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boon
Posts: 1
| How many of you feed your barrel horse sweet feed. those that are against it I would like to know why. |
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 Money Eating Baggage Owner
Posts: 9586
  
Location: Phoenix | I do not. My horse does not need sugar/starch. He is like a 5 year old.....kids don't need candy!!
Edited by hammer_time 2015-07-13 1:20 AM
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 Expert
Posts: 4121
Location: SE Louisiana | Sugar is just as hard on horse teeth as it is on ours. |
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 Take a Picture
Posts: 12841
| Most feed is sweet to some extent. Taste it.. I taste everything I feed my horses. |
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  A Lady with Fight
Posts: 2701
Location: NC | Depends on your definition of sweet feed.
I wouldn't consider every textured feed a sweet feed. There are textured feeds out there that are quality feeds, like Triple Crown Complete and Senior. I would even say Purina Ultium is a decent textured feed.
I would class Purinas Omolenes as sweet feeds given their outrageous starch contents (over the 30% content) and low overall nutrition. They have low fat and low fiber with way too much sugar. You're pretty much feeding empty calories. A candy bar more or less. Personally anything over 23% NSC and I'm calling it a sweet feed.
I feed a locally milled textured Senior feed that is a lot like Triple Crowns Senior and Complete. It's a 10% fat, 16% fiber beet pulp based feed but since it has oats and barley (NO corn) it's considered textured. It has 21% starch.
I fed a 12% fat, 12% protein (25% NSC) sweet feed for awhile just to my one gelding and I thought it was alright. He had extra energy on it which is what I wanted. But it turned out it aggravated his stomach a bit to a went back to the Senior and he's been fine ever since.
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 639
Location: God's country...aka TEXAS | Sweet feed (anything with a lot of starch and molasses) is terrible for horses!!! It causes lactic acid to build up in the muscles, the gut does not digest properly, its hard on their stomach and can make ulcers worse, gives them a "sugar high." They are also more prone to colic, the bad kind requiring surgery and mild gas colic. Basically, there are no benefits what so ever to feeding anything with molasses in it. |
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Red Bull Agressive
Posts: 5981
Location: North Dakota | I consider feeds labeled sweet feed and those with high sugar and carbs to be sweet feed. Just like sugar and carbs are bad for people, they are for horses. Sugar and carbs cause blood sugar spikes, weight gain, flighty/hyper energetic behavior, metabolic issues, inflammation, and more. Sure you can feed a horse sweet feed, just as you could survive off ice cream and popcorn. Neither of you will be in optimal health though. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | The main reason that I don't like sweet feed is that molasses is very simple sugar that the horse doesn't need and it provides no real nutritional value. The molasses adds to the rate of consumption and decreases chew time, both things that are not good with a high sugar/high grain feed. Also, is that it will bind things in the feed and make it hard to determine if there is any quality issues. It goes bad fast. In the summer it is a fly magnet and in the winter can be a block of rock.
Lastly, the reason that sweet feeds are not preferable is that the quality of ingredients is usually or almost always inferior to the whole grains. There is a vast difference in the nutrition and energy of top of the line, heavy grains and lighter weight economy grain. The good stuff is sold as is and the lesser stuff gets mixed into textured sweet feeds. |
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 I'm Cooler Offline
Posts: 6387
Location: Pacific Northwest | They don't need it. I just feed mine beet pulp and alfalfa pellets. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 477
Location: Lost in the swamps | Ulcers -sugars,corn,oats aren't good for ulcer prone horses.
and the heat and humidity. I'm in the south and pellets keep longer. It got to where if buy 2 bags, by the time I would get 1/2 way into the 2 nd bag the bottom was starting to mold! |
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 Midget Lover
Location: Kentucky | I switched to low starch pellets for everything I have. Sweet feed to me is nothing but sugar. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1430
Location: Montana | I feel like garbage if I eat sugar (and yet my quitting it is always temporary).
Why would it be good for a horse? In my opinion, it is poison to all of us. I can control it for my horses. Try a good, soybean based ration balancer and you'll be amazed at the difference. |
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A Lady with Fight
Posts: 2701
Location: NC | You have to be smart though. Just because it's a pelleted feed doesn't mean it's low starch. SafeChoice has more starch than the Senior feed I feed that is considered 'textured' with oats and barley.
Pellets can be just as bad in some instances. Have to read the ingredients before you make a real decision one way or the other. |
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A Lady with Fight
Posts: 2701
Location: NC | Tdove - 2015-07-13 10:24 AM
The main reason that I don't like sweet feed is that molasses is very simple sugar that the horse doesn't need and it provides no real nutritional value. The molasses adds to the rate of consumption and decreases chew time, both things that are not good with a high sugar/high grain feed. Also, is that it will bind things in the feed and make it hard to determine if there is any quality issues. It goes bad fast. In the summer it is a fly magnet and in the winter can be a block of rock.
