I just had a BIG "doh!!!" moment today and realized i had been feeding Safe Choice Special Care as if it were a ration balancer (about a pound per day)
So now I need to make a decision. Currently the boys are on Safe Choice Special Care, Horse Guard vitamins, and a probiotic. Should I stick with that, but up the ration to the recommended level, or switch to a true ration balancer?
If I switch to the RB would I be able to discontinue using the Horse Guard and probiotics since it claims to include those ingredients? That would be quite nice on my wallet.
My other concern is Chief. He is fat and needs to lose weight. I don't want to increase his feed any if I can help it, so that is making the RB sound better and better.
Input? Advise? Taunting for not reading the label? :wink:
Unless your horses are working hard, as in ridden daily for at least several hours, they do not need anything other than hay of decent quality. People who don't have a lot of experience with horses are inclined to over feed as far as adding supplements goes. One can rarely feed too much hay.
You can either continue the way you're feeding now (no need to feed the recommended amount of a hard feed if you're also feeding a vitamin/mineral supplement) or you could switch to the recommended amount of a RB.
If you decide to go the RB route, I'd recommend you look into Triple Crown 30% Supplement. In my area (also Oregon!) it's very slightly more per pound than Empower Balance ($.66 vs $.59) but is more nutrient dense. I used FeedXL.com to determine my horse's diet and found that 1 lb of TC30 gave me roughly the same level of nutrients as 1.5 lbs of Empower Balance. Plus, I feel that TC is a higher quality brand in general than Nutrena.
You can either continue the way you're feeding now (no need to feed the recommended amount of a hard feed if you're also feeding a vitamin/mineral supplement) or you could switch to the recommended amount of a RB.
If you decide to go the RB route, I'd recommend you look into Triple Crown 30% Supplement. In my area (also Oregon!) it's very slightly more per pound than Empower Balance ($.66 vs $.59) but is more nutrient dense. I used FeedXL.com to determine my horse's diet and found that 1 lb of TC30 gave me roughly the same level of nutrients as 1.5 lbs of Empower Balance. Plus, I feel that TC is a higher quality brand in general than Nutrena.
What Verona said.
I went through the same exercise with Safechoice and wasn't feeding the recommended amount to my fatty either. I decided to switch to Empower Balancer and haven't looked back. I put all the available RB's in my area through FeedXL too and along with hay quality, soil deficiencies, etc...came out with Empower being the best for my horse.
TC is not available here so I can't say anything about it.
Because I live in an area where the soils have been stripped of key micronutrients, yet overloaded with others (ag practices) it was important to me to find a good balance.
Personally, I love buying only one bag of feed every 2 1/2 months.
Thanks, all! Because of the soil deficiencies in the area (especially selenium!) and the fact that I have no pasture, I think it'll be important to keep them on something in addition to hay. I'll have to check out FeedXL.com, the local feedstores and then compare prices.
Also I am relieved to hear I'm not the only one who realized they were shorting their "fatty"
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