I wonder why that is? You would think some Canadian feed company would jump on the RB band wagon? Sounds like it is needed.
There ARE ration balancers in CN, Purina makes 2. But CN is an enormous country, lots of it very rural, and a lot of places donât have very many options, including these ration balancers
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Iâm on the west coast. We donât grow grain crops but are the main port for exporting Canadian prairies grain to Asia. We currently have 3 local mills making horse feed, up from 2; a long standing livestock feed company expanded into equine a year ago. Purina does not have a mill or distribute from its Eastern Canada mills. We get some American supplements but no American feeds. I would expect between the exchange rate, transport, and customs duties theyâd be prohibitively expensive. We do import hay from Washington state to the Vancouver area, commercial timothy and alfalfa.
There are RB in our market locally produced, but I donât love their coverage. Iâm currently using Mad Barn Omniety, they ship for free. Previous I used a local vms but the price shot up and Omniety has better coverage.
I donât know how many feed companies there were when I was a kid, but we always went to the same place. They had a huge dim warehouse space right down by the wheat pool silos on the waterfront railyards and I now assume had the mill right there. You could get whole oats, flatted oats, sweet feed or mystery pellets. For all I know they may have been the only mill. Their name persists to this day, but they are now just a garden supply/ pet food/ horse feed store with a few exurban locations (one near my workplace).
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That is unfortunate that choices are so limited for you @Scribbler.
I think we have too many choices here and it can be overwhelming.
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Hygain Metasafe and Blue Bonnet Limited are soy free RB
https://www.chewy.com/bluebonnet-feeds-limited-ingredient/dp/1093022
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I reached out to a nearby feed dealer and they carry the BB. It is $ 44 for 44 pounds so still a bit pricy for me. I know it is only 6 pounds difference but that is 6 days of feeding. Gone.
Had a mess up at my local feed dealer and the " new guy" forgot to order my Tribute so it may be a couple of weeks before it gets here nowâŠ
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So, I went down the soy-free rabbit hole after some testing showed that my little prince was sensitive. Ultimately, I eliminated everything that he was shown to be reactive to on the testing. It made no difference in his itching. I ended up going back to adding in the ration balancer that does include soy- Gro N Win- and keeping everything else the same. He is none the worse for wear. I probably should just give him some Zyrtec, and thatâs probably what will happen.
Just for information- I stopped using all commercial feeds except for the ration balancer, which had no soy- at that time. I bought rolled flaked barley, alfalfa pellets, and my usual beet pulp, along with vitamins, fresh ground flax seed, etc. It ended up costing me about half what commercial feed does. It is more time consuming to pick up the feed at the mill, but I have everyone one that mix, and they all look fantastic. So, Temperâs allergies ended up saving me a whole lot of money!
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If you used blood testing, they are highly unreliable in determining food allergies in horses. And, if theyâre having a âflareâ due to, say, bug allergies, which has their immune system on alert, they can pop âallergicâ to a whole lot of things they arenât allergic to. If the result for a given food wasnât in the 1000 range, ,it wasnât an allergy anyway.
Lots of lower numbers can also be a symptom of leaky gut. And if so, while symptoms may improve by removing the things they show as "allergic to, itâs only because those products proteins arenât crossing the intestinal barrier and causing issues, not because they actually have an allergy
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I find that many tests are simply unreliable, but they are what we are taught to adhere to by the Vets. So many environmental influences and those within the individual horse, themselves, can make for wildly skewed results. Thyroid testing makes me crazy. Donât get me started.
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Unless you have a reason to cut soy, I wouldnât bother. Blood tests are highly unreliable but I find an unscientific elimination test works better.
In our case, my gelding was have daily very mild colic episodes after meals. For about 90 minutes, heâd park himself in the corner of the shed, when turned out, and just stand looking uncomfortable until his gastric issues passed. Then he was fine and moved on, ate hay, and life was good. The longer this went on, his personality changed, he became anxious and just off. My vet guessed it was soy (I thought she was crazy) and had me pull all feed and just feed alfalfa pellets and eventually add in a v/m/fat source. 2 days later all distress was gone. It also turns out that the custom blend he had been getting previously was soy free.
We added the wholesome blends about 9 months later when he decided to refuse alfalfa pellets (and also couldnât tolerate added flax beyond feed). Heâs also super sensitive to other stuff like bugs, chemicals, fly sprays, etc. His skin will fall off and he ends up with awful hypersensitive âIâm allergic to my own sweatâ responses. But between his feed, hay, and Mad Barn Omneity, heâs doing well. But if he even gets a soy based treat, he has the same old reaction. For this reason, both my boys are now 100% soy free. Itâs just easier. And safer.
