Purina Senior

[Cindy]

Can anyone tell me the fat content and the protein content in Purina's Senior feed? Thanks.

[LynnG]

I'll guess that Purina Sr is about 4-4.5 % fat, and 14% protein. Most all senior feeds are 14% protein. Nutrena Sr brand runs about 6% fat. I've also tried the Blue Seal brand..but not as palatable to my older guy.

[Cindy]

Thanks. I thought Purina was higher than than in fat. Do you know of any feeds that are higher in fat content and still have 12-14% protein? Or a supplement that would raise the fat content considerably?

[LynnG]

I had compared once the fat and protein content with purina strategy and purina senior..the same, but about $2 difference in cost.

For my most senior horse, I mix a senior feed (purina at the moment), strategy, and SS Legends textured Mare & Foal (1:1:1). The M&F has a 6% fat content, and 16% protein. The mamas and babies get the M&F, some with 2:1 strategy in the mix for the mares when fed separately from the babies.

[Cindy]

She's getting Nutrena Senior right now which is 6% fat content and I think 14% protein but is also on a fat supplement. We are starting her on a new supplement that is formulated to put weight on Cushings type horses and I would like to quit the fat supplement and just find a grain that has higher fat and see if the new supplement will put the weight on. I just looked on the Purina site and they have a grain called Athlete that is 14% protein and 14% fat. Have you ever heard of it? I just wonder if the Senior is better for the digestion or if this would be OK for a Senior horse. What do you think?

[Andrea G.]

Cindy - I have a 30 year old horse that had cushings type weight issues...and we changed his diet a year and half ago - My vet was so amazed at the results...that he tells everyone to add Triple Crown Rice Bran Oil to the diet of their older horses that have problems keeping the weight on the topline.
My boy gets a 1/3 of a flake of alfalfa, 2 pounds John Lyons Senior Feed (and my boy does not do as well on the Purina or Triple Crown) and 1-2 ounces of Rice Bran Oil ...in the morning and night.

Recently Petsmart has not carried the John Lyons Senior feed for 2 weeks and I put him on Purina Senior and he does not look as good. I think with his Cushings type symptons he does not do well on senior feeds that have a lot of sugar or a lot of carbs.
Anyway that is what works well for my boy!

[Mellifluous]

Triple Crown senior is something like 10% fat and 14% protein. Southern States stores sell it.

[Serendipity]

all I can say is I would give a little Athlete as a suppliment about 1/2 cup to a pound it fattened the horses up and really put the energy to them never used it on a Paso though

[motorgypsy]

Triple Crown Senior - 14% protein, 10% fat. We feed all our guys on it and are quite pleased with the results.

High fat additives - Nutrena Empower at about 22% fat is good as is Buckeye Ultimate Finish and one other whose name escapes me right now. We use them for our 23 year old mare in addition to the TC senior to bump the fat ratio up even higher. Another advantage of TC Senior is that it is beet pulp based which means the glycemic index which tells you how much sugar gets dumped into their systems quickly is extremely low which for older horses is a really good thing. When we got this mare at 17 she was cresty and had fat pouches on her tail head and had foundered repeatedly. She has not foundered and has lost the cresitness and fat on the tail head as well on the high protein high fat diet. She is on weed pasture but TC senior is a full feed so the pasture just keep sher busy.

[Edurne]

Athlete is used extensively at the thoroughbred farm where I board - for the working sport horses, for the mares, for the babies, and a handful as a suplement to pellets for my Cushings paso in the winter (especially if he is working). They are very pleased with the results.

[PattiB]

Purina Ultium is high in fat. It has beet pulp as the main ingredient like Senior but is higher in protein and fat.

[Laura S]

Nutrena XTN has 12% protein and 12% fat. I like it because of the ingrediants: Crimped Oats, Yeast Culture, brewer's rice, flaked barley, dehulled soybean meal, rice bran, whole flax, soybean hulls, beet pulp, rice hulls, dehydrated alfalfa meal, cane molasses, then all the added vitamins and minerals. It also has the lactobacillus and other similar ingrediants, and linseed and veg. oils.

[Terry Wallace]

The "athlete" pellet is also in the Omelene 200. It is that sort of diamond shaped orange/brown pellet.

a 1/4 cup of pure corn oil works as well....for added fat...kinda messy but works...

[Cindy]

Thanks everyone for the info. We will look into these feeds and supplements and try to find what works best for her.

[SQUEAKS]

Go to the purina horse website and click on any of the topics and they provide contents of all their feeds for horses. Just click on this link and then the item you need information on.

Hope this helps

http://horse.purinamills.com/

Bob :D

[Abejita]

Blue Seal also makes a fat supplement called Omegatin

My horses love the Blue Seal Vintage Senor Lynn..Corveta used to slurp hers up..hated Purina senior..go figure..picky critters..lol

[SandyMM]

If you go with Ultium (it's what we feed Pete - he's difficult to keep weight on), check your scoops per bag - I think it's about 20/50# compared to 15/50# +/- for other feeds...

[GeorgeGuns]

Triple Crown also makes a supplement that you only feed up to one cup of - its 30% pritien and I think HIgh fat.

Be careful when supplementing or trying to put wieght on cushings horses, too often the weight is "bad fat" and may work against you. I loved the pics that Edurne posted several weeks ago of Primero - he's still got fat pads on his butt, but boy he looks fit otherwise. I'm not a fan of too much weight on older horses anyway, its just harder on them. Keep in mind too that cereal grains are high in non-structured carbs, a big nono for cushings and IR horses unless they are getting a lot of work to use those carbs before turning them to bad fat.

With rice bran - its very high in phosphorus, and can spoil almost as fast as oil - make sure this imbalance is corrected and the rice prodict is stabalized ot prevent spoiling - Triple Crown addresses both points.

[NikiGA]

Seminole Perfect 12(12/12) or Ultra Dynamix(14/8). Those are my top picks. Second would be a toss-up between the Manna-Pro Elite line and Triple Crown.
I have heard good things about Seminole Senior, but I have never used it. They also make an excellent rice bran supplement called Ultra Bloom, and I was very impressed with it as well.
I am thinking Perfect 12 is around $15 a bag.........

[GregM]

Ultium is about $15, too. Spendy. I think the Purina guy at the GPFHA Open House said it was ~1800 calories a pound, 200-300 more than any other feed they had made previously.

[motorgypsy]

For cushings horses look for a beet pulp based feed high protein high fat and don't feet a huge amount of it. Remember - beet pulp is what is left of the beet AFTER the sugar has been removed. also avoid corn for them. Or you can go T/A hay with a fat additive but I like all the good stuff in the senior feeds. We've also fed the Seminole Ultradynamix but the TC senior is higher fat. Seminole senior was either too low in fat for us or too low in protein. Can't remember which. Just remember that it's total intake that matters and the combination of nutrients, not the actual percentage in the feed. So to get the same calories of a 7% protein, 5% fat, 20% carb as a 14% protein, 10% fat, 40% carb feed you' have to feed twice as much of the first feed. (Of course these don't exist - just an example).

[Laura S]

OK, so how do you find out how much carb is in a feed? I have looked on all my feed bag tags and I can't find any place that says amount of carbs. I have no idea if I am feeding a high carb feed, or a low carb feed. :roll: