Feed plan, how can I save money?

So I have no idea how to multiquote so I am hoping I address everything.

First, there is no way to know exactly how much hay she eats. She absolutely cannot be put in a separate paddock. 5 horses get 140lbs of hay per day. That is 28 per horse. Give or take some pounds depending how they share. She is not a pasture horse and will not ever go out on fresh grass. That is due to pasture availability and the fact that it is full.

She will not eat alfalfa cubes. She spits them out but will happily eat the pellets. I had the cubes mashed into a soup then mixed in with her normal grain and she would carefully spit out the cubes.

Daily dewormer will not be changed that is by the vet.

She only gets a total of 5lbs per day of feed other than hay. Not a huge part of her diet.

I watch her protein intake and if her pee start smelling funky things will be changed. There were stall board horses this summer that when I cleaned the stalls my eyes would burn from the amonia smell. That horse was peeing out everything that was going in.

I do plan on doing endurance with her come spring so technically yes I am trying to feed a horse that needs high energy. Yes she is almost 20 but so far she hasn't been stiff yet.

The only reason I considered the smart pak was the senior grass pellets which is a vitamin mineral supplement because it was the only one I have found so far that balanced everything out the first time without having to add an ingredient here and there. If they sold that in bulk I would just buy a huge tub and measure myself. I have a pretty elaborate set up with scales and measuring cups as that is what I do now.

I know you keep saying you won't change the dewormer because the vet put her on it, but not all vets have caught up with the new info on deworming. If all the horses in your barn are being dewormed regularly, there's no reason to be deworming more than once every 3 months, some people just do it twice per year, especially if your horse doesn't go out in pasture. I would encourage you to ask your vet about this and to consult other vets as well.

BTW where do you live? I live in the NW so I give my horse Horse Guard as a multivitamin (along with a hoof supplement, MSM, Glucosamine, and Canola Oil (its better for horses than corn or soybean oil)) and he does really well on it. I think the Horse Guard costs about $13 per month. However it's not good for horses that live where there's a lot of selenium in the soil.

I live in the upper midwest. I have never seen that product in the stores. So maybe it isn't good with the soil here?

Regarding the daily dewormer, I will not change it, period. I do not care what other vets do. My vet has explained pros and cons of it and due to her herd situation and the competency of the other owners it is in my horses best interest to be on it. If my vet decides her situation has changed then it may be re-evaluated but until then it stays.

I don't think the daily dewormer has anything to do with keeping her worm free I think the vet may have done that because she thinks the horse is predispossed to cushings disease.
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Oh, that makes sense. At my barn the horses are turned out 2 to a pasture and I'm fairly confident all the horses are dewormed regularly, so my horse gets dewormed every 3 months, but if you can't be certain about how regularly the other horses are dewormed the daily dewormer might be a good idea. Sorry if I sounded pushy, I didn't mean to ;)

There's 25 horses on property minimum. And some owners are not competent owners. Paddocks are rotated as are pastures. No guarantees they are worm free. It's just frustrating I have to explain this decision many times over.
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Sorry, I just didn't know your situation, you never fully explained the living situation so I wasn't sure. I didn't mean to frustrate you.

I'm in a similar situation, except my barn has ~65 horses that get rotated through the same pastures and paddocks The whole barn gets dewormed once yearly with ivermectin. Any other worming is up to the owners, and I'm sure it doesn't even occur to some of them that they even need to do anything about it.

I (and my vet) were a bit surprised that every time I've done a fecal egg count on my horse, it has come up with no eggs at all. He'll still be getting a 2nd worming after we've had a good hard freeze for tapeworms.

Some horses seem to be more prone to worms than others. I've heard that 20% of the horses carry 80% of the worms. I seem to have one of the lucky ones who seems to be naturally pretty worm resistant, but if he weren't, I wouldn't hesitate to put him on a daily dewormer given the exposure he gets to others horses manure.

Yes those are the numbers my vet gave me. But she had the encysted worms which do not show up on a fecal. I know people at my barn have been deworming by weight, which yes that is all cool and dandy if you put your horse on a scale get the exact weight then make sure he eats every speck you give him. And these people think there overweight horses are too skinny they have probably been way underestimating their weight for deworming then put in they spit half of it out.

Because she was so full of worms my vet feels she is one of those that gets them easily and doesn't want to take the chance again.

But bad news about her workout routine, it seems we have to go back to a minimum of 4 days a week, preferably 6. We went on a 4 hour trail ride and she was spinning, bolting, jumping the whole time. I can't even work her in the arena without her trying something. By end of the summer we could get in a very nice 30 minute workout session that would be perfect. And when I say work her I don't mean like sweating, panting workout just she needs to do some work. Usually 5 minutes in the round pen on days I can't ride does the trick.