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That is why I didnât spend the money. The only issue for my horse was digestive and thankfully he responded favorably to the removal of my soy based balancer and had an immediate relapse when I reintroduced the feed again.
Makes diagnosing easy for me.
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Wild Fed is the absolute best feed Iâve ever used. My horses love it, and nutritionally it meets all their baselines. Easy to control weight (up or down) with, as well.
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Wild Fed is a lightly fortified forage, not a replacement for a fortified feed or ration balancer.
Only a total diet analysis could tell you it helped meet all the requirements. I guarantee it wonât fill out insufficient Vit E in an all/mostly hay diet
7ppm copper is tiny. Thatâs 3.18mg/lb. Having seen lots, and lots and lots of grass forages that are 3ppm Cu, which means only 30mg in 22lb of hay for an 1100lb horse who needs at least 100mg, youâd have to feed 22lb of Wild Fed to make up for the difference
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Weâve had analyses done over time, and my boysâ bloodwork is hitting all the marks beautifully. Every horse is different of course, but weâve needed nothing additional, and even had Mad Barn omneity on deck just in case. Never needed it. They are on pasture 4-6 hours per day and have about 21lbs of Timothy hay per day. Each get between 1-3lbs of Wild Fed per day depending on current weight needs.
Blood work for nutrient status is useless for all but a few things, like selenium and vitamin E. Not copper or zinc or calcium or phosphorous, etc. Abnormalities with those are indicative of disease status, not an excess or deficiency of them. One exception would be potassium, where elevated K in an HYPP horse means his diet is too high for his disease, so itâs still a disease state, but K is something you can reduce in the HYPP horseâs diet and lower his blood level.
So you feed it for calories, not nutrients.
Most people see a horse in good weight and think all their nutritional needs are optimally met. Maybe it is, between good grass (which covers Vit E), enough Se in the grass, enough cu and zn in the grass that feet and coat donât look like crap . Awesome.
I know of lots of horses who are in great weight (or fat) on just hay and/or grass, and itâs all fine and good until low Omega 3, low Vit E, low Cu, low selenium, etc, start showing up as things they have to buy coat and hoof conditioner products for to âfixâ
It is not a feed I would recommend to optimally fortify any diet, for the reasons I listed. Itâs not a replacement, at all, for a ration balancer or regular fortified feed, for the reasons I listed.
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I used Crypto for a long time, but I had to switch when one of mine also tested positive to oats and flax so switched to Hygain Meta. I can definitely say the horses did not like the taste of the Hygain so much. Then when Hygain announced they were leaving the USA, I switched to Bluebonnet Limited. Horses LOVE it. It is soy free, oat free, corn free, and flax free. I have one that is allergic to soy, oats and flax so itâs perfect. I am very happy with it. So there is another choice and they will ship to you. Limited | Allergy-Friendly Forage Companion For Horses (bluebonnetequine.com)
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My bag finally arrived today ! They will keep it on regular order unless I tell them to stop so It will be there when I need it .
Will see how he likes it tomorrow morning . Not worried as he seems to eat everything with gusto. Plan to mix it with his current oats.
Will measure it to see how much equals a pound. Enrich was 2 heaping cups to make a pound.
I hope he tolerates it well because it has been a long wait and it isnât cheapâŠ
Did you get the Tribute balancer? It is more volume than the usual pelleted RBs per pound. I canât recall the exact measurement last time I weighed itâŠmight have been a full quart per pound. I had assumed it would be the same or less than TC, but definitely not. Sorry I donât remember the details. I was trying to find places to cut more calories from my metabolic horse and I was surprised to see I was already feeding the âdietâ ration once I weighed it all out.
Youâre right, the WWB has more âthingsâ in it which add to the air space and decrease itâs density. Purina Enrich is one of the most dense ones, around 2c/lb. But most are in that 3c/lb range
I did and it looked/ smelled very appetizing to me.
It measured 3 cups per pound( you are right @JB ) which surprised me since it seems so much bigger than Enrich Plus tiny pellets. No matter now because HE HATES IT !!
He started eating ( i mixed some into his oats) and suddenly his head comes out of the bucket, eyes bugged, his mouth is gaping, tongue moving, head flipping and out comes either a beet pulp piece or sweet potato piece 
Then I couldnât even get him to approach the bucket. I dumped out the offending stuff, washed the bucket and he happily ate his plain oats ( after a suspicious and cautious sniff).
Thankfully, I only got 1 bag and my mares both hoovered up what he left so It wonât be wasted.
So all of that waiting for nothing!
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