speed - 2014-08-18 12:35 AM I'm looking for a high fat horse feed! I've got a horse that plays in the pasture all day then gets ridden in the evenings and competes on the weekends. I am currently feeding him 4 coffee cans of 7% fat feed along with a flake of alfalfa in the morning and evenings with good Bermuda grass during the day. He is not wormy, has clean fresh water (at all times), and does not have ulcers. Any Suggestions are greatly appreciated!!!

shorti056 - 2014-08-18 10:07 AM

my favorite is Purina Ultium. 12.5% fat, 18% fiber. it's a great feed!
Otherwise i'd choose an ADM feed and then top dress more fat onto it--my favorite top dress is Cool Calories 100. 99% fat and it's cheap too. 1 or 2 scoops a day and you won't get nearly that amount of fat for that price in another top dress.

You may have to really pump it into the horse (ex: 5 lbs a day) until they get to a good weight and then drop to a maintenance level. Work up to it slowly since adding more fat in their diet takes adjustment (just like any grain change). They'll probably have loose stools.

I'd stay away from rice bran or flax seed---the cool calories is a better top dress option and it's less likely to go rancid. I won't ever feed rice bran to my horses.

Try things and see what works for ya.

classicpotatochip - 2014-08-18 9:20 AM


Just a friendly note: if you buy stabilized rice bran, it doesn't go rancid, and has a shelf life of up to a year.

winwillows - 2014-08-19 7:26 PM

Interesting points here. I used to tell people that all rice bran is the same, just like all hay is the same. Raw (unstabilized) rice bran is rancid, period. There is no way to physically get it from the rice mill to a customer before it has become rancid, period. If you use it in your feeding program, you are feeding rancid fat to your horse, period.
There are very significant differences in rice bran that is marketed as Stabilized. Today, there is parboiled rice bran, Extruded rice bran, extruded /cooked rice bran and micro waved rice bran all marketed as stabilized. Many years ago I wrote the definition of "Stabilized Rice Bran" for AFFCO. In an effort to simplify the term, I only used Free Fatty Acid levels as the criteria, because that was the extent of most states ability to test. Today, it is possible to stabilize rice bran to a degree that FFA, Peroxide values, and Thiobarbituric acid levels all remain at a stable level for one year. But, to my knowledge, that is only being done in two rice mills in California at this time to produce a stable food grade product. That is the only "stabilized rice bran" that I will use. There are other processes used on both the West Coast and in the South that will provide FFA levels that remain constant for an extended period. I call these "extended life rice bran" rather than "stabilized". While I have never been comfortable using rice bran processed outside of the current, state of the art, California technology, I do consider them a better choice than raw rice bran because of the way they are handled and stored compared to the waste product storage that is generally used for raw rice bran.
I know that, for most people, this is a long complicated and somewhat confusing explanation of stabilized rice bran. However, there is a difference, and it is important. As to the fat itself, food grade SRB is about 20-22% fat. That makes it about 80% other nutrients. That 80% is of significant nutritional value to the horse also if the rice bran is stable, and should not be discounted when accessing value per dollar spent.
Stabilized Rice Bran can truly benefit a horses feeding program, if it is the right one.

Longneck - 2014-08-18 8:41 AM

 I had my gelding on Bluebonnet's Intensify Omega Force ( I just fed him the minimum of 4lbs a day since he has grass and still gets hay.  I believe it is a 12% fat.) and he really bloomed and was glowing on it... but I want to switch to something with a lower NSC %, so I have a bag of Renew Gold I am about to start the switch over to.

 

You might look into adding an oil to his feed.  I did that for a few weeks to help jump start my gelding's weight gain and it really did some wonders (but it also could have been from getting a good quality hay).  I just used Dumor's (at TSC) Rice Bran Oil.  Started out with about 1/4 cup and worked him up to 2 cups a day and now I'm back down to about 1 cup every other day.