Tired of feeding oil, what are the best solid fat supplements out there?

[Badger]

I’ve been feeding a cup of oil twice daily for more than two decades. I’m sick of the mess. Two of my horses are out of an EPSM Tb mare and the other two are big muscled horses and I’m a big believer of adding fat. I want to find a high fat supplement that is easy to feed and pallitable. I tried Ultimate Finish 100 and one of my horses isn’t eating it well. I’m now trying Purina Amplify but it’s less than 1/3 fat.

The rest of the diet is good, just lower fat than I want. (Cavelor Endurix and Nutena Empower Topline Balance ration balancer, depending on the horse, 24/7 turnout with plenty of grass, free choice O/A in the winter, and good alfalfa at meal time for those who need something more).

I want a palletable, non-liquid fat supplement that hopefully is mostly fat, hopefully more than 50% but ideally 80-100%. Not breaking the bank would be nice, too, but I know I’m going to have to pay for the convenience of avoiding the greasy mess.

There are so many new fat supplement products out there over the last decade, my head is spinning. Would y’all please tell me what works?

[piedmontfields]

Fats I have fed my PSSM mare while figuring out her diet:
Camelina oil (just a few ounces per meal)
Ground flax
Soaked whole flax
Soaked chia
Soaked Coolstance (copra)
Rice bran (some PSSM horses cannot tolerate this but it is a good source of fat)
Renew Gold (combo of flax, rice bran and copra)

I am not a huge fan of the solid fat supplements as I think they offer less nutritionally.

You might also explore options for a higher fat feed than the Endurix. I feed Seminole Dynasport now, which has nearly twice the fat content (14%) of the Endurix. That eliminates the need for me to feed extra fat (YMMV depending on individual horse needs).

[IPEsq]

It kind of depends on what you want out of it. I’ve fed the powdered CocoSoya, but like Amplify, it’s only about 30% fat.

However, stabilized ground flax is also in the neighborhood of 32% fat. It’s got some protein and fiber to it. But it’s a good source of omega 3s. Chia seed is also a good omega 3 source (more than flax and at less volume, no need to grind, etc.) but more expensive than flax by a lot and also not 100% fat (I think may be higher fiber than flax).

For 100% fat, you’d be looking at a prilled fat supplement like the Ultimate Finish or Cool Calories, but the trade off is that it may not be as tasty. Smartpak is making one now that’s 99% fat and vanilla flavored. I can guarantee my horse won’t eat anything vanilla. I don’t know what the flavoring is in Cool Calories.

So, for the non-EPSM horses, something like ground flax may be just fine. You may have to feed relatively too much of that though to get to your equivalent 1cup oil for the mare.

[BroncoMo]

Look for Performance Pak 100. It is generic Cool Calories, so not near the price tag. It is 99% prilled fat. Make sure it’s Performance Pak (vegetable fat), and not Fat Pak (animal fat). I get mine at a local co-op. If you’re in horse country, I can’t imagine it’ll be hard to find. I don’t know what it tastes like but only my absolute pickiest one won’t eat it. But now that I think of it, it’s likely the soybean meal he doesn’t like. No one else turns their nose up at it. I think it’s around $60 for a 50 pound bag. Calculate how much fat you want but I usually feed 1-2 cups a day, depending on the kind of keeper.

[Simkie]

The prilled fats (Cool Calories, etc) are 100% fat. They’re about half as dense as oil, so you’d 2x your current volume measurement to get the same fat and calories. Palatability at that amount might be an issue, and the cost will be pretty high, too.

How are you dealing with your oil? Maybe there’s a less messy management option that could help?

[Badger]

Oil is the big jugs from Costco with an 8-oz pump I bought at a restaurant supply. But it splatters occasionally, gets on hands and clothes and horse noses, builds up in feed tubs, warps rubber mats, eroded paint on stall bars over time. It’s messy and I’m DONE.

Horses are all doing well on what I’m feeding. I just want to change the oil portion to a less messy fat. Appreciate all the suggestions, please keep them coming, I will be researching them all.

[Badger]

Summary of fats suggested so far:

Amplify 30% fat
Ground flax 32% fat
Renew Gold 15% fat
chia 30% fat
COPRA 8% fat
stabilized rice bran 20% fat

Basically 100% fat:
Ultimate Finish 100
Cool Calories
Performance Pak 100
Smart & Simple
Messy veggie oil

[Scribbler]

I was going to suggest flaxseed. You would need to feed a lot however to equal two cups of pure cooking oil. But perhaps they dont need that much.

