution that will work if hay is not part of that equation.
Sarah, sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and spend the money for a good nutrition plan if you have a horse.
You are now seeing the results of going cheap and feeding junk food and not enough at that. Your horse is too
thin because you’re not feeding good quality feed or hay and not enough quantity either. Listen to the experts
here. They will guide you in helping you bring your horse back to a healthy weight.
You don’t need ‘treats’ or oil or supplements, you need better quality feed and hay to start. Then make sure your
horse has been properly wormed. And then you should see him gain weight and look healthier and feel better.
In other threads, you said this horse did well on pasture, to the point he had to be muzzled because he gained TOO much.
It might be easier and less expensive to move him back to whatever boarding opportunity you had that allowed him to be on pasture.
…
People have to know at least generally where you are - what state at least? It doesn’t matter if someone recommends the “best” grain - if you don’t have access to it, it’s useless. You’re not going to find Poulin in AZ, and won’t find LMF in Massachusetts. Even of you say “I’m in the Southeast”, you may not be able to get Seminole because it’s not in all the SE states. So we at least need that.
But given that Purina and Nutrena are probably 2 of the most widely-available feeds, go with Purina Ultium. Yes, it’s going to cost more per bag. But it’s one of the highest calories and highest fat combination feeds, so it’s not like you’re looking to feed 10lb of the stuff. BUT, that does depend on acknowledging that you HAVE TO feed more hay. You just do.
Check www.hayexchange.net to see what you can find. Ask around and see if any barns need hay and if they’d like to get some trucked in from out of state which, believe it or not, can sometimes be cheaper per pound given the volume. The volume is too large for most facilities at once, but if it can be shared, everyone wins.
If it’s not to much trouble. I would prefer to find a grain that isn’t super expensive and that won’t get used up to quickly either. And of course, that’s good for weight gain.
I’m not sure you understand how all this works 
A horse needs what he needs. How fast a bag lasts entirely depends on the quality of the feed and how much the horse NEEDS. You can’t feed 2lb of a feed to make it last longer and expect weight gain. You can’t go with a cheap feed only to have to feed 10lb of it for weight gain and think it will last long.
Forget cost of a bag. Look at the cost of a typical feeding/serving. Cheap feeds often need to be fed at higher amounts, than higher quality feeds that cost more per bag, so the cost per serving ends up much more in line with each other.
Concentrates are almost always a more expensive source of calories, and healthy, than forage. And now you’re asking about fat supplements, which really is something that should only be considered when the horse can’t/won’t eat more hay, and won’t/shouldn’t eat more concentrates, and you’re not at either of those right now.
CAN you pour more cheap feed and fat into him and get weight gain? Probably. But I guarantee it’s not going to be a healthy horse with that little hay and that many poor quality calories from concentrates.
If she can only feed 15#s of hay a day, she probably WILL have to feed 10#s of Ultium a day, or more :-/
Also in an older thread you mentioned he could have Ulcers- Did you ever get the proper Ulcer Treatment? and I don’t
mean chia seeds or flax that someone mentioned to you. If he was being fed cheap, poor quality hay, which it sounds like, and then fed cheap, junk food sweet feed, He could very well have Ulcers.
In order to To help you, answer a few questions and then we can make better suggestions:
What does your horse weigh? His age? Breed? How much is he used weekly?
When were his teeth last floated? Not just looked at but actually floated?
What type hay are you now feeding? What area of the country are you in?
Are you at a boarding barn or on your own property?
When was he last wormed and with what product?
Which feed brands are available in your area?
Are you genuinely committed to getting your horse’s nutrition and health the best it can be?
yes, that is true. And I forgot another thought while typing all that out:
If you simply can’t, or won’t, feed more hay, then you are looking to feed a lot of a good quality complete feed (complete feeds are higher in fiber). This means Triple Crown Sr, Purina Sr, Nutrena Sr, as 3 of the feeds most likely available. That’s not going to be cheap, as you’re looking at feeding 10-15lb of those/day.
Or, a regular feed with added hay cubes or beet pulp for the long-stem fiber they really need. That’s what people do when they can’t get more hay. It’s not a cost savings over regular hay, unless you’re hay is truly outrageous. $14-16 or so is typical for alfalfa cubes, 40lb, so consider that against the cost of your 30lb hay bales.
15lb of hay is a restricted forage diet for a fat horse who should weigh 1000lb.
Sarah, Can you get “horse quality” round bales in your area? I know in some areas they have alfalfa mix hay put up
in round bales. that may be an option if your horses are on a dirt lot.
Mmm yes, I forgot about beet pulp, but that does have to be fed properly, ie WET. Or hay cubes as I mentioned before, again soaked.
Have you spoken to your vet about his diet?
Maria 100 said you had been concerned about ulcers with your horse. 2 meals a day, sweet feed and restricted forage is certainly a recipe for that.
Sarah, I also live where hay is expensive.
Alfalfa pellets here are $15 for a 50# bag. That works out to $600/ton. If you’re buying hay priced by the bale, 30# bales are just shy of $9/bale at $600/ton.
