Does anyone feed TC chopped forage (either grass forage or safe starch) to supplement or instead of regular hay? Pros/cons?
Yes, I feed the ancient one some of the TC chopped forage (I think it’s Safe Starch) in addition to his soaked senior feed and alfalfa pellets. He’s actually still able to eat regular hay but this seems softer and is shorter pieces, so if he couldn’t chew it well it seems like it should still be able to move through his system. Hope so anyway. Not that he goes anywhere anymore, but it’s also easy to travel with and less messy than bales of hay.
cons: it is expensive!
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Yes, my senior gets a bucketful of the TC Chopped Alfalfa in the winter at night check. Not only does he inhale it, but it keeps him from dropping weight when the pasture goes dormant.
Well I tried to. I was looking for something to feed my allergy prone pony and settled on the Safe Starch as it contained nothing in it he was allergic to. Of course after one feeding of it he was covered in hives. I fed the rest of the bag to two other ponies and they were not crazy about it. IIRC the texture was kind of odd feeling, this maybe why they didn’t like it.
I kept an old pony with missing teeth alive on Safe Starch forage for a few years (along with TC senior and beet pulp with no molasses). Eventually, it became even harder for him to chew and he’d leave the stemmier bits of the forage behind. At that point, I stopped buying it because it was too expensive to throw part of it away, and I switched to soaked hay pellets instead.
My pony gets a double handful of Safe Starch with her VERY small serving of pellets (Vit E supplement and Simplifly in the AM, timothy pellets in the PM) to keep her from inhaling the pellets and choking. It works a treat and saves me from having to soak (or hand feed) tiny quantities of pellets. And she likes it enough to come in off the pasture for night check, saving me a hike out into the field.
For the record, at age 30, her teeth are great (according to the dentist), she just doesn’t seem to think that pellets require chewing…
It is expensive, but avoiding even a minor/self resolving choke is priceless!
