Which grain would you choose?

[Dutchmare433]

Update on Post #22.

I am potentially moving to a new barn where I have the option to provide my own grain for a slight discount. I am looking for suggestions on what to feed my two. I have access to Triple Crown, Poulin, Purina, Blue Seal, and maybe Nutrena? I am kind of excited at the idea of getting to feed them exactly what I want.

The first one, I’ve been providing a ton of extra calories in the form of Blue Seal Omegatin and oil at my current place. I wanted to see what other people were doing for their hard working/hard keeping horses. Horse is showing PSG, schooling I-1, ridden about an hour a day 6 days per week. If I could simplify and just buy one grain and do away with the omegatin, I would be pretty happy. Am thinking of Triple Crown Senior, have used it in the past and liked it. But what else is there? Ultium maybe? Any other options? What about Triple Crown Complete? When to use that vs. the senior?

The other one is already on Triple Crown 30% with the 2 lbs of ETEC he’s eating, so I would probably just stay with that and give him a little bit of whatever the other one was getting to make up the calories he needs.

I am happy with both of their weights, I just want something to simplify and ideally that’s more calorie dense than the ETEC One they’re getting.

ETA: Both horses have hay in front of them most of the time in nets and will continue that. Both are UTD on teeth, fecals, and were dewormed with Equimax in the fall. This is mostly to say that I don’t think the first horse is a true hard keeper or that there’s something wrong with her, I think she just works hard.

[DoubleDown]

I love the Ultium Competition. Great for getting/keeping weight on without hotness.

[BoyleHeightsKid]

Triple Crown or Blue Seal would be my picks… great quality feeds there.

[skipollo]

I’ve had good results with my hard keeper on both TC Senior and Purina Ultium. He’s getting Sentinel LS by Blue Seal currently and is doing GREAT on it. He’s a semi picky eater (not terrible but not the best), and he likes all three. He normally doesn’t like soaked feed/any kind of liquids (such as oil), but he will eat the Sentinel soaked in warm water, if that helps you at all.

TC Senior bricks in the winter, but it’s a great quality feed and is worth the hassle of scooping it when it’s cold out. Ultium has the most calories per lb (around 1900/lb.) TC Senior and Sentinel LS are 1600-ish/lb.

I give him Omega Horseshine as well (for his skin and his feet.) I’ve heard it also helps with weight gain? I don’t use it specifically for that, but it’s pretty cheap and def. won’t hurt to try on top of grain.

[Simkie]

It might be worthwhile to contact Poulin and find out what the kcal/lb of Etec One IS. It’s not in their literature, which is frustrating But at 14% protein, 8% fat and 14.6% NSC it’s not a bad grain and isn’t going to be crazy LOW on calories.

Triple Crown Senior is 1546 kcal/lb and 11.7% NSC
Triple Crown Complete is 1700 kcal/lb and 20.6% NSC

Purina Ultium Competition is 1800 kcal/lb and 16% NSC

Sentinel LS is 1635 kcal/lb and 16% NSC

You might also look at the Legends stuff, if you also have access to that. I was a TC die hard for a long time but got SO TIRED of chipping it out of the cans in the winter. Tried the Sentinel LS and it made two of my horses INSANE. Like, dangerously so. They’re not usually particularly sensitive to feed, so it was quite a surprise. It’s also a very light feed so the volume increase was hard for them. I wound up with the Legends Performance, which has worked quite nicely. It’s a DENSE feed, so it takes less volume to get the #s into them, which I find super useful with my “meh, I’d rather not” eaters.

Legends Performance is 1550 kcal/lb and 13.9% NSC.

[Dutchmare433]

@skipollo

I’ve had good results with my hard keeper on both TC Senior and Purina Ultium. He’s getting Sentinel LS by Blue Seal currently and is doing GREAT on it. He’s a semi picky eater (not terrible but not the best), and he likes all three. He normally doesn’t like soaked feed/any kind of liquids (such as oil), but he will eat the Sentinel soaked in warm water, if that helps you at all.

TC Senior bricks in the winter, but it’s a great quality feed and is worth the hassle of scooping it when it’s cold out. Ultium has the most calories per lb (around 1900/lb.) TC Senior and Sentinel LS are 1600-ish/lb.

I give him Omega Horseshine as well (for his skin and his feet.) I’ve heard it also helps with weight gain? I don’t use it specifically for that, but it’s pretty cheap and def. won’t hurt to try on top of grain.