[IPEsq]

So, I used to feed flax oil but it was hard to get through the whole bottle without it getting rancid in the summer. I didn’t have much of a mess problem in the bucket (my tack locker is another story, from some dripping). I would feed it with a small amount of TC Senior in the evenings, wet. Licked the bowl shiny. Last winter, horse lived outside for a little bit and in extreme temps couldn’t have a wet mash (would not eat it fast enough), so just got oil. Still little mess on his end. But he probably only got 1/2 cup per feeding, tops.

I switched to ground flax and sometimes chia instead (for when his seasonal allergies flareup), and because those generate some goo when wet, I get much more solidified buildup from that than I ever did with oil.

[Mukluk]

I feed whole flax seed (it has been previously debated on these forums but many feel that flax seed does not need to be ground up). My horses are shiny so I guess it is working fine.

[Mango20]

I’ve been feeding Legends Omega Plus to one of mine. It’s flax-based, high fat, and also packs a lot of vitamin E. It comes in nice little nuggets that smell a little like Froot Loops.

https://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p-6986-legends-omega-plus-40-lb.aspx#tabs-5

[JB]

Unless they are tested PSSM, consider lowering the total supplemental fat. 2c oil is way more fat than even most horses who do well on a higher fat diet need (assuming not PSSM). That opens things up a lot into the rice bran category of 40% fat, along with other things that are <80%.

[crthunder]

My very picky thoroughbred will eat the Cool Calories in his mash. I only give him one full scoop right now daily (can’t recall scoop size but I think it is 2 oz). During winter I give him two scoops. I find it very affordable since he actually does eat it. He wouldn’t touch a lot of the pelleted ones mash or not.
becky

[SonnysMom]

I know that it was a fad for awhile to feed black oil sunflower seeds. I am reading they are about 44% fat. Bonus is you get sunflowers in your manure pile. I think it fell out of favor since they seem to be high in Omega 6 and low in Omega 3. I buy 50 pound bags for the birds from TSC and they are frequently on sale. You do not want the striped sunflower seeds as they have much less fat.

[JB]

Not only the high Omega 6, but sunflower seeds are fairly susceptible to aflatoxins, and there’s no screening for that, so no thanks.

[2DogsFarm]

I’ve been feeding BOSS for over 10yrs to 3 different sets of geldings of varying breeds.
Resulting in mirror-shiny coats that happen with minimal grooming on my part < think: run a brush over them every other day, horses live out 24/7/365.
My vet has commented on how soft their coats are, even the Winter Wooly Mammoth hair.
Their grain is whole oats, only other supplement a probiotic.
Hay is orchard grass/clover/timothy mix.
No problems keeping weight on anyone.

I’ve heard the arguments for Omega 3 to 6 imbalance, but the aflatoxin one is new to me.

KY Equine Research recent study:
(I do not use the products, found this with a Google search)

https://ker.com/equinews/sunflower-s…orses-yea-nay/

I feed a very small amount - 2T twice a day to my largest horse, less to the pony & mini.

[JB]

This isn’t the actual study, just a reference to it, but you can find actual studies pretty easily
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2017/04/21/Sunflower-seeds-traced-as-source-of-mold-liver-carcinogen/5961492786163/

Researchers found a toxin produced by Aspergillus molds known as aflatoxin, which commonly affect corn, peanuts, pistachios and almonds, in sunflower seeds. This was one of the first studies to find aflatoxin in sunflower seeds. Aflatoxin is one of the most potent liver carcinogens known.

[warriorhorse]

There is an article on sunflower seed contamination 60 percent, of seeds have the aflaxtoxin. Wouldn’t feed sunflower seeds not worth the risk. My horse won’t touch them ,take one bite and spit it out.

Amplify is a good choice for high fat, used it for a while. Horse’s stopped eating it though.

[Simkie]

Given the amount of fat needed, it may make sense to consider a dry fat source (whichever makes sense from a palatability, storage and financial perspective) PLUS a little bit of liquid oil.

Two cups of oil a day is just a lot of fat to try to feed a horse dry. That’s FOUR cups of prilled fat, or a whole lot more of anything else. But maybe a cup of oil, split into two feedings, plus another fat source, would solve the problem?

I dislike the pump things, too. Splatter, drips, ugh. So I buy a container of the triple crown rice bran oil. It’s a gallon container with a half cup measure built into it. I refill from the big Costco jugs with a funnel, and the oil container itself lives in a square supplement bucket with some paper towels at the bottom.

At a half cup a meal, nothing is oily, there are no effects on mats or paint, and with a very small amount of attention paid to buckets, there is no oily build up. (I mean very small, scrubbing buckets just sucks.) Maybe it helps that grain is fed wet as a mash? I also feed flax for a little more fat, and omega 3.

[RInurse_Rider]

One other idea - would you consider feeding beet pulp? With water, it soaks up oil pretty well. It kept the slime/mess factor to a minimum when I fed oil this past winter.