If your hay is less than $9/bale, it is LESS EXPENSIVE to feed more hay than to use something like alfalfa pellets or cubes.
Paying more than $600/ton for hay is obscene and unnecessary in all but the most costly areas.
No matter how you slice it, hay is cheaper than grain or supplements. Hands down.
If you want your horse to gain weight, you have to feed him more hay. Simple.
Sweet feed has no nutritional value. Quit feeding it. Especially getting 13 pounds of sweet feed a day. If you are feeding that much, a 50 pound bag is only going to last you (at most) 4 days. And then you’re spending $20 every 4 days … that adds up. Again, even though hay is expensive, it’s still cheaper than feed.
If you do want to supplement the hay with some kind of grain, look into Renew Gold or Purina Amplify (or Purina Ultium, which does have the Amplify in it). Both are high fat options if you can get them in your area.
OP “that’s not how this works, that is not how any of this works” sorry not sorry
I don’t think that sweet feed has “no nutritional value,” and what is defined as “sweet feed” really varies. Smells sweet? High NSC? Somewhere in between?
I do agree that 50# of grain versus 50# of hay - the hay will almost always be cheaper. Unless, as someone mentioned above - if you live in Hawaii or something really unusual.
Sarah- I have just been reading your other threads, and I am very concerned about your economic priorities. You mentioned that you can afford any horse expenses, but you are unwilling to feed your horse(s) properly. Horses are an expensive addiction, and if you can’t afford to care for them adequately, get help with costs such as a partboarder, find a less expensive place to keep them, or sell them. Do not skimp on the basics. That is really unkind to your horses. You have received some excellent feedback here, is there anyone you trust with whom you can discuss this in per5son? A vet for instance?
It would be nice to know that you are actually reading the replies with an open mind.
I believe OP has 2 horses. One’s an easy keeper which she wants to keep and one’s a harder keeper who has lost
weight recently since she moved them from pasture to a dirt pen. She wants to sell the thin, hard keeper but he
looks thin in ribs and hips. And winter is coming and she said in another thread she" can’t afford to feed more hay".
Whether she is feeding any hard/pelleted feed I’m not sure but the feed mentioned is an all purpose livestock pellet
for pigs, cows, sheep and goats and horses (??) and is $8-$9. per 50 lb. bag. Can’t get any cheaper than that. She’s thinking
of switching out the hard keeper for a mini or donkey for economics I suppose.
OP is between a rock and a hard place. Apparently has a very limited budget for horse feed and hay.
that should be the discussion here- "How can she fatten up the hard keeper so she can sell him before winter and
then get a mini as a companion for her ‘keeper’ horse and still afford to feed both of them through the winter."
@Marla 100 Thank you for the overview. However you left out the piece about OP wanting another easy keeper to replace the hard keeper. The OP needs a reality check.
She mentioned the Producer’s Pride sweet feed which is an all stock grain and lists at $10.49 in my zip.
@Denali6298 I don’t disagree with you but the OP seems to be trying hard to learn and seems young. It can be difficult to comprehend how much things cost in the big picture, if you’re not used to thinking about buying hay by the ton and how that price compares to grain. Or how little something like a weight building supplement adds to the diet if you’ve never sat down and done the math on the calories contributed. It can also be hard to know what to do if your horses have always done well at grass but now don’t have pasture if you don’t have a few mentors to guide. Let’s try to help instead of berating?
@Simkie I am not trying to berate her, but if one cannot feed two horses properly one does not need two horses. And this is not the first thread about this horse and weight gain.
I wrote up a general plan in #26 and Simkie in #36 spec’ed out a very detailed plan and put numbers on it. They did a good job. No worry about the minutia of feeding, just a nice, easy to follow program that will, in time, produce results (presuming no reasons why not, such as parasite load, malfunctioning horse guts, etc.). I’m not sure why the “discussion” rages on.
Regarding commercial feeds, a short “war story.” Years ago we took in a Walker stallion for training. The guy who owned him was grousing about the board rate and said he could get cheap feed and he’d provide it for a discount on the board rate. I said “OK” and the next day he brought a half bag of his feed and said he’d bring some more the next day. Cheap does not begin to describe this stuff. I put some in clear jar and looked at it and saw leaves, twigs, grain hulls, chaff, and just plain dirt. When he came by the next day I had that jar on my desk along with a jar of a good quality Purena feed we used with our lactating brood mares. I said, “I’ve got two feeds here, which one do you want me to feed your stallion?” He looked at them and immediately picked the Purena product. Then I told him what they were. He decided that maybe “going cheap” was not the best thing to do!
Moral of the Story: You get what you pay for.
The basis for any equine ration is good quality hay. It need not be prime, the sort of stuff you feed $2.4 Million TB stud colts, but it has to be clean and with a nutrition profile that actually is better than corrugated cardboard. And you have feed enough of it to supply a positive delta if you’re trying to put weight on a horse. If you can’t do that because of financial constraints then you have to be an adult and let the horse go.
Sometimes the world does have bright lines, sharp edges, and rules that can’t be bent or broken.
G.
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