Well, to be blunt, you need to weigh the cubes and look into the caloric value. I guarantee this is your issue. Mental note for the future I guess. I spend more time counting calories on my horse than i do for myself. Lol
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People who can get Triple Crown feeds are fortunate, and so are their horses. TC is very good about publishing NSC data.
I can remember when it was darn near impossible to get NSC data from Purina, but I was happy to discover this recently (shared in case it helps anyone who cannot get anything other than Purina where they are):
https://www.purinamills.com/horse-feā¦ories-in-diets
then scroll down for the colorful chart.
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Good choiceā¦ I wish I had easier access to the TC Senior. If my boys didnāt do so well on the Sentinel I would drive the 70 miles round trip to get the TC.
I know you said you tried beet pulp but just wanted to say it has done awesome for my two hard keepers! I feed it to them soaked and mix in some alfalfa/Timothy pellets. Have you ever thought about adding oil? I give them both oil as well. It has made a difference and they are very shiny as a result 
ETA: Consider checking into a liquid product called RationPlus. It helps in aiding the horse to better process and digest the food you are feeding him, so more nutrients are available to the horse and less are passed out in the manure. I have top dressed the feed for hard keepers with this and it works very well. It is well-tolerated by horses with ulcers, for those dealing with that problem.
When the cold season grasses come in up here (CT), typically mid-April through early June, and again September through late October, my horse does not like to eat a lot of hay. Come summer, when the warm season grasses are in they are more bitter tasting, so he consumes more hay. This year the cool season grasses were late coming in so he ate hay well from June into mid-September, and now isnāt interested in much more than a flake of it a day. Additionally, the grass is loaded with water due to the abnormally wet periods we have had, so he comes into the stall at 4 pm with a belly full of grass and little interest in his hay. There is nothing abnormal about this. Thatās how it plays out up here year after year. With the heat and water you have had to deal with, this could be playing into your problem.
In the summer, our 25 year old app/tb cross is turned out on 75 acres of grass with 40 other horses for 9 to 10 hours a day.I feed him 1 cup of Sentinnel LS, 1/2 cup of Blue Seal Haystretcher (11% NSCāyour alfalfa cubes/pellets would play in here instead)) twice a day. During one of those feedings he gets 1 quart of wet beet pulp (with 1 tablespoon of Grandmaās Molassesāyellow label) so I can mix in his 2 supplements. Come November the grass starts to die off and I begin to shift the horse over to a 50:50 mix of Sentinnel LS and Triple Crown Senior and add in more Haystretcher to reach a combined total of 4.5 pounds per feeding 2xās a day by January. During one feeding he gets the 1 quart of wet beet pulp per day along with 1/2 to 1 cup of canola oil. I run two different feeds because if I only feed Triple Crown Senior he keeps shoveling it all out into his water bucket. With the 3-way mix he will happily eat every bite. The Haystretcher guarantees it all goes down as it tastes sweet. By this point in time, he is also consuming 1/2 of a 45 pound bale of hay per day. The beet pulp will help to keep your horse better hydrated, which is really its functionā¦ Once youāve got the horse better hydrated so his back gut isnāt sucked in, then you are really only dealing with forage, calories and fats when working in the remainder of the diet. And, once the evening temps dip into the forties, I fill the buckets with warm water because he will drink more water in the cool/cold weather if the water is warm.
Beet pulp: you could put together 2 one-quart containers per day so one could be fed at each feeding. Speedie Beet soaks up a lot faster than Blue Seal and can be fed fully soaked within 30 minutes of adding water to it, or less. It is much more expensive, but is a cleaner version of beet pulp, advertising no GMOās and tests out cleaner than some domestic brands for fertilizer/pesticide residues. My barn friend has sworn by it for years and I am switching over to it once the last of my Blue Seal bag is gone, which will be within another week or so. Her 28 year old Lusitano is on the same diet mix that mine is on, holds his weight well and looks great. She adds in a large bucket of alfalfa dengie (chopped hay) each day to his hay ration. His hay consumption also goes up and down with the cool/warm season grassesāa flake or two per day in the cold season grasses, up to a half a bale per day in warm season grasses or in the winter. Good luck with your horse!
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I couldnāt find the triple crown senior in my area so I went back to to the blue seal sentinel ls, giving him 5 quarts twice a day and alfalfa cubes and he has already put most if the weight back on and acts like he feels alot better
Iām glad heās feeling better
I read you tried beet pulp, but remember you have to give the beep a chance to work. It takes time for the hindgut to produce the good bacteria to get all the benefits of the fiber.
