Tribute Essential K

[Brian]

[QUOTE=fordtraktor;8650019]
Thanks…you are right of course. My vet recommended it because it has a few things in it this and other RBs don’t have…I checked the ingredients closely first because I thought it would be redundant, but a good number of things aren’t. It seems to be a bit of a pet theory of his (he actually recommends Foal Aide but this has all the same stuff and doesn’t require daily syringing.) Whatever, if the filly has issues I would blame myself if I didn’t do it. :D. Though she looks great now, I have a lot invested in her including a lot of hopes!

I agree she doesn’t really need it but nutrition is both a science and an art in some ways. Giving it a try on this baby and seeing how she turns out. No one else is on extra vites except the pony who only gets a handful of RB. She is too fat to get a full amount of RB.

I looked at the Progressive RB, but geez, expensive. At least at my feed store. This is much more affordable. I might try that one if the horses don’t look good on the Essential K in a month or two. We don’t have Buckeye here. Is that what you use?[/QUOTE]

We used to feed GNW. When Kapper left Buckeye, we switched to Progressive. After I while I got irritated with formulas changing without notification, so with some help, I had my own formulated. I basically took what I thought were the best features from both to incorporate into ours. We’ve gone that route now for about 8 yrs.

About a year after we quit feeding Progressive, the Rep stopped by and looked at our horses. He told me all of our horses looked great, and that we should “stay the course” with our feed program. I smiled and told him that was our plan.

I still refer to the charts (when memory fails me). I do think they provide a good general guideline for feeding and meeting nutritional needs. Caloric needs are “in the eyes of the beholder.”

We’ll drench with Rejuvenaide as a preventative for 30 days with our foals, so I can understand your reasoning for the Uckele product.

[pony_grandma]

If you have Essential K don’t you have Tribute Growth Pellets available?

We just raised a 2 yr old on this program and he looks super. And you won’t need extra vits.

And our competitive horses are on K plus rice bran (and beet pulp during the winter months). That and hay (grass now) period. If you’ve seen my DD and them out and about you’d never know we don’t feed grain. Saves a ton of money.

[JB]

@Brian;8649558

The horses were all in work at a H/J show barn. All of the riding and collection in the world won’t do a thing to develop a strong top line, unless the nutrition is there to support the work. If anything, it may actually cause more harm in the way of fatigue and muscle soreness with out the supportive nutrition.

Not to generalize this, but it’s actually far too common to have those exact horses not ridden well. Hunters especially, Jumpers to a bit of a lesser degree, as Hunters are too often ridden on no to little contact with heads and necks poked out, on their forehands. Even our local A show is full of horses ridden strung out, and have the toplines to show for it, no muscling on top of the necks, and these are the Green and Working Hunters. There’s nothing magical about being in work, or at a {insert discipline} barn that makes the work correct, unfortunately

In the case with these horses, almost all of them would have BCS of 5, but the same horses had concaved withers (I guess some people call this high withered) and concaved loin regions along the back. Yet over the croup to the dock, most of them appeared to look almost fatty. Zero muscle definition across the buttocks. Sorry, not my idea of what an equine athlete should look like.

HOnestly, this sounds like less than stellar riding, and the very common issue of using saddles too narrow. Horses just don’t look that bad with a pretty high quality RB unless other things are either drastically wrong specifically (ie hay is low quality), or the overall management isn’t that great - saddles don’t fit well, riding is not that great, etc

[fordtraktor]

I have seen horses like Brian describes often. They are usually fed bad hay and not enough of it. Many times they are fed a concentrate in large amounts to make up for it. At least this one seems to be able to maintain a 5 on the amount of hay they are feeding.

It is easy to make horses look like crap feeding 2 flakes of bad hay twice a day, and not doing sufficient turnout to maintain muscle!