Mine won’t touch it.
Oh, that’s too bad. Mine are still licking their bowls clean. I do add a splash of water (warm if I have time to heat up a bucket) and they seem to prefer it.
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I have that article saved on my PC and read it every couple of years. Still good for a giggle!
I started feeding unbeetable a month ago and so far I’m a fan. For me it’s an additive to my own remarkably similar program: ration balancer, alfalfa cubes and… Wait for it… Beet pulp pellets. Oh yes, and I add canola oil in the winter. Also, my feed store does a nice discount if you buy your grain/shaving in advance, so it’s not a replacement just yet for most of the above since I’ve already bought food for the year.
BUT I have an early retiree who’s a chronic choker and as of recently has just not been quite the easy keeper he’s always been when winter hits, so this is added to his ration balancer as a little bit more calories. I was adding a 1lb of senior but this is doing just as well and cheaper.
It’s also very handy for oops moments when I forget to soak their dinner in time for bp pellets to fully break down. Just switch to unbeetable because this stuff breaks down faster than even the ration balancer (they get RB/BP at night, overnight soaked alfalfa cubes in the am, 24/7 fescue).
And finally, it’s a very compact solution to take to shows for the cde pony. He gets the normal RB+soaked beet pulp for dinner, unbeetable for a breakfast snack and his normal cubes breakfast gets moved to midday, timed before he goes out on Marathon for maximum gut protection. And packing his feed takes up no additional space in my trailer (whereas adding double the cubes would really eat up space). And all I can say about my trailer packing requirements is that cde drivers think eventers are just so freakin’ adorable when they talk about packing their trailer. 
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Mine is still eating it, but yesterday for the first time he left his feed pan and walked across the pasture to where his mare friend was eating and decided he wanted hers instead. He’s never done that before. She gets Kalm N Easy and alfalfa pellets in a soaked mash.
Once he finishes this bag I’m just going to get a bag each of Standlee beet pulp pellets and alfalfa pellets and dump them (mixed up) into the trashcan together. He gets two cups a day of Omega Horseshine anyway plus big glugs of Canola oil, so I think he’s got plenty of fat.
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I am not sure what the issue is. He was left up for an extended time due to weather and still had most of it left when I went to turn him out. I like the way he was starting look, but if he won’t it eat it, then it’s a moot point. I took him to the trainers yesterday for a tune up, so maybe I’ll try again when he gets home.
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So “forage based diet” is the new trend although I am clearly befuddled.
Don’t ALL horses eat a forage based diet, a diet comprised of mostly grass or hay?
I see nothing wrong with this product, except that you STILL have to add a ration balancer to it, and it’s not a “new concept” because we’ve been feeding alfalfa pellets and beet pulp to horses for a long long time. I think not having to soak it is a big improvement.
I also have ask what “bad” about a “grain” like oats and “good” about a legume like soy or a seed like Flax or rice bran? None of those things are things horses eat in nature. And dare I say Alfalfa is a legume and not a grass so not “natural” either yet it’s very beneficial to horses and people don’t have an issue with “alfalfa based” diets.
side note, a feed dealer told me Unbeatable used to be “Midwest Agri” until they relabled and started selling the smaller bags to change their market and get involved with TSC
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I’m not a feed expert but oats are high NSC. Works for some horses, but I wouldn’t feed them to my 2 easy keeping Morgans…
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This is my exact conundrum when I consider trying the “forage based” method.
My hard keeping senior is on 10 lbs of Pro Force Senior per day plus hay. I like what it’s done for him. It’s incredibly expensive, and he’s no longer a performance horse. I like the idea of switching to something cheaper (he unfortunately did not do well on Nutrena Fiber Plus), but fear weight loss and lack of savings with needing to add a ration balancer + other calories.
PLUS - he’s 1500 lbs. He’d need the Unbeetable forage-only at a higher rate, so I lose potential savings there (combined with the cost of the balancer).
Another note: he’s boarded, and the boarding situation throws flakes of hay rather than offering round bales (to reduce hay waste), so I have no way of monitoring/controlling how much he gets per day.
At the end of the day, without causing headaches for my barn owner on what to put in his bucket 2x per day, it’s still simpler (and probably the same cost) to give him a concentrated grain. I think if I kept my own at home and had more control over hay dispensing, then I’d try the Unbeetable. If he had certain sensitivities to common ingredients in grain concentrates (ex. soy), then I’d try the Unbeetable.
I love the basis, but the marketing is clever; horses being fed MOSTLY hay and getting a conventional grain concentrate are still also forage-based. Perhaps they need to change it to “forage only” diet? But then people may begin eliminating the ration balancers and additional vitamins horses need that aren’t found in forage.
