Soy Free Options: Crypto vs. Tribute Wholesome vs. Other?

[GraceLikeRain]

Going down the soy-free wormhole.Horse has confirmed positive soy test on allergy panel and demonstrated significantly less skin issues and bloating once soy was removed. Could it be correlational and not causal, sure. Am I interested in tossing her back on soy, not really. If you want to play in the soy-free jungle, please join me in this brainstorming.

Barn provides timothy pellets and Crypto. Anything else is owner provided. Trying to find the balance of nutrition, calories, and cost. Right now at $150/month the Tribute Wholesome adds up but horse looks tip top on 4 lbs of the Wholesome despite being a larger horse and moderate keeper in the middle of winter. I don’t want to sacrifice condition for cost savings if there’s too large of a caloric gap.

Crypto: After enjoying the deep dive that was a very chaotic 2014 thread I think I’ve got a decent summary of the product. Nurse created a product, there is no peer-reviewed studies, no consulting vets, and no real research to back up that it provides complete nutrition when fed in conjunction with hay. It seems like they’ve made some updates in the past 8 years but it continues to be quite high NSC and not any clarity on whether it meets industry standards. It looks like they have added in a wild forage product that is lower NSC. Either way, a lot of money for whole ingredients but not really a true balancer. Nice that it is a barn option but doesn’t seem to really meet my needs unless heavily supplementing with VM?

Tribute: 2-4 lbs per day depending on weight/activity (currently feeding 4 lbs). Provides an actual balanced complete to hay. Low NSC. High Protein. Anything I’m missing? According to Mad Barn it is 1.28 Mcal so around 5,100 calories of her diet. Any red flags with this product? I haven’t observed any but know that not all feeds are created equal.

Hygain Zero is lower calories in a smaller bag. Haven’t crunched the numbers but seems like it would be more volume to get the same calories and no cost savings.

Ditch the RB and go VM?

Horsetech Fuel for Mixed grass would be around $80/month. It seems like timothy pellets are around 900 calories so 4 lbs a day plus the Fuel would be less but not substantially less calories but a good bit less protein. Would that then mean adding in Horsetech Nutramino would be a good option but further bumping the cost?

Horsetech for Mixed grass standard would be around $50/month and then I could add in rice bran or oil to increase calories?

Vermont Blend plus forage pellets and rice bran?

[Scribbler]

Mad Barn Omneity VMS powder in a beet pulp and alfalfa mash will cover your bases at least cost and lowest NSC but may not have the extra calories you need from a bagged feed. Can you feed more hay to make up for that?

Horses don’t really need that much protein if they have good hay. Adding in alfalfa will do it.

[Texarkana]

I used Horsetech High Point Mixed Grass + Nutramino for a while. I was happy with it. But it was significantly more expensive than using a fortified feed. Feed prices have gone so wonky over the past couple years that maybe that’s no longer true?

[Simkie]

There’s also a Triple Crown soy free offering, to add another option:

Triple Crown Balancer Gold

Didn’t Tribute have a thing a few years back? I have a vague recollection of something around monesin, maybe they said their mills were ionophore free, but weren’t, and there was a contaminated batch that killed a few horses? Or am I misremembering?

[JB]

Triple Crown Balancer Gold is likely your best option

Your assessment of CA is right on both the feed and the forage product.

VB sounds like it would require fairly significant pounds of hay pellets which is fine - fewer pounds with alfalfa than with grasses. Replacing 1lb with 1lb of rice bran would up the calories a bit as well. VB regular is $.99/day, so add in the cost of your carrier(s). VB and VB Pro also cover basic amino acids. California Trace/Plus does as well, though you need the Plus to get to the level in either VB or VB Pro

Neither of those cover ca/phos, but if you use alfalfa pellets to carry, you’re likely covering any deficiency in the grass hay

All forage balancers will require additional Vit E if you’re only feeding hay. If hay season is only a few months, grass the others, you can likely skip that.

Omneity is definitely an option. They don’t list Se in the GA, but do list Alltech’s Sel-plex in the ingredients, so you’d need to call them and ask how much is in a serving. My guess is 2mg, because that’s what their Amino Trace has. You’re not getting amino acids with Omneity though, you do with AT.

@Simkie

Didn’t Tribute have a thing a few years back? I have a vague recollection of something around monesin, maybe they said their mills were ionophore free, but weren’t, and there was a contaminated batch that killed a few horses? Or am I misremembering?

You remember correctly. They say they cleaned things up, no idea their explanation for the “ionophore-free” mill having a contamination, but I don’t have any source to validate what they actually did or that they got re-inspected.

[pompeiii]

I’ll jump in and say that I feed Wholesome Blends senior to my 12 year old thoroughbred. We haven’t tested him, but consider him soy intolerant. He has a ton of gut issues, but the short of it is, when he eats soy, he colics. I brought it home from a rescue 3 years ago and transitioned him from their home blend to TC something-or-other (I don’t remember, I think senior or sr gold) and his personality changed. He’d eat, become immediately withdrawn, and do stand in the run-in shed for 2 hours lookin miserable. He also became super hard to handle (high as a kite). My vet had me remove the feed, suspecting soy, and 2 days later, calm and happy on alfalfa pellets and rice brand. He eventually decided it wasn’t edible, even with oats so we tried Wholesome Blends and it’s been a game changer (he’s picky about feed). If he eats soy (ie: I accidentally give him my mini’s 1/2 cup ration balancer because I’m asleep), colicky signs are back.

He’s on the senior because, while the performance is nice (nothing got weight on him better or faster than that), the senior just works best for him. He gets almost free choice alfalfa with it and a daily fibre beet mash and I work hard to balance his gut. But, this works for us.

He would not touch the Triple Crown Gold balancer or the TC Naturals.

[lenapesadie]

Purina’s Omega Match ration balancer is soy free. The feeding rate is a bit higher than many RBs but that’s fine if one isn’t needing to minimize calories. It’s fairly low NSC, has a great Omega 3 profile, all natural vitamin E, a good dose of Biotin and my horses say it tastes great compared to TC Gold balancer (they’d eat the TC fine but one of mine wouldn’t clean up if I had too many supps in it).

[quietann]

I did exactly that for my mare when she was a super easy keeper. HorseTech High Point grass pellets, Nutramino, and a cup of Purina Outlast. It was wicked expensive, because the barn only covered the Outlast.

[IPEsq]

My soy sensitive horse loves the Wholesome Blends line. And the senior is the one feed he will eat soaked when I need to mix in powdered meds. He does fine on TC Gold Balancer, but he much prefers Tribute given the choice. There is a Wholesome Blends balancer you can feed plus the barn provided pellets that may be cheaper per month compared to 4lbs a day of senior. My horse thinks the balancer is not quite as tasty as the senior, but it’s still more tasty than TC. He’s a very easy keeper.

I’ve used the Crypto forage blend when I needed to add calories for my other horse who was underweight and wouldn’t eat beet pulp or really any soaked feed, especially at first when he just didn’t want to eat the weight gain ration of concentrated feed at all. I wouldn’t feed it without some kind of other supplementation, and it is quite expensive. It’s not bad stuff but it’s not a complete ration. It would not be great most likely if you need to soak meals because it’s primarily chopped forage.