Sad News About Ukele - sold Equine Products to Smartpak

And of course this doesn’t work if you have a horse who is insulin resistant and eats a RB!

Oh, that sucks. Mine used to be terrible, but 10 years in (of many ulcer treatments, much begging and pleading, and tough love) I could probably get her to eat Visceral (aka “You poisoned my entire dinner” ) now by top dressing on her soaked cubes and top dressing that with W-3 Oil. That stuff is crack, I swear.

Another thought is beet pulp. It’s delicious to many - even mine when she was most finicky. Shame that it doesn’t agree with her digestive system because I could put just about anything in it and not get even a hint of side eye.

1 Like

Soaking in with the right things makes that pretty impossible.

:rofl:
Maybe crush those soft peppermints? Peppermint extract? (NOT essential oil). Horsetech has a few different flavoring powders IIRC. Some horses go bananas for banana.

Here’s a weird thing - I have a 33yo who still has teeth to the point he eats grass pretty well, but not hay. I’ve had the HARDEST time getting him to eat more than about 4lb of any feed I’ve tried, which is about 6, and some he wouldn’t even eat maybe 2lb. He’s got arthritis (duh) and on bute but I wanted to just see if adding a joint supplement would help. Actiflex is my go-to for the ingredients and cost, and that it’s a liquid. That stuff smells amazing, and 1 squirt had him cleaning up all his food. Now we’re down to 1/2 squirt each meal and he still cleans it up

1 Like

Nooooo!!! I buy pure psyllium powder from Uckele in 25 lb bags. I can’t imagine SP will keep that as an option. I HATE having to get the actual smartpaks. I much prefer a larger container.

On the copper/zinc question, I buy that combo product from Mad Barn. It’s a powder, but no palatability issues with my three. Two get it in their Triple Crown Senior, so lots of flavor to disguise it in, but one gets it with beet pulp and other supplements and she’s fine.

OK, now I’m truly curious, LOL! How in the world did you get “burned more than a couple times” with Smartpak?? They have a great return policy. Not wanting to argue, just really wanting to know. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

A lot of SP products, both their own brand and others ,have actual container options

thanks, I couldn’t find what form it was. I figure the DDGs make it tasty enough

1 Like

I was wrong, it’s a powder/meal, mixed with flax which might make it tasty enough

Which was probably contributory to my mare’s disdain for it! :woman_facepalming:

Since I’m a big believer in feeding flax, I’ve managed a “work around” – she will eat the Flix flax biscuits.

I do a little bit of oil mixed in with the powder and ration balancer to get everything to stick to the RB pellets.

I really don’t like dealing with soaked or oily feeds, hence my love for pelleted supplements! Im perfectly willing to pay more to avoid that hassle. My picky horse regards ground flax as a powder so none of those flax-based ones worked. Even my not-picky eater would leave some Hay Harmony at the bottom.

1 Like

Thank is in the clearance sale, so time to stock up. And I bet they won’t keep doing it if on clearance.

Thanks for the tip!

Here’s a shock…even though the Ukele site says in process, my order showed up today.

Not sure what to think - I wish Smartpak would be so quick with shipping. I may have to bite the bullet if I can’t find a joint supplement/hoof supplement I like elsewhere (these were recommended by the EIRC list).

Well I found 2, 15 lb buckets of the sport horse grass product at Riding Warehouse, on clearance! That will tide me over. I picked their products because of the ECIR safe designation. I will check out the MVP products and start plugging it into FeedXL to see how it looks.

My mare will eat the pelleted version no problem. She was iffy on the powdered version and downright refuses any other powder more than ~1 tsp. I guess she likes kelp?

I recently tried switching to CocoHoof pellets (since they are carried by SmartPak), and you would think I’m trying to poison her. She absolutely hates them. So, I have given up unless and until SmartPak carries the pelleted Poly Copper/Zinc.

Oh, the CocoHoof pellets is one my 3 Uckele products! Yes, I’m glad Smartpak is carrying them now. I have not had the shipping problems that some on here have had so that will work for me, so long as they don’t discontinue them.

These, my mare will eat. I tried the Custom Equine cu/zinc powder and that was a very, very hard no. She looks great on the CocoHoof so hooves crossed, they’ll keep making it.

2 Likes

https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=5ff937ec-e81a-480e-bf06-d4c27ef61868

I’ve used this a lot. I don’t know it compares price wise to Uckele though.

I am concerned about Smartpak discontinuing the Uckele GUT since they have Smartgut GI which is basically the same thing BUT is more than 4 times the cost per month! It looks like MVP carries something similar but at a higher cost than Uckele per month, just not as bad as SP. I’m tempted to just buy the slippery elm bark, marshmallow root, and licorice root individually and then find a pre/probiotic that is similar. Sigh…just when I thought I had a good system for my boys going.
I also tried to contact Chewy to see if they were still going to carry the Uckele line and the response that I got was not in very good English so no real help there.
Probably going to stock up depending on expiration timing.

Gotta love those horses who make that stuff easy for us.
I had one of those. It is just amazing.

I can get 2 in him before he gives me a quizzical look. “These treats suck!”

He’s always pumped for dewormer too. Strange.

3 Likes