Interesting, the barn I’m looking at provides Sentinel LS, so maybe that’s an easier option. My only question on the extruded feed is this mare will only eat a certain amount of volume per day…and she needs her grain soaked…I’m thinking the soaked extruded feed would end up being a massive volume?

[Simkie]

@Dutchmare433

Interesting, the barn I’m looking at provides Sentinel LS, so maybe that’s an easier option. My only question on the extruded feed is this mare will only eat a certain amount of volume per day…and she needs her grain soaked…I’m thinking the soaked extruded feed would end up being a massive volume?

Mine definitely had a hard time with the volume. It’s only 0.85 lb/quart. The Legends Performance I mentioned above is 1.48 lb/quart. (TC Senior and Complete both are about a pound a quart.)

Even storing the Sentinel was a pain. I use these rectangular roughneck cans and two bags of anything has always fit in them…big fat NOPE with the Sentinel. :-/ One filled it about 2/3rds full. PITA all around.

[Scribbler]

I hope the discount they are giving you makes up for the cost of the feed. Where I live, a manufactured feed is usually over $2O for a 40 or 50 lb bag. If you are feeding the full recommend amoubt which can be 4 lbs, you can be spending over $80 to $100 just on grain.

Prices might be different in the US.

But do the math. If you spend $100 a month and get a $25 discount, I’d be tempted to seriously consider the barn’s standard grain.

[Dutchmare433]

@Simkie

It might be worthwhile to contact Poulin and find out what the kcal/lb of Etec One IS. It’s not in their literature, which is frustrating But at 14% protein, 8% fat and 14.6% NSC it’s not a bad grain and isn’t going to be crazy LOW on calories.

Triple Crown Senior is 1546 kcal/lb and 11.7% NSC
Triple Crown Complete is 1700 kcal/lb and 20.6% NSC

Purina Ultium Competition is 1800 kcal/lb and 16% NSC

Sentinel LS is 1635 kcal/lb and 16% NSC

You might also look at the Legends stuff, if you also have access to that. I was a TC die hard for a long time but got SO TIRED of chipping it out of the cans in the winter. Tried the Sentinel LS and it made two of my horses INSANE. Like, dangerously so. They’re not usually particularly sensitive to feed, so it was quite a surprise. It’s also a very light feed so the volume increase was hard for them. I wound up with the Legends Performance, which has worked quite nicely. It’s a DENSE feed, so it takes less volume to get the #s into them, which I find super useful with my “meh, I’d rather not” eaters.

Legends Performance is 1550 kcal/lb and 13.9% NSC.

I figured out somewhere along the line how many calories per lb the ETEC was, I’ll dig it up somewhere…it’s less than the above, I believe. I do have access to Legends. I don’t have a particular problem with the ETEC, but if I can get a higher calorie and/or denser grain, I might be able to eliminate the Omegatin.

This horse eats slowly, she always eats, but she treats her grain somewhat like hay…kind of grazes.

The upside of using a triple crown grain is I get a buy 10 get one free with my KWPN-NA membership. (Possibly also applies to USEF membership.)

[Libby2563]

@skipollo

TC Senior bricks in the winter, but it’s a great quality feed and is worth the hassle of scooping it when it’s cold out.

For whatever it’s worth to anyone reading, I am happily noticing MUCH LESS bricking this winter than last year! It actually pours out of the bag now without any extra effort, whereas last year I had to resort to kicking the bag and stabbing the grain with a screwdriver to break it up (I sound so violent, lol). Purina is now manufacturing Triple Crown rather than Southern States in the eastern US so maybe that’s the reason for the difference?

@Dutchmare433

The upside of using a triple crown grain is I get a buy 10 get one free with my KWPN-NA membership. (Possibly also applies to USEF membership.

Don’t know about KWPN but as of Jan 1, USEF is buy 12 get 1 now. Still nice but not as good as buy 10 get 1 like it used to be! Just FYI.

[skipollo]

@Dutchmare433

Interesting, the barn I’m looking at provides Sentinel LS, so maybe that’s an easier option. My only question on the extruded feed is this mare will only eat a certain amount of volume per day…and she needs her grain soaked…I’m thinking the soaked extruded feed would end up being a massive volume?

