anybody do this? Do you feed the same amount of cubes vs grain? Like pound for pound? How’d your horses handle it? Maintain weight? Did you add in a vitamin/mineral supplement?  I would also be feeding free choice hay.

They are not comparable on a lb for lb basis.

Bump

We had a horse that had some issues and were told to feed cubes.  I soaked them a little in water but he would just gobble them up whole.  Not sure  that is great idea either.

This just my opinion.  If I had horse(s) that basically had no issues whatsoever I would feed the Omnis/Omega Complete cube with just a vitamin/mineral supplement.  Of course this is if you can get these cubes.

If I were to only feed alfalfa I would go with alfalfa pellets. 

What vitamin/mineral supplement? 

I feed simple, Sho-Glo or Calf Manna and Quiessence is another good supplement. 

I just got a new barrel horse and he was never on grain.  I attemped graining him with Ultium because I like to feed too much - and it turned him into a raging dragon. way out of character. So, I pulled the grain (as instructed initially..) and started him on a 30 day ulcer treatment.  He mellowed back to his normal, awesome self.

So.

I now feed him alfalfa cubes soaked til it's almost like oatmeal, every night.  In my mind it is a "treat" that replaces his grain.

He does not get any supplements right now - do you all recommend a calf manna / sho glo as a topper to round out this diet?

I've never fed like this before but I feel he is ulcer prone so will not be moving him back to grain at all.

I stopped feeding grain to most of my horses about a year ago and switched them to Danco Forage's Omnis cubes (pasture access too) and ADM's mineral. They have never looked better and that's with maybe feeding them cubes a few times a week. We recently added D&D Nutrition cubes into the mix. These will help my barrel horse maintain his topline that I couldn't keep with just Omnis. He is now doing fantastic on Omnis and D&D plus a mineral and Animal Element supplements. I highly recommend Omnis and D&D to anyone who is interested. They are both fantastic products!!

(Disclaimer - I do sell both products but that's only because I truly believe in them and they work!)

I would really like to try the D&D Nutrition cubes but there are no close dealers to me.  

Grain does not make them a dragon.  Too much grain is hard on the system.  I only feed 2 to 3 lbs per horse per day.   I have mine made at our feed mill.  What do you think that all these per fab feed products are made from. 

I love the Omnis cubes... I still spray them with water when I feed them even though they break apart in your hand... choke scares me cause I have some piggies lol....  but as far as amount, I just have the scoops, and give them almost a full scoop in the evenings, mine are out on pasture 24/7 pretty much

It doesn’t make ALL horses a dragon but it does make a few goofy, silly, a dragon, whatever you want to call it. 

What type of Grain {feed} do you feed? Whats in the mix {feed}?

Another supplement I forgot to add since I'm new to it and started my guys on it a few months back, its Forgo I love love what I'm seeing, my one gelding that does get a bit of a tummy ache at times I'm pretty sure its uclers that flare up sometimes since hes a bit more high strung and a retire barrel horse, but since I started him on Forco I see a big difference with him. So if your horse is ucler prone I would really put him on Forco. I dont think I would really worry about other supplements but Quiessence would be good. 

Quiessance is a good Magnesium supplement

Awesome! I will check into it.   Thanks!

All of our horses are on alfalfa. Not cubes though. Then we do Select Alfalfa as a ration balancer, as well as MSM and once a month sandclear crumbles (Arizona sand and my mare is a forager). Right now none of them are competing, but my mare came from a guy who was roping off of her up to 5 nights a week and he fed only alfalfa. 

I think a lot of what people feed is dependent on the region you live in. Like my horses do not have access to grass pasture here in the desert. But when I lived in Oklahoma we only really had to supplement if hauling hard or in the winter. In Florida, the grass sucked so we supplemented year round. 

The one I run is on alfalfa hay and MVP Exceed 6-Way plus their Natural Vitamin E, he does just fine. I have 2 others that get soaked alfalfa pellets to replace some of their grain meals. I give them 1/2 of a 3qt scoop of pellets to replace 1/4 scoop of the grain. They went from 3/4 scoop to 1/2 scoop of grain. The one I run loses his mind whenever he's on any grain that has molasses or corn, unless you ride him hard 5-6 days a week. He goes from being the bomb proof kid broke kind of gelding to a boogery compressed spring waiting to explode at any second. He ran a lot harder when I had him on the Pro Force Fuel, just 2 handfuls 2x a day. But it was too much work keeping him rode down enough to be normal and even then he would still spook at the dumbest stuff. I feed the others Kalm N Ez now & sometimes a treat if he ran well I'll let him have a small handful of it. Doesn't bother him & he gets ulcers in a snap. But he's on Gastro-Plex daily too to combat that. The other 2 do well with the alfalfa pellets/small grain meal and if I need extra weight I just add more pellets. My 5 year old also doesn't do well with corn/molasses grains, she gets a lot goofier than normal & she's already worked 6 days a week for an hour. We have another at the barn that lost his mind after going from 1/4 scoop regular Safe Choice to the Safe Choice Senior. Switched him back & he was normal again after a few weeks. All 3 of mine are on the Exceed 6-Way and the Vitamin E. They have no access to grazing unless I hand graze them in the yard. I recently did bloodwork to see if any needs weren't being met & they were all fine. 

The OP brings up an interesting question. Reading labels, trading pound for pound alfalfa hay for grain does not add up. In reality though, by eliminating a significant amount of grain from the system, if that is being used, the difference in hind gut efficiency results in the capture of a very real increase in digestible energy from the pre existing roughage plus that of the added alfalfa. In the end, it is quite possible to have a net increase usable energy from a pound for pound trade. The grain limit per feeding that a horse can process without hind gut disruption is under two pounds. If you feed more than that, your horse may well benefit from the replacement of the excess grain, in some cases all grain, with the same amount of alfalfa.