I tried beet pulp but he never gained any weight on it
Most off the track Thoroughbreds have ulcers or a history of ulcers. I would give an alfalfa blend in about a 2x2 slow feeder hay net. The wholes donāt need to be too small but that will limit hay that gets wasted. I took my ulcer prone (easy keeper) off grain and put him on a Timothy/alfalfa good quality vitamin mineral selenium supplement. I tested the him levels six months later and all good. We live in a selenium deficient area and I wanted to make sure his diet was adequate. Be aware that not all vitamin mineral supplement are well absorbed so do your research. I agree find a hay that he likes. Also if heās off the track and hasnāt been treated for ulcers you may want to think about scoping him as Thoroughbreds are incredibly stoic. The internal medicine specialist that scoped my horse sad that they often found their own thoroughbreds are incredibly stoic. The internal medicine specialist that scoped my horse said warmbloods show symptoms with low grade ulcers Where as thoroughbreds often have have the worst bleeding ulcers will still run and jump and perform.
QUOTE=Callie1993;n10235148]My horse had awful feet and I changed his diet to low sugar no grain and his feet have gotten so much better no more thrush and the white line disease went away and the new hoof growth is alot better but he has lost a lot of weight since heās been off grain.
I have been given him 6 quarts of soaked alfalfa cubes twice a day, California Trace plus minerals, magnesium oxide and flaxseed, he gets grass at night in the pasture and during the day heās in his stall while the flys are bad. When heās in the stall he gets grass hay but he wonāt eat the hay in the stall, so how can I get him to eat the hay and not starve himself all day and is there anything else I could give him to help him gain weight. I tried beet pulp and it didnāt do anything.[/QUOTE]
OPā¦ I have a hard-keeper OTTB who, for the past 9 years, ate 6-10lbs of TC Senior (summer/fall) or TC Complete (for the extra calories in winter/spring), plus flax, plus free-choice alfalfa, plus either timothy or an orchard/alfalfa mix (depending on which looked/smelled better with each new batch at the feed store. He was never thin, but also rarely more than just-barely-not thin, and although his coat was beautiful his feet were pretty awful. In the summer of 2017, I became a client of Pete Ramey, who is well-versed in equine nutrition, particularly as it relates to foot health. It took me awhile to wade through all the information and decide to gradually make the changes Pete recommended, but since the beginning of September Iāve transferred all three of my guys (the others are a haflinger/cob and a Hanoverian) to his recommended diet completely and Iāve been really happy with the results. The TB in particular looks better than he ever has, and his weight is nothing short of amazing. i am not exaggerating when I say heās put on about a hundred pounds since Sept. 1. They now eat:
Cool Stance (copra)
Standlee timothy pellets
TC Golden Ground Flax
California Trace Plus
Magnesium Oxide (also ordered from CA Trace)
non-iodized loose white salt
Their hay is straight timothy, fed free choice in their stalls. They graze at least 12 hours on the typical fescue mix pastures down here in the Tryon/Landrum area.
Before you give up on getting your horse off commercial feed (some ingredients are very good, but many are from high-GMO crops, such as soy and wheatā¦ as well as preservatives and other stuff horses just donāt need) consider you may just have not been feeding enough of the forage-based diet, or good enough quality. It can take up to 3% of a horseās body weight to put weight ON, and thatās with a really good hay. Thatās 30lbs/day for a 1,000lb horse. And thatās a LOT. Even split between pellets and baled hay, itās probably a lot more than you were feeding if you werenāt using a scale.
Addressing hay qualityā¦ because of the amount of rain western North Carolina experienced last spring and through the summer, a lot of hay grew too long before it was cut, leaving it very stemmy (and not as nutritious as if it had been cut earlier in its growth). One of my very favorite and reliable suppliers had one cutting of gorgeous orchard grass, then the rest looked and apparently tasted like straw. It can for sure be a PITA to find and transport hay, but finding and feeding the good stuff makes a tremendous difference. Yes, it may be more expensive, but if your horse is picking through and then walking on what heās not eating, thatās not very economical. Better to pay for the stuff heāll eat and not have to throw it away.
Hope this helps!
How much time did you give it before giving up on it?
I cant remeber, it was last year when I tried it, I also tried it on another thoroughbred a few years ago and he didnāt gain weight on it either
Glad heās doing better! Thanks for coming back and giving us an update
Like most things, itās all about quantity. Even a small amount of beet pulp can improve the gut flora, but if you donāt feed enough calories it can only do so much to help them gain weight.
When I got my ex-broodmare still nursing a foal she was a BCS of 2 or maybe almost 3ā¦and because she was nursing she needed LOTS of calories. I tried to get about 25,000 to 30,000 calories/day into her so that she could provide milk AND still gain weight. I fed her grass hay, alfalfa hay, hay pellets and senior feed. It was hard work to get her to eat enough!
You have to really think about total calories in and out. A lb of dry beet pulp only has about 1000 calories. Not sure how much you fed in the past but if you fed only a 1 lb, for example, it probably wasnāt enough to make a real difference.
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