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The additional vitamins/minerals can be gotten by using a supplement instead of using a ration balancer.
I am liking this product because of the small soft (easy to chew) pellets, and the fact that my horse finds it palatable. It is simply replacing the straight alfalfa (or the timothy/alfalfa, depending on what they had when I was there) pellet I give the easy keeper to carry their supplements. Otherwise they would get no pelleted feed/grain at all.
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There’s a FB group that is doing more harm than good when it comes to this. They have everyone thinking they must feed a “forage-based diet” and in the same breath, demonize commercial feeds. People have literally been banned for recommending a (forage-based) ration balancer.
What they REALLY mean is - in addition to the hay/grass, the concentrates have to be forage, or forage-based (but then they have no problem recommending some rice bran for calories 
)
But “forage-based diet” is what you’re ALREADY FEEDING if your horse is eating at least half his food as forage
I co-admin a FB group that’s based in science and facts, and I can’t tell you how many people have admitted they fell for that (because what they preach sounds good) and their horses looked terrible. Yes, it works for a lot of horses, I’ve done it, but I wasn’t having to feed 10,000 calories and use 5 different things to get there.
Yep, this is the weirdness about “them”. They preach the inflammatory deal about, say, soy (allegedly because it’s high in Omega 6), and then turn around and suggest rice bran (also high in O6).
Yes, UnBeetable is rebranded MidWest Agri
PF Sr is already forage-based. I almost guarantee you can’t meet his needs for less $. Sure, you MIGHT be able to feed a bit fewer calories, but it’s also going to be some pretty decent volume since almost nothing you can replace it with is in that calorie range
Sure, and many of the good forage balancers are more $ than a serving of a ration balancer.
There are lots of things to like about this product - pellet size and hardness, and the combined ingredients if you’re feeding both of them for whatever reason.
In the end, it’s STILL just forage (alf) + fiber (beep) + a little extra fat. That’s it.
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Yes. I think I know what FB page you’re talking about. They do not recommend ration balancers because they are “grain based.”
It’s obvious they can’t do any critical thinking and evaluate their own sentences
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I joined that group only to quickly realize they were grossly off base and left 
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Never said it was cheaper.
Just saying there are other ways to get them.
Not feeding a ration balancer does not mean not getting the vitamins and minerals.
My very easy keeper literally gets a handful of pellets to carry their vit/min supplement. They do not need the amount of feed in a ration balancer.
My other horse gets a ration balancer. Works great for her.
For me, it’s strictly about simplicity and efficiency. I was feeding ‘forage only’ before this product (hay cubes + BP pellets + ration balancer). The Unbeetable has really streamlined my feeding process since I don’t have to soak cubes and pellets for several hours. It saves a ton of space in my feed room. When my feed room is ‘full’ now, it’s just a couple of compact bags of Unbeetable hanging out in the corner, rather than 2 bags of beet pulp and 2-3 bags of cubes. Because I can order it online and get it shipped for free (so far at least, I’m dreading the day the free shipping goes away like it has for some people), my trips to TSC are now only 1-2 times a month instead of 3-4 times. So it has kind of been a game changer for me in terms of time savings.
The fact that my horses seem to be doing so well on it is obviously the main reason why I am so happy with it. All of them are holding their condition, their coats are shiny, they’re licking their plates clean, and the reduced cribbing in my gelding is a bonus benefit that I never, ever saw coming.
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Yep! There are many roads to Rome, and many of them are more $$ and/or more complicated, which is what some don’t realize when they start down that path.
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I bumped into that group on FB. In another group, someone posted photos of their skinny “forage only” horses and asked why they had lost so much weight. She had dropped all their concentrates but not increased the amount of hay they got! She had picked up somewhere that the horses would digest hay better if they weren’t getting any feed, so no need to increase.
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Not a one-off situation unfortunately
You can’t always increase hay, as a lot of these horses are already eating all they’ll eat
A ridiculous idea “they” have, with absolutely no science to back it up
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This is true… assuming the horses have hay and have had hay in front of them 24/7, as that group usually recommends (with soaking etc. for easy keepers, I hope… but the skinny horses I remember weren’t from easy keeping breeds IIRC.) I don’t remember for sure that these horses had 24/7 hay… My guess is they did not.
So obviously, if a horse has hay 24/7 and is still skinny, it needs something else – a concentrate or a more calorie-rich hay, assuming teeth are OK, no ulcers, no significant worm load, etc.
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Yes, exactly 
But if you dare suggest your horse isn’t doing well on the “forage only” diet, then you’re just doing it wrong 
