[QUOTE=equuspeace;8754155]
I am a horse owner that over the years have always left my horse’s grain up to the barn to decide. Currently he is on Triple Crown Senior, but I will be moving him to a smaller barn that has nearly all the horses on a local grain. That being sad, I’ve been toying with it for years, but now is the time to see if maybe there is a better feed out there. With recent scares of cross-contamination etc and many new “natural” feeds entering the market, there is so much to think about. So, what do you feed and why did you choose to feed it? I want to be able to make an educated decision for my horse![/QUOTE]
We have feed based on owners preference. However was at a barn where the owner/manager in Virginia fed our horse beet pulp. Horse got very sick from choking. I am doing qualitative research and would like your opinion. In addition what is your view of the industry and it’s ethical treatment of horses.
My horse is on pasture ~12 hrs a day when it’s in season, and as much grass hay as she will eat at night. She gets ~6lbs Tribute Sr split into two feedings. This is the only regimen I’ve had her on where I haven’t had to add alfalfa cubes or fat supplements and she looks awesome.
Previously she’s been on Essential K and very minimal hay (BOs were cheapskates and it was my first time boarding and I had very limited options as far as barns in the area… do not miss those days); decent amount of mediocre hay and bleh generic milled grain that was “supposed to” have the same profile as nutrena but clearly didn’t; terrible sweet feed and terrible hay plus a flake of good hay that my angel friend would throw her; terrible milled pelleted feed and restricted amounts of crappy hay; almost free choice grass hay and Safe Choice (as you can see, I’ve boarded at a lot of sketchy barns…problem with being straight out of college and trying to find a barn near Chicago). On all of those she ranged from embarrassingly skinny to in OK weight but lacking topline.
I would maybe prefer to switch her to TC Sr because it’s lower NSC, but I don’t want to make my BO swap feeds again (they were feeding crappy generic farm & fleet brand and I was like heyyyyyyy let’s try this instead. The TC is a little more expensive so the Tribute won out). If the grass stayed lusher longer or the hay had more alfalfa I would want to see how she did on a RB, but I can’t really change that.
[QUOTE=Rmb;8770862]
We have feed based on owners preference. However was at a barn where the owner/manager in Virginia fed our horse beet pulp. Horse got very sick from choking. I am doing qualitative research and would like your opinion. In addition what is your view of the industry and it’s ethical treatment of horses.[/QUOTE]
Hello, RBAKA from the Marina Genn post.
I feed organic Timothy hay that is very grassy and alfalfa- always mostly Timothy with a little alfalfa. Grain wise, my horses get Cavalor. Two of the metabolically challenged horses get FiberForce. The others get Perfomix or Pianissimo depending on their temperament and work level. Plus Platinum Performance for two of them and the smart pak digestive supplements for the others.
I base on diets on forage first and foremost.
In the summer the horses are on 24/7 pasture.
In the winter, they have hay 24/7.
I’m down to one horse at the moment (first time in forever, literally!) and she is not a hard keeper, but not an air fern either. She does need some additional calories when we ride often in the summer.
So her diet consists of pasture or hay 24/7, depending on time of year.
Triple Crown 30% (ration balancer) to ensure she’s getting her vitamins and minerals. This is cheaper cost/day to feed than a pelleted multi-vitamin, which is why I feed it versus a packaged supplement. Not necessarily for the protein added.
In the winter, I add vitamin E - because when we had her tested last year, she was on the very low end of normal range. In the summer when she’s on green grass I remove the supplement.
That’s the basis of her diet.
In the summer when she needs additional calories, I do one of two things:
- add alfalfa cubes or beet pulp to her ration balancer to provide additional calories
or
- switch her to a more calorie dense feed ration because she gets annoyed if I add too much volume to her meals (even if kept below the 5 lbs/meal maximum…it’s like she gets sick of eating) so in those cases, I typically switch her to Blue Seal Sentinel Senior, Blue Seal Sentinel Performance LS, or Triple Crown Senior, depending on my mood and her needs at the time.
I prefer the extruded BS products because she’s prone to choke and those don’t require soaking for her to eat safely.
I feed lots of mixed grass hay and a local mix 12% sweet feed mixed with cracked corn. Grass hay because I can feed more of it and we bale our own. Local feed because a) I’ve fed brand name feed and I’ve not noticed an appreciable difference and b) it’s a whole lot cheaper. Cracked corn because it adds energy. When I think about it I also feed Diamond V yeast- I tend to use it more in the winter months for increased feed efficiency.
Forage first here too.
Barn feeds grass hay 2x a day in the (dry at this time of year) pasture, but it’s insufficient for a growing WB.
Since he has PSSM2 we have to avoid anything with an NSC over 10%, and he is putting on weight rapidly on the following:
5# alfalfa pellets
5# tim pellets
2 cups canola oil
1# triple Crown Omega Max (ground linseed)
Custom vit/min from Horsetech
This is fed about 1/3 before, and 2/3 after our ride each day.
I use FeedXL.com to balance his diet and it is an eye-opener on equine nutrition!
Letseeeeeee:
My horse right now is lucky enough to be on 3/4-1 acre of well-tended grass pasture by himself (24/7). In the spring, summer and fall, this is the bulk of his diet. Since he is in work, I supplement with Nutrena Pro Force Fuel because the calories come more from fat that starch. He’s very hot, I don’t need lots of carbs. In the winter, I supplement his feed with grass hay (when the grass becomes dormant) and alfalfa hay (when it’s cold and he needs calories). I also double his grain intake. All of this keeps him a good 5.5 to 6 body scale.
in the past, I supplemented with beet pulp which was very useful. He learned to use his face as a shovel to literally get rid of the beet pulp and eat the grain, and when he was body score 6+ I elected to discontinue the beet pulp.
At the end of the day, I do my best to balance his diet. Right now I add vitamins because his grain ration is low (the grass is great).
Easy keeping QH mare (16.2ish, TB build) gets Buckeye Gro N Win Ration Balancer AM and PM to round out the vitamins/minerals in her orchard grass/alfalfa-mix hay (hay 3x daily).
She’s been on pasture and hay alone before and keeps her weight on fine, but, when we bought her, she transitioned from all-day turnout on grass to part-day turnout with no grass. Given this–and the fact that we’re getting ready for hunt season, and the fact that we didn’t want her feeling left out at feeding time :)-- we felt like the smallest reasonable portion of ration balancer for her weight was the way to go. Local feed store en route to the barn always has the Buckeye product in stock, which is why we’ve moved to it from Tribute Essential K, which she’d been on with her previous owner. She also gets electrolytes in the AM and will continue to through hunt season.
She’s new to us, but it’s working out well so far. We’ll reassess and adjust as needed as we go.
My horses are getting TC 30% and alfalfa pellets during the summer now. They are both getting very average grass hay and are out on pasture that doesn’t really have any nutritional value. They are very fat, but I think it’s from the carbs in the hay. I think my barn does not understand why I am feeding a “grain” when they are so round, but they look tons better after I switched to the TC 30%.
I switched to the triple crown products last winter when my senior horse lost a lot of weight at the beginning of the winter and I was feeding a lot of TC Senior. I was also feeding a ration balancer then (lmf), but it had a higher nsc value so I switched to the 30% in the spring. I try to work with the ration balancer base and then add on from there if they need something else.