When my horse got it soaked previously, it does expand some, but he still cleaned it up without issue. It won’t double in size from soaking, but it does expand a little bit. It’s like having fruit loops in milk–those are extruded too.

[Dutchmare433]

@skipollo

When my horse got it soaked previously, it does expand some, but he still cleaned it up without issue. It won’t double in size from soaking, but it does expand a little bit. It’s like having fruit loops in milk–those are extruded too.

I’ll have to look into it more, but it’s still much lighter by volume dry than a pelleted feed. I might weigh some and compare volumes.

[Dutchmare433]

@Libby2563

For whatever it’s worth to anyone reading, I am happily noticing MUCH LESS bricking this winter than last year! It actually pours out of the bag now without any extra effort, whereas last year I had to resort to kicking the bag and stabbing the grain with a screwdriver to break it up (I sound so violent, lol). Purina is now manufacturing Triple Crown rather than Southern States in the eastern US so maybe that’s the reason for the difference?

Don’t know about KWPN but as of Jan 1, USEF is buy 12 get 1 now. Still nice but not as good as buy 10 get 1 like it used to be! Just FYI.

It’s probably the same deal…annoying! I’m pretty sure last time I fed TC Senior the feed room was heated, so no experience with that.

I’m thinking maybe the Ultium would end up being the more cost effective option being higher calorie.

[Simkie]

@Dutchmare433

I’ll have to look into it more, but it’s still much lighter by volume dry than a pelleted feed. I might weigh some and compare volumes.

I listed the pounds per quart of a whole bunch of stuff above, including Sentinel.

Ultium is about a pound a quart.

[WNT]

If you’re trying to minimize meal volume, it is tough to beat Ultium for calories per unit weight. It’s pretty dense calorically and physically. However I’ve known of several horses (personally and through customer feedback) that just don’t like it. Others hoover it up like candy. YMMV.

I fed my TB TC Senior for years, and was happy with it. Even working at a feed store that didn’t stock TC, it was my choice for his needs (low starch, high fat) that no one else quite met at the time.

[horsenut_8700]

I switched all our horses from TC Senior to Poulin FibreMax last year with amazing results. The nutritional values are almost identical, but the Poulin grain is 30% less expensive and I have been able to cut my hard keeper TB from 8#/day of the TC to 5# of the FibreMax with no other changes.

[Simkie]

@WNT

If you’re trying to minimize meal volume, it is tough to beat Ultium for calories per unit weight. It’s pretty dense calorically and physically. However I’ve known of several horses (personally and through customer feedback) that just don’t like it. Others hoover it up like candy. YMMV.

I fed my TB TC Senior for years, and was happy with it. Even working at a feed store that didn’t stock TC, it was my choice for his needs (low starch, high fat) that no one else quite met at the time.

So, interestingly, if we’re looking at calories for volume, the Legends stuff handily beats Ultium.

A 3 qt scoop of Legends Performance is 4.5 pounds and 6975 kcal.

A 3 qt scoop of Ultium is 3 pounds and let’s call it 5700 kcal (going with the 1900 kcal/pound figure–the internet disagrees if it’s 1800 kcal/pound or 1900 kcal/pound.)

(I’ve never really looked at it this way before–no wonder it works so well for my hardkeeping mare who like small meals!)

[Dutchmare433]

I figured I would update, I ended up finding a different barn that is a better fit. In addition to free choice hay in nets, they provide Triple Crown Senior and the 30% ration balancer as well as alfalfa cubes, so from the nutrition standpoint, I think I should be covered for both horses. They also have the option of adding a third meal, so I could add a lunch meal and not need to provide anything myself. They are also open to trying another grain if the TC Senior isn’t enough for my mare, so I will keep the suggestions on this thread in mind.

I gave notice last week at my current farm, and after reading horror stories on here, I figured I’d share. I ended up giving around 40 days notice, they thanked me and told me I was welcome back anytime, and would really miss me and my horses. (It may be different because I’m moving out of the area, not moving because of the care.) But that was it, no big deal, very easy.

[Palm_Beach]

LOL, hope you don’t regret leaving! Wish they were all that professional.

[quietann]

@Palm Beach

LOL, hope you don’t regret leaving! Wish they were all that professional.

Well, moving out of the area is not something they can really do anything about, so there is no room for drama.

I am among the lucky few who have had little to no drama when moving barns, and even a BO who asked me what they could change to get me to stay (unfortunately, nothing really.)