Purina Omega Match Ration Balancer

I’d like to see what the NSC is on it. Timothy hay, when cut as the heads on the grass are at their peak, can be much higher in fructans than most other types of hay.

Generally, I don’t trust Purina, because their formulas and sources change with the economy. I’d rather see a consist formulation, and a fluctuating price.

It’s listed right on their website
Omega Match™ Ration Balancing Horse Feed | Purina (purinamills.com)

According to…whom? It isn’t as simple as just getting corn this time because it’s cheaper than oats. People seem to think that the least-cost formulas are constantly changing. Imagine how many horses would do worse on a different formula, turn their noses up because this new batch has an entirely different forage or grain component in it. A cheap company might do that, when people don’t care because they’re only going to pay $10/50lb anyway. But these big brands don’t actually do that, not randomly and not without really considering the change.

This is a fixed ingredient formula anyway

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Interesting. I spoke to a feed rep who told me differently. It was confirmed by someone else in the industry. I guess that they were wrong!

IME a lot of feed reps are very poorly educated. I mean, there are Tribute reps out there telling people to add 2-3lb of their ration balancer to 6-8lb of one of their regular feed, and that’s terrible advice.

There are feed reps working or rotating through feed stores who tell people constantly that Purina bought Triple Crown.

There are feed reps who have no idea what NSC means.

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I have the joy of Florida hay prices, AND jacked up grain prices. Oh boy!!!

I used to have that impression of Purina too and wouldn’t feed it until I worked for a farm that they sponsored and used to trial some of their new products. We had their staff (not feed reps from feed stores) visit us several times, got to tour their research facility etc. and I worked pretty closely with them. I became quite a fan of Purina

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Anything to report on this?

Any thing to report on using Omega?

Not that you asked, but I think HC Summers has this a little cheaper. I want to say $35 for a 50 lb bag? (not sure where in MD you are, perhaps they are out of your range.)

I ended up stopping with it- too much feed for my air ferns in the summer lol and went back to their Vermont Custom mineral plus a handful of soaked alfalfa. I may go back to it this winter

Looks like that is about 2hrs from me:) I’m right where MD, PA and DE come together.

Purchased it and fed it to the horses May and June. Had to go back to a vitamin/mineral/beet pulp mix for the summer as my fatties were getting overly plump.

They are still shiny, ate it fine, no issues or negatives to say about it. I’ll probably switch back to it in the fall. I did notice my pony’s fluff softened along his neck and his sheath got smaller being off soy.

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One thing I realized about it yesterday is that while the amino acids are pretty typical of a balancer, the minerals are significantly lower than most.

Cu is 65ppm vs TC Balancer at 300ppm
Zn is 225ppm vs 1000ppm
Mg is .3% vs 2.4%
Ca is 1.75-2.25% vs 4-5%

So even though the feeding directions are more or less double what TC has, you’d need to feed more still to meet up with what’s in most other balancers

My flax price for a #50 bag went up $9 . Quite painful with everything else going up too but still lasts several months so well worth $29 a bag.

Interesting on the numbers.

I don’t think mine were on it long enough to make a drastic change to coat, hoof, etc. I already supplement zinc, copper, vitamin e. Would have been nice to not have to

Many reasonably fortified diets, ie good forage with a ration balancer or appropriate amounts of a regular feed, still need cu/zn, so even if this one were up to the rest, you’d still likely need it.