What would be your #1 choice for feed?
I feed tribute because it’s the easiest for me to get. But I don’t feed much, so having to hoof it farther to get something better is worth it.
My horse is on a high fat feed. Purina actually told me it’s too high. Mine is 10% fat. Purina Equine Senior which is consistently referred to as the gold standard of senior feed is 5.5%. My horse is 16 hands with his shoes on. He weighs 1114 pounds as of last week. While I appreciate your advice on Tribute it’s not super helpful in general. I can’t pay board and feed costs on top of that. I didn’t seek out nutrition advice within this thread specifically. The vet that saw him last week said he’s in good condition, good weight, expected senior top line loss. She didn’t see him in March, but he’s made greats strides that I’m proud of.
Hands down Triple Crown. Best formulation, best educated staff as far as formulation, and best customer service.
Full disclosure- I have never worked for Triple Crown, but have sold the product through my employer, and at times sold against Triple Crown.
When working for a competitor, if you found a farm was feeding Triple Crown, there was not point in trying to convert a farm that was feeding it. I would usually congratulate them on their feed choice and find a way to gradually remove myself.
ETA- Triple Crown has the best sales reps in the industry. You will not find a more honest, caring, educated group of sales reps out there.
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Purina Senior was the first senior feed marketed, but it by no means is “the gold standard”! They had a hell of a marketing plan for it, but it took Purina years to update their formulations with things like probiotics, which better companies have used for quite some time.
Purina Senior is also higher in NSC than what most horses need, but you will not hear that discussed.
Research has proven senior horses benefit greatly from added fat as high as 10-12%.
Of course you are going to tell someone that 10% fat is too high when your fat level is only 5.5%!
If you are not seeking feed advice, why are you here? Even though you are not seeking advice, if you are adding fat to a feed that is already 10% fat, you might be feeding too much fat.
But what do I know!
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Tribute as a whole seems to be a line where horses either do quite well on it, or they don’t. Yours likely is in the latter.
50lb isn’t much at all, not something I’d worry about, unless it’s really the difference between a low BCS 4 and a solid 4
At his age, he doesn’t get as much out of hay as he used to, alfalfa or not. H needs more feed, and likely an entirely different line of feed. Tribute feeds are almost all in the 1400 cal/lb range, which is quite low, so that’s another issue
At the very least I’d be adding oil to his meals if at alllll possible, if changing feed isn’t an option
that weight sounds reasonable, and remember, you were the one who brought the diet and wanting him to put on a few pounds into the thread 
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I apologize. I was more sharing my experience with the feed group. Changes I’ve made on my own from reading that group got my horse in a good weight range. With a lot of time between changes, watching and waiting. Would I like to try another feed other than Tribute? Sure. After my horse stepping on a scale, I’m not totally sure that I need to. I need to mitigate my expectations of what a horse looks like at 29
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I’ve heard it referred to as that by many vet clinics. Many vet clinics feed this to horses while they are in the hospital. Maybe there’s other reasons they do … . like doctors.
I didn’t intend to make it sound like I was seeking advice. I was sharing that I adjusted some things based on the group. Just sharing my experience. I agree about the fat. My vet said to increase it in March. I have since pulled back per my own research and it seems that was the right choice.
Purina Senior was specifically marketed to vets and clinics when it was introduced as a huge part of the marketing campaign. Wonder why it was done that way? I don’t.
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Purina does a lot of the (basic) nutrition education in vet schools, for both large and small animal. And, Purina products are widely available. Nothing more to it than that, really
It’s like KER products, whether Elevate vitamin E, and Platinum Performance products - they are made by/with support from vets, so are well-known in name by the vet community, which has nothing to do with quality or cost efficiency
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I don’t disagree at all that Triple Crown is a high quality feed, but geez my horses have just never done great on it. I had so much better luck with Legends, and then the “same” feed under the ProElite branding after Legends was absorbed.
Now I just do alfalfa pellets, naked oats as needed for palatability/calories, and Vermont blend pro. And that’s actually worked better than bagged feed for my crew.
There are certainly a handful of great manufacturers, and a lot of horses will do really well on any of them, but I don’t think there’s a single answer for “best feed” since what individual horses need can vary so much.
