Spin-off - Ration Balancer and California Trace - JB !!

[grayarabs]

The recent forage only diet thread - JB - you gave me a light bulb moment.

I recently moved my horse to a barn that feeds Nutrena.
20 year old Arabian gelding - needing to gain weight, topline and muscle w/o getting into Insulin Resistance.
I had been feeding him Standlee timothy pellets with California Trace. (with hay of course).

I have been concerned with starch/sugar content - (Nutrena) but nagging me also has been probable high overall iron. (I started him on the NET a couple of months ago but stopped - now will try it again).

He will be fed:
Three flakes coastal bermuda hay per day. Not tested. No grass / dry lot.
Timothy pellets in a mash every other night.
Nutrena Empower Topline (NET)

The NET specs: (he’ll get between 1-2 pounds/day).

Starch max 9%
Sugar max 5%
Copper min 250 ppm
Zinc min 750 ppm
Iron not listed - but have seen it reported at 625 ppm. (Tractor Supply website - Nutrena response).

Wondering what to do with the bag of Cal. Trace - reading what you wrote - realized I could be / and should be
feeding both. The Cal. Trace should help balance out the overall high iron of the timothy pellets and the NET.

I’ve never seen an analysis of the NET.
I have seen an analysis of TC 30 ration balancer: (ECIR group / Equi-Analytical)

Iron 1620 ppm (makes me wonder how high the NET could get)
Copper 309 ppm
Zinc 902 ppm

Standlee T. Pellets (averages from ECIR / E-A testing):

Iron ~400 ppm
Copper ~9 ppm
Zinc ~ 33 ppm

The NET, hay and T pellets; the iron, copper and zinc levels obviously will vary.

The Cal. Trace seems to be more fixed per 2 ounces at:

Iron none - or none added?
Copper not less than 175 mg
Zinc not less than 500 mg

So…I think would be great to continue with the Cal Trace (half of recommended amount) and the NET.

JB - What do you think? And thanks !!!

Hopefully this info will help others.

Now I need to go fiddle with the ratios, ppms, mgs, etc.

[JB]

Without a forage analysis to add in to all that, it’s not possible to say what’s ideal. But yea, that’s exactly the type of scenario where 1oz of CaT can be very useful - bring up those minerals without increasing iron (if there’s any intrinsic Fe in CaT it’s really low, definitely none added).

CaT also has other minerals, so if you’re only concerned with cu and zn, those are easy and cheaper to add. But CaT is convenient.

[BoyleHeightsKid]

You might want to double check your numbers on the TC 30… what I got from their website is 500ppm. But if I pull up the pdf under it on google, it says 750ppm hmmm. I would think the website would have the most updated information.

I just switch from BS Sentinel and Min a Vite Lite over to Senior and TC 30… that’s the only reason I know that

[grayarabs]

I saw the test results on the ECIR group. (Equine Cushings Insulin Resistance).
I went to Files, then Analyses of Various Feeds, then Triple Crown.

Someone sent in a sample to be tested by Equi-Analytical and shared the results.

It’s listed under Triple Crown 30 Percent - which I assume is the TC30.
I was surprised at the iron content - even for a ration balancer - and even for a Triple Crown product.

On the TC page it shows Iron 500 ppm - but is listed as 500 ppm minimum - so obviously can go higher and looks like it does - much higher.

That’s the kicker - the min and max.

Nutrena doesn’t list iron at all on any product.
When asked - they post IIRC ~600 ppm. Not as min or max. (for the ration balancer).
I’m tempted to send a sample to Equi-Analytical to see.
Nutrena does list the starch as 9pct max and sugar as 5 pct max.
They don’t send samples out for independent testing.
I think they test the ingredients in house - which somehow guarantees the max.

[BoyleHeightsKid]

@grayarabs

I saw the test results on the ECIR group. (Equine Cushings Insulin Resistance).
I went to Files, then Analyses of Various Feeds, then Triple Crown.

Someone sent in a sample to be tested by Equi-Analytical and shared the results.

It’s listed under Triple Crown 30 Percent - which I assume is the TC30.
I was surprised at the iron content - even for a ration balancer - and even for a Triple Crown product.

On the TC page it shows Iron 500 ppm - but is listed as 500 ppm minimum - so obviously can go higher and looks like it does - much higher.

That’s the kicker - the min and max.

Nutrena doesn’t list iron at all on any product.
When asked - they post IIRC ~600 ppm. Not as min or max. (for the ration balancer).
I’m tempted to send a sample to Equi-Analytical to see.
Nutrena does list the starch as 9pct max and sugar as 5 pct max.
They don’t send samples out for independent testing.
I think they test the ingredients in house - which somehow guarantees the max.

But if you check the ingredients, I bet you find ferrous sulfate aka iron. I would check, but alas… you cannot find a list of ingredients for nutrena products online.

[Sfbayequine]

Watch your selenium with the Cal Trace. The empower is a hay ration balancer and so is the Cal Trace. Cal Trace was made for areas with little to no selenium in the hay like I have in a CA. So if you are in an area that has “normal” hay with higher selenium amounts, you could be feeding too much between the hay, empower, and the Cal Trace. I noticed that wasn’t a mineral you were tracking.

I feed orchard/fescue in nets 24/7 with alfalfa in the morning. My horses get Cal Trace with 3 cups (literal 8oz cups) of oat pellets. They get golden flax too. I stopped with other ration balancers and frankly with the CA Trace here in California, I wouldn’t mix and match based on selenium.

[grayarabs]

Nutrena suggests looking at the tag on the bag for list of ingredients. So I did. Yes, iron is listed.

Selenium also a concern. I’ll probably feed less and less of the CalT while I’m increasing the Empower.

Where is the best place to buy copper and zinc to balance the iron.

Gone are the days not knowing / worrying about these things.

[BoyleHeightsKid]

@grayarabs

Where is the best place to buy copper and zinc to balance the iron.

Uckele, Horsetech and CA Trace all sell bulk poly copper and poly zinc. Since I feed TC30 I use a copper/zinc supplement from Custom Equine Nutrition https://customequinenutrition.com/co…-free-shipping

Its cheap and has the added convenience of not having to add a bunch of things separately… she also adds diamond V yeast to make it more palatable.

[JB]

FYI, CaT also has a selenium-free version.