Lastly, the reason that sweet feeds are not preferable is that the quality of ingredients is usually or almost always inferior to the whole grains. There is a vast difference in the nutrition and energy of top of the line, heavy grains and lighter weight economy grain. The good stuff is sold as is and the lesser stuff gets mixed into textured sweet feeds.
Molasses isn't usually what makes a sweet feed overly. Pretty much every feed, even pelleted, have molasses in it.
It's the over abundance of ALL the sugars and starches combined that make a sweet feed overly sweet. Corn has WAY more sugar/starch than molasses every dreamed of having. Corn is what pushes most feeds to having over 25-30+% NSC content. Not the molasses. |
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 Regular
Posts: 76
Location: North Carolina | I feed my horses (three quarter horses, two tennessee walkers, one TB) Purina Omolene 200 & they look & feel fantastic! They're on pasture 24/7 as well so I'm sure that helps but they've never gotten hot on it & they're coats are shiny & healthy. I think it just depends on the horse but I've never had a horse do poorly on it.
Edited by Panther14 2015-07-13 6:58 PM
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | I didn't say molasses is the main contributor to NSC content. I stated reasons why I don't like sweet feed over straight cereal grains, molasses being one of the major reasons. The other being the cereal grains in sweet feeds are lesser quality.
Also, it isn't NSC content of your grain that matters, its NSC content of the total ration. You could feed 3 bs of 50% NSC with 17lbs of alfalfa or you could feed 10 lbs of 20% NSC with 10 lbs of grass hay. Both total rations would yield approximately 3.2 lbs of sugar or have a total NSC of 16% in your total ration. I would highly argue that the former ration is the better one. Low starch is the in thing right now, but many barrel racers would see better performance if they added a little whole starch to their horse's diet.
Edited by Tdove 2015-07-14 8:52 AM
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 Keeper of the King Snake
Posts: 7622
Location: Dubach, LA | I have my easy keepers on a local sweet feed. They look good and feel good. No performance issues. |
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 Regular
Posts: 63
| Tdove - 2015-07-14 8:50 AM
I didn't say molasses is the main contributor to NSC content. I stated reasons why I don't like sweet feed over straight cereal grains, molasses being one of the major reasons. The other being the cereal grains in sweet feeds are lesser quality.
Also, it isn't NSC content of your grain that matters, its NSC content of the total ration. You could feed 3 bs of 50% NSC with 17lbs of alfalfa or you could feed 10 lbs of 20% NSC with 10 lbs of grass hay. Both total rations would yield approximately 3.2 lbs of sugar or have a total NSC of 16% in your total ration. I would highly argue that the former ration is the better one. Low starch is the in thing right now, but many barrel racers would see better performance if they added a little whole starch to their horse's diet.
I agree. Starch is not always a terrible thing. Think of Michael Phelps and what he eats such as carbs vs what the average overweight person eats. You cant not expect an equine athlete to perform without starch at all.
I have been taught that molasses is a natural electrolyte. Look at a bottle of Gatorade. But my concern that I posted on someone elses post about the supposedly ionophore feed issues is that most molasses companies sell medicated liquid feed. And most on here say the only safe feed is at a mill with no inonphores. But these ionophore free mills buy molasses from the same providers. You can not then say that your feed is free when you outside source a product that you can not guarantee is safe. Yes they may say it is but the argument on here for the last six months is human error and the only safe feed is no medication on site. So that alone is why I would not feed any feed with molasses. Even alfalfa cubes and pellets and most pelleted feed has molasses as the binder. |
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 Pork Fat is my Favorite
Posts: 3791
Location: The Oklahoma plains. | ZR, this is exactly what I have been trying to tell my friends. While I am not anti molasses, in the light of the ionophore issues, I dont think there is any safe place to buy it and add to feeds from these facilities that claim to be ionophore free. And also many of these places use minerals to add to their feed from places that make medicated cow mineral. So again you are bringing in comtaminated product and adding it to your feed. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | A lot of feeds do use molasses, but sweet feeds use quite a bit more. The less molasses the better, for my taste. Electrolytes are salt, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and zinc, not sugar. A horse only needs starch to replenish glycogen stores and for fast twitch muscle response. Also, too much fat in today's diets.
I am not aware of any alfalfa cubes that use molasses as a binder. While both of your points on ionophore free are very valid, our cubes are ionophore free because we don't use molasses or added minerals, or any products that come from places that process feeds with ionophore present.
Edited by Tdove 2015-07-14 10:23 AM
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