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Someone asked my opinion, and I gave it. That comes from 15 years of auditing mills, contributing to the individual development of products and formulations, and selling against competitor’s products.
Your mileage may vary.
ProElite did not just evolve from Southern States Legends. Many of the formulations evolved from the Pennfields line of feeds. I remember selling ProElite Performance before it was called that. It came in a black bag, so before it had a name it was called “The Black Bag Feed” and was sold heavily on racetracks. There were also Amish, who loved it for their driving horses.
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When I had a horse on TC she did well enough, but my friend’s horse does not thrive on it.
Tribute is becoming a very mainstream brand, which can bring both good and bad things. @cutter99, if you can without exposing yourself, can you share what turns you off of Tribute?
Let’s just say I found the company, from management on down to sales staff, not the most honest or transparent people I have ever worked with.
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Sure. Just pointing out that it’s not necessarily the best for every single horse out there. A lot do certainly do well on it! I struggled to make it work for longer than I’d care to admit, haha, because it was “the best.” Finding what worked better for mine was such a relief.
I think each horse and situation can be different. Mine eats a LITTLE bit of hay, but mostly pees on it. She used to like grass, but she’s even not as interested in that. She almost trots into the barn when she knows her grain is there. She used to be my hay clean up crew- all from the aisle, any hay left, she’d clean up and loved. I’ve tried different kinds, even TSC chopped hay in the bags- that was a HECK NO!
I think she’s always done well with fat, and cutting it back has hurt her. I know her teeth are bad, but she does have a vet appointment to have them floated. I just…noticed when I tried to do the purina equine senior, even short term she looked worse to me. I wanted to trust the process, but for ME, I had a hard time with that.
She usually does well on good spring grass, but I will need to wait a little while for that 
That wasn’t the comment though. SS’s Legends went kaput, and ProElite came out with a few new feeds based on some of the Legends’ feeds. PE Showman and Sport are sort of the equivalent of Legends’ CarbCare Performance, and Sport Horse, respectively, afaik. But you get the idea. Not all Legends feeds equivalents made their way to the PE line, but a couple did
ProElite is a newer brand of feed launched by Cargill in 2017, many (all?) of which originated from Progressive feeds, before becoming what they are today.
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Cargill purchased Pennfield long before they purchased Progressive. Many of the current ProElite products were in the works long before that purchase as the original formulations came from Pennfield.
ProElite Sport was based off a product introduced by Nutrena in 1999 or 2000, called Farr Legacy, which Cargill manufactured originally in Australia. It was the highest fat feed in the U.S. at the time, and with a suggested retail price of $12.99 no one thought it would ever sell. $12.99 seems like nothing now.
But, don’t take my word for it! I am just a random person on the internet.
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/cargill-purchases-pennfield-corporation/
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Ok, that’s fair, I don’t know a thing about Pennfield products, only that ProElite came into being in 2017, AND that they didn’t evolve out of Legends, only that they took a few of the more popular Legends products, tweaked them a bit, and put their PE name on them, which is what I was trying to say.
Update: still in the group, read his blog, etc. He’s expanded his list of “acceptable” feed brands. Still not a fan of Tribute. And I’m still “doing the math.”
The big thing recently has been “complete senior feeds” for the oldies who can’t chew or digestive hay. I’m not sure I’m 100% on board with using them as a sole ration, especially when there are other things the oldies like, too. Maybe I’m anthropomorphizing about hotses liking variety in their food. But I have a friend who really needs to switch her ancient Morgan off hay, and is concerned about costs.
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If they’re pushing to feed ONLY a complete feed, than that’s just another issue I have with them
But if they’re saying you CAN feed only a complete feed, then that’s fine, as that’s true, just stick to the max recommended amount on the bag, and if that’s 15lb but your horse needs another 5000 calories, I’d try to make that up with something unfortified
As for variety - most horses happily eat just grass, or just hay, all day every day, sometimes not even getting “feed”. I understand what you’re saying, and there ARE horses who seem to get tired of X feed day in and day out, after a while. This is especially true of older horses, and i suspect it’s not about “bored” with the feed, but more about appetite in general and needing something new and fun and exciting to stimulate their appetite again
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