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Expert
Posts: 1611
  
| How many of you are feeding for added fat content? How much rice bran can be added to a diet? Can I get it generic from a feed mill? I love empower to put weight on one but trying to find a cheaper option. Just got in a really big gelding that has been getting a .5 lbs am and pm. Trying to find the most cost effective way to keep him fat, slick, and sassy. |
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Hungarian Midget Woman
 
Location: Midwest | If you get it from another source, make sure it is stabilized rice bran... otherwise it will turn rancid (and apparently has a calcium:phos that is off?)
I fed 2lb of empower per day with grain to add weight, and 1 lb per day for maitenance on a hard keeper. (those were split into 2 feedings along with TC Complete). Mine is on better quality hay now and a 12% feed and doing fine without the rice bran or extra fat. If he needs fat now, I will do a few days of healthy coat for some shine, but it also gives him a lot more "pep". |
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 Hugs to You
Posts: 7550
Location: In The Land of Cotton | If the rice bran is not stabilized, you can keep it in the house during the summer and it won't spoil. |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | I live in a rice growing area and can get stabilized rice bran that's not calcium balanced super cheap. But if it's calcium balanced and packaged for horses, the price is going to go way up. The good news is you don't have to feed much of it, so even that is still pretty cost effective for most horses. I'm feeding 1-2 cups a day, depending on the horse. Fed with alfalfa, you can get away with the plain stabilized as long as your proportions aren't out of whack. |
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Expert
Posts: 1611
| Three 4 Luck - 2015-04-01 8:54 AM
I live in a rice growing area and can get stabilized rice bran that's not calcium balanced super cheap. But if it's calcium balanced and packaged for horses, the price is going to go way up. The good news is you don't have to feed much of it, so even that is still pretty cost effective for most horses. I'm feeding 1-2 cups a day, depending on the horse. Fed with alfalfa, you can get away with the plain stabilized as long as your proportions aren't out of whack.
Gah lucky! |
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 I too, shall remain nameless!
Posts: 2248
Location: Wearing a winter coat...... | Not sure where you are located but I feed K Finish by tribute and it is cheaper then most I have found. Here is a link-
http://www.tributehorsefeeds.com/catalog/performance/k-finish-9kf2-... |
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Red Bull Agressive
Posts: 5981
Location: North Dakota | I feed stabilized rb pellets to my horse who won't eat renew gold. He gets 1lb/day with alfalfa pellets. |
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Expert
Posts: 1611
| After calling around looks like my only option is Empower....boo on spending more $$$$ |
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  Twin Sister to Queen Boobie
Posts: 13315
Location: East Tennessee but who knows?! | We have a lot to feed so cost is a big factor for me. I feed a generic rice bran that our feed store puts in their feed. It runs me $15 for 50 pounds. I also add flax - I mix the 2 up in a container (6 quart rice bran, 2 quarts flax). Most of mine get Strategy and 1 cup per day of the rice/flax mix. I have one horse is suspect has pssm and I have been feeding him 4 cups per day. I have never had the rice bran go rancid in the 3 years I've been feed in it. |
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 Jr. Detective
Location: Beggs, OK | Empower is made by Nutrena and Nutrena went on the list of companies that use medicated feed mills today. They are being deceptive by stating that they are "monensin free"...however they use Lasalocid. Lasalocid is toxic to horses as well. Please keep this in mind when making your selections.
Renew Gold can be used in the same way as a great supplement. |
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 Expert
Posts: 2457
| This is what I did when I needed to feed it as well - literally 1 cup a day and alfalfa. (I got ours unstabalized from a pal down south!)
ETA - it was sposed to quote 3forLucks post ... To clarify, we bought unstabalized, fed 1 cup/horse/day along with great alfalfa and saw fantastic results. We sourced it from a friend who can get it cheaply as he lives near rice fields too.
Edited by lindseylou2290 2015-04-01 3:21 PM
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Jr. Detective
Location: Beggs, OK | astreakinchic - 2015-04-01 7:33 AM How many of you are feeding for added fat content? How much rice bran can be added to a diet? Can I get it generic from a feed mill? I love empower to put weight on one but trying to find a cheaper option. Just got in a really big gelding that has been getting a .5 lbs am and pm. Trying to find the most cost effective way to keep him fat, slick, and sassy.
Another way to look at it may be more about digestion than fat content. We are feeding Chaffhaye free choice to the horses that we have that are needing a little help. The yeast cultures in it assist in digestion and it's $13.95/50# bag. I like that I can leave it out all the time and they can eat when they think they are hungry. It's better quality and more digestable than any grass hay I could keep in front of them. We just dump a whole bag into a big rubber water trough and they can pick at it when they want. |
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Expert
Posts: 1694
Location: Willows, CA | I can shed a little light on your rice bran information. First, Raw Rice Bran. Rice Bran is the outer bran layer of the rice kernel and the difference between brown rice and white rice. It is the same rice either way, the brown rice just still has the bran layer on it and the white rice does not. The raw bran taken off in the milling process is not used in the food market because an enzyme in it causes it to go out of human consumption standards within eight hours. There is no way to get raw rice bran from the mill to another processing plant to stabilize it or to a customer without it being rancid when it gets there. There is no exception to this. If you have raw rice bran it is rancid. While I don't like the idea of feeding rancid feed to horses, in most cases it is not dangerous unless it has mold or contamination of another source. The contamination is the issue for me. Since raw rice bran is a waste product usually fed to cattle, the handling equipment and storage area are often open to the outside. This enables rodents and birds to get to it. The resulting potential for contamination from this is real. You may well feed raw rice bran for years without any problems, or you may get product that has the potential for a pathogen to be present. The fat calories are still there even though that fat is rancid, but you are rolling the dice as far as contamination potential is concerned. From a manufacturing standpoint, I was never comfortable with that exposure. During the rancidity process much of the product is denatured by oxidation. This has an effect on Vitamin E in particular. Stabilized Rice Bran is processed within several minutes of being milled off of the rice kernel in the rice mill on food grade equipment. The enzyme that causes it to go rancid is neutralized and the vitamin levels are maintained by this unique process. The SRB is then packed in either tote bags or lined packaging so that no other contamination can reach it. Clearly stabilizing rice bran is an expensive process. I have been involved in the rice industry my entire life and there is no one in the industry that can buy, or sell, raw rice bran at a lower cost than I can. In almost 30 years of involvement in horse nutrition I have never sold one pound of raw rice bran for the reasons stated above. Since the buck stops here where liability is concerned, it is not worth the risk. I have told people that if they are comfortable feeding it to their own horses to save money, that is fine. But, I would not feed it to a customers horse. I doubt that anyone in the world has more experience with rice bran for horses than I do. I developed its' use as a horse product in the mid 1980s', released the first rice bran horse product "Natural Glo", and wrote the legal definition of Stabilized Rice Bran for use on animal feed product labels.
Edited by winwillows 2015-04-01 5:50 PM
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Rice bran-discussion