What supplements/feeds does your horse vacuum down every day?
This shit varies by the season.
In Autumn and Winter, Archie gets the following:
- One AC - half dose SID (once a day). I won't risk him not sweating again, so he will stay on this stuff for the rest of his life.
- SmartFlex Senior - one dose SID. Archie has been on this for years. Long before he could be considered a senior. I put him on it, rather than the other SmartFlex options, because it offered pre- and pro-biotic options, enzymes, and antioxidants. Also, it has a shit ton of the stuff that I wanted for the Kid's crappy joints: 7k mg of Glucosamine, 500 mg of Chondroitin Sulfate, 50 mg HA, and 12k mg MSM.
- Cocosoya Oil - 2 ounces SID. I wanted to add a little fat to his diet because he dropped a lot of weight when he moved to the new barn and he stopped eating his other supplements when they were no longer made moist by beer. Also, fat is a better option than straight calories because they don't tend to get hot from it. But I'll be completely honest: I only went with this instead of rice bran oil because it was cheaper. As the name suggests, it's soybean and coconut oil. At 98% fat, it contains Omegas 3, 6 and 9 and additional fatty acids. $20/gallon at Tractor Supply. A gallon lasts us about two months.
 |
| I actually took a photo of this because I wanted to remember the sale dates. |
- Seminole Senior - umm.. a scoop BID (2x day). I wanted him off sweet feed. And Seminole is the brand the barn feeds. I have no complaints and the feed seems to have a lot of good stuff added to it.
- SandClear - 1 scoop SID for the first seven days of the month. He wouldn't eat the generic stuff and rejected Metamucil. Yay, money!
- Coastal hay - free choice from a round bale. Not perfect, but good enough.
- Beet pulp/Alfalfa cubes - 1 cup beet pulp (when dry), handful of cubes. Archie gets this, soaked, after every ride. Because his mother is crazy.
In Spring and Summer, the dude gets this stuff:
- All of the above, though the OneAC is doubled to be at the full dosage and the round bales are pulled.
- SmartLytes - one scoop SID. Super duper important to me that he get his electrolytes replenished in the summer when he's sweating (thankfully) his ass off. And I want him drinking, which the salt should encourage.
- Beer - 1 can BID. Whatever is the cheapest. We did Steel Reserve one season and the Beast the next. This is also one of my neuroses as a result of his anhidrotic episode, but it's not something I'll fuck around with. And... he absolutely loves his beer.
- Pasture grass - the grass grows pretty well at the barn and they've got a good pasture rotation system. I do plan on talking to the BM eventually about maybe supplementing Archie's feed with alfalfa pellets, though, to fill any gaps that may be caused by the quality of grass.
Here's what I really wanna know: is anyone on the SmartPak Colicare program? I want to know if the cost and effort are worth it.
.JPG)
9 comments
Pfft I want beer everyday too, I agree with Archie's initial rejection of supplements~
ReplyDeleteI would also like to sign up for the beer a day program.
ReplyDeleteMy Trainer & one of the girls at the barn both have their horses on the Smartpak Colicare programs. It's roughly $35 a month I believe? It works out to $450 a year which is cool. They seem to enjoy it. I have Fiction on regular insurance which covers a great deal more than just colic surgery. Roughly $550 a year and they cover up to what they feel he is worth ($3000) right now (though I wouldn't sell him for less than $5k haha). Anyways I prefer to have all my bases covered, not just colic, but I reviewed it and it seems to be a relatively good program :)
ReplyDeleteerr $3000 is for colic surgery. He also has $10,500 coverage on others and $5000 mortality. Etc.
DeleteI want to be your horse and get free beer. . .just not Steel Reserve, yuck! Bringing back memories of college. . .
ReplyDeleteIm in the colic care program for both my horses. Totally worth it to me. If it does what it says it does, awesome! If i ever need surgery...its pretty much covered. The girls love it and woof it down like yummy horsey candy.
ReplyDeleteI have Johnny enrolled in the ColicCare program--it's free with his SmartDigest Ultra (I <3 the prebiotics). I noticed his weight picked up when I put him on SDU--even after trying a crap ton of weight gain supplements. Cool Calories, Weight Gain, Rice Bran--while feeding Omolene #500 (and Ultium before that). The program is super easy--fill out a little form. They confirm with your vet that you're not lying about your pony getting regular exams. You get a fecal done 1x a year, and voila! #colicareforlife.
ReplyDeleteI had bad luck with SmartDigest Ultra. Wrote a whole blog post about it and was monumentally pissed at Smartpak for being dishonest: I wrote a negative (but very polite) review on the SDU and they never published it. It really changed my opinion of Smartpak. Lily HATED that supplement SO much that she wouldn't touch any portion of her grain, no matter what I mixed in it, if any SDU was in the mix. I've never seen her refuse a supplement like that before or since. Of course, she was on full board and the barn failed to tell me she wasn't eating her grain (which I was paying extra for btw), until I realized she had lost close to 100 lbs and started trying to figure out what was going on. It took 3 months to get the weight back on her - she has the TB metabolism.
ReplyDeleteYup, very bad experience.
Lily is insured for Major Medical and Surgical for up to $7,500. I pay about $380/year for her insurance so it was more economical than continuing to feed SDU. So for a while, I had her off the ColiCare program while fuming over the failed supplement and Smartpak. (I still don't understand why Smartpak refuses to make it in a pellet.) I had her on enough other supplements tho that it was more economical to put her on SmartCombo Ultra, which also carries the ColiCare insurance...in a pellet..at 4x the price of SDU. She'll eat it though. And it's saving me money on her supplements in the long run.
If you try it out, I suggest doing the free test samples first to make sure Archie likes the supplement.
Coco soya is wayyyyy better than rice bran, which does nothing...basically. So don't waste your money on the Rice bran!
ReplyDeleteThanks!