Disappointed but not surprised.
Bag guarantee for min and max on sugar, starch, iron, copper and zinc are off. I’ll try to post the results. I’ll need advice on how to balance the balancer and the grass hay. The barn special ordered the balancer for me to try. Unfortunately they ordered ten bags. My horse has been getting 2.5 pounds a day. . I have a bag of hay harmony and a bag of cal trace. I thought it was illegal for lack of better word for feed companies to guarantee and not hold to it.
Post disappeared?
Results:
On bag as guaranteed:
Starch Max 6.5 %
Sugar max 6.5 %
Iron min ppm 700
Copper min ppm 200
Zinc non ppm 600
Tested:
Starch 3.6
Sugar 7.5
Iron 1650
Copper 161
Zinc 470
I expected better from this feed company. I feel like calling them and having “a word” . how is this allowed to happen? Regulations and all’?
They only guarantee Iron to have 700 ppm at a minimum. Is the tested zinc and copper listed as ppm or mg/lb?
They guarantee copper at 91 mg min (200 ppm/2.2) to get mg/lb
Zinc 273 mg is min guaranteed.
So the only thing really off is the sugar/starch and they may have disclaimer somewhere on their website saying it’s not guaranteed bag to bag.
I believe Triple Crown has that somewhere about individual batches may be different. Yours looks like Proelite and I’m not familiar with it.
***Take my post with a grain of salt! @JB is the nutrition guru.
@grayarabians. Their iron content is in the outer stratosphere and shouldn’t even be allowed.
I can’t believe in this day and age of metabolic issues, there are feed purveyors who still insist on adding iron - and massive amounts at that.
Cursor down to the paragraph titled “Iron”. So far, me and this new format are still arguing or I would copied the paragraph.
That is just the iron, I didn’t look at anything else to see how far out of line they might be.
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What test was done for the minerals? Wet chemistry is better for mineral analysis, NIRS is fine for a general protein, adf, ndf, etc. And, the lab matters too. You can’t just “run NIRS testing”, as calibration matters.
There’s a reason max and min are listed. Min means there’s always (or “always”) at least that much. So if a bag says “iron min 700ppm” then testing higher is legal. This is especially possible if there’s a large bit of forage in the feed, as forages can range a lot in nutrient content, even within the same variety, due to geographic and seasonal growing condition.
So we need a bit more info. Assuming wet chemistry was done for the trace minerals, I think it’s reasonable to call the company and ask why those are lower than the minimum stated. If it was NIRS run on those, then you don’t really have a case (yet)
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Did I miss which ration balancer this is?
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No, it’s a secret for now
Why is it a secret? It must be TC?
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Tested by equi analytical. No idea if
wet chemistry. Trainer is name of test. Seems is the one the folks on ecir use. The RB is PE -GA.
A secret? I was reluctant to mention the name. I figured those who studied / fed ration balancers would recognize which one from the bag info given.
I’ll ask the barn to feed my horse less of it until i have more info / figure out what to do.
Ten bags ordered for my horse.
Happy until I saw the test results.
I’ll be in the doghouse with the barn manager about this.
Stupid me for believing what anyone from Cargill told me.
In the meantime -and to better understand- how to try to balance- how much copper and zinc to supplement?
Sorry, is that Purina Enrich? What’s the GA stand for? It doesn’t look like the Enrich values I can find online though.
It looked like TC 30% to me, but wasn’t sure.
GA is for the Guaranteed Analysis.
I’m very interested in this topic, having had an odd experience with a supposedly “low carb” product from TC myself, but I can’t find the post that lists the product(s) or brands tested.
Is this being left out on purpose, or am I missing something obvious?
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Sorry for confusion.
Its Pro Elite grass advantage.
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Ah. Thank you!
Would it be helpful to post an anecdote about TC Safe Starch bailed forage here? I don’t want to confuse the whole thing further.
TBH, unless you’re going to test bags from the next 5 batches you get, I would not assume all bags or batches are like this one.
Imagine if you based an entire batch of hay on the analysis of 1 bale. Was that bale from grass in the shade at the lower quality soil edge of woods? Higher on a hill with less moisture and more stress? Cut later in the day than most of the rest?
See above. Does it make a difference?
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Well, for my metabolically challenged mini, yes, it made a huge difference.
TC Safe Starch, a fortified forage product advertised as having an NSC of 8.5, sent my little guy’s numbers literally off the chart.
I’d call that pretty serious.
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