Rice Bran vs. Oil

One of my four horses is bonafide metabolic and a second one is trying to head there.

Feeding my metabolic horse is a complicated matter so to keep my feeding life simple, I switched EVERYONE to pelleted rice bran.

All of them also get Omega-3 horseshine, a pelleted vitamin/mineral supplement, and a splash of warm canola oil more for the flavor than anything.

However, that warm canola oil doesn't stay warm long in the cold weather and two of my horses won't eat their feed if I've added too much canola oil and it's gone cold and yukky.

My horses are on 12+ acres of pretty good pasture, they each get a flake or so of grass hay when they come in at night, so they don't get much feed.

The metabolic horse gets the most pelleted rice bran, being fed 12 ounces 2X/day this time of year; I cut that back to 8 ounces 2X/day in the warmer months. Everyone is maintaining their weight.

Pelleted rice bran is 20% fat, so it might work for all of your horses, once you figure out who needs the most and who needs the least.

I prefer the pellets because it's a more enjoyable volume of feed for everyone.

Hope this helps some

I did hear in a seminar presented by ADM that feeding straight fat (oil) as opposed to rice bran or other types of feed that have fat in already in them is digested less effeciently...something to do with the fact that water/oil doesn't mix and oil coats the stomach/intestine lining. My memory is a little hazy, so I'm digging around online to see if I can find something about it

Ed: Okay, maybe this is what she was talking about. The jury seems to still be out on the reasons: http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=4478

Also, thought this was a good, overall article on the subject: http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle....&nID=12&src=RA

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Thanks for the articles sara...that is intersting.

Peggiesue...so you think the safe choice would be a better nutritional choice than the all breed. How can you tell what has the needed nutrients?

Well since the all breed nor the safe choice have the ingredient list and nutrena is such a hard company to get info from ... I do know that the Empower, XTN and the safe choice are the only lower starch options that Nutrena offers ...
I hate the Nutrena site adn most of their feeds for those reason ...


Most not all commercial feeds will meet the requirments at the min lvel to SUSTAINN a HEALTHY life... that being said ... Nutrena doesn't give enough information to judge

The only reaosn I will suggest the Safe Choice over the other is the NSC level that is all I have to go on

The baby should have a higher protein diet than the others. There should be a feed made for foals at your feed store. My yearling and other horses including my 33 year old get Nutrena Triumph with cooked oatmeal,milk,corn oil,soybean oil and some carrot pieces. The youngest who is now a yearling was getting more milk than the others since she needed extra protein to grow on. She is almost as big as her mother already. My brother lives in Fairbanks and he was amazed that people actually have horses there because it gets so cold in the winter and the growing season is so short.

I will look into alternate feeds for the baby, but the protein amount in Safe choice, All breed, and the nutrena youth are all about 14 or 15%. I could add in some alfalfa pellets to up that for him.

It does get quite cold here, and local hay is limited and probbaly more expensive than the states, but we find various ways of coping to keep our horses...Though you can see that I am running into one of the struggles of cold climate now.

Up the beet pulp to as much as they will eat that will help alot .... dont' worry so much abotu the protien % but the amount you are feeding to them... the % doesn't mean anything until you figure in in grams and how much you are giving them

Who knew to feed properly I had to dig out my old math books for the conversions and it takes forever sometimes to get everything convert correctly

If you can get PUrina's enrich32 feed that to the baby's and older ones ... actually it would work for them all IF YOU CAN GET IT....

I will look into the enrich...I know or feed store carries some Purina.

I pulled a ingredient list off of a safe choice bag...here is what it has (faded and hard to read):

Wheat middling, rice bran, sun-cured alfalfa meal, soybean hulls, ground wheat, cane molasses, calcium carbonate, soybean oil, lingnin sulfate, salt, more....

Crude protein - 14%
Lysine - .8%
Meininonine - .8%
Theaning? - .5%
Crude fat - 7%
Crude fiber - 15%
Calcium - 1%?
Phospheorus - .75%
Various trace...

Here is from the all breed tag:

Processed grain by products, grain products, roughage products, cane molasses, plant protein products, salt, vitamin A supplements, more...

Crude protein - 14%
Crude fat 2.5%
Crude fiber 8.5%
Acid detergent fiber? 12%
Calcium 1-1.5%
Phosphorus .5%
More...

Well, looking at those two tags closely has been really educational...I think the Safe Choice is by far a better feed choice - is that a correct assumption?

Yes I am tickled to see actual ingredients listed !! That is what you are looking for on a feed tag... with the second ingredient on the all breed being grain products you are looking at it having quiet a bit of grain which means it is going to be HIGHER in sugars and starches and looking at Safe Choice test PRIVATELY at 23% I wouldn't wanna feed anything much higher then that

Many times the sugars and starches will actually STOP a horse from gaining the needed weight ...

If they don't carry the Enrich32 ask them if they can order it... it was formerly Born To Win