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Question is, are you truly feeding half as much?  I tried Race Ready last 
summer for my herd.  At $11.50 a bag, I expected to be able to feed less due to 
the makeup of the feed.  That summer nearly put me in the hole on feed costs.  
I ended up feeding more than the local feed mill pellet just to keep the horses 
from getting ribby.  It's not an experience I want to repeat.

Rae
Tall C Arabians - Central Region

Spirittxarabians@xxxxxxx wrote:

We have been a test barn for Purina's new feed and have been using it for 3 
months now. It is a pelleted feed, 12% Protein, 12% Fat, 18% Fiber. Yes, 2 of 
the main ingredients are Beet Pulp and Rice Bran. Our Purina rep said it is 
designed for performance horses to give them more stamina and will stay in 
their system longer than Race Ready and Omolene 200. Also, because it is 
pelleted it doesn't clump together as bad as a sweet feed. We started out just 
using it on the endurance horses, but we now use it on all of the horses in our 
barn, except for a 29 yr old horse we have on Equine Senior. About 1 month 
after feeding the same amount that we had been feeding of Purina Race Ready, we 
started having to reduce the amount because our horses were getting too fat. We 
are now feeding 1/2 the amount of grain (pellets) that we used to feed. I 
understand that it will be over $12 a bag when it comes out on market (May 1), 
but if you are feeding half as much, the higher cost should not be an
issue. The horses that we started on the feed shed their winter coats quicker 
and had shinier coats than the rest of our barn (non-endurance horses were 
being fed Omolene 100). My dark bay broodmare now has dapples for the first 
time. My 5 yr old (6 this spring) did his first 50 mile ride about 6 wks after 
we started him on the feed. It rained most of the day and we did the same loop 
3 times, so the mud continued to get deeper. We rode a middle of the pack ride 
and stayed a little longer in camp than we should have on the 2nd hold (riders 
resting - not a horse problem). The good news is that he did the 3rd (last) 
loop in the same amount of time as it took to do the 1st loop. We went through 
the new complete vet check at the end of the ride. He received an A- on skin 
tenting and a B+ on gut sounds, As on all other parameters. The vets told us 
both of our horses looked great at the end. Propane is a nervous, hot horse so 
I was really pleased with his first 50 and I do think part of
his 3rd loop energy had to do with his new feed. So, the new feed is worth a 
try. If you want to experiment put one horse on it and leave one horse on your 
current feed, do the same training and decide for yourself.

Selena Copeland
Spirit of Texas Arabians
spirittxarabians@xxxxxxx
www.spirittxarabians.com
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I still prefer what it is that BH100, Tevis, The Duck's Soup of Endurance,
etc. has to offer...but, to see a horse canter over sand for those
distances...Good Lord, it humbles me.
~  Frank Solano

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