What to Feed New Horse Upon Arrival

[tlw]

I'm getting a new horse from England. He is a 9 yr. old ISH gelding who has been regularly eventing at our prelim level and will be eventing here as well. When in work in England he ate Baileys Number 4 (12.5% protein, 10% fiber and 12.5 MJ/Kg of digestive energy (is that fat?)). I'm thinking Purina Ultium will be a good choice for him when he gets here. Any other suggestions?

Also, he will have been traveling for week (including 2 days in quarantine) before he gets to my farm. I have no experience introducing a new horse to new feed. He will have 7-8 hours of turnout with good grass each day. What do we feed him when in the barn and how long do we take to get him onto his regular schedule? We will have him in his own paddock for a bit so he can make friends over the fence so we can feed him lunch if that helps. He will have lost weight while traveling so that is a concern as well.

I really don't want to risk colic so any and all advice on how to get him up to his regular feed will be welcomed. Thanks.

[sdlbredfan]

Hay and grass grazing mainly at first. Add whatever grain you are going to use gradually. Has the previous caretaker in England been able to supply any more details on the ingredients of the feed you mentioned?
Jeanie

[tlw]

I got all the ingredients from the Baileys horse feed website. We typically feed Strategy for our competition horses but the Ultium looks really good and most closely matches the Baileys.

[dbadaro]

for the first week hay and grass only. then gradually introduce grain to him.

[Saidapal]

First - Congratulations! You must be SOOOO excited.

Second, agree. Very light to almost none on the grain until he settles in. Then you can gradually introduce him to whatever it is you'll be feeding him. Good quality hay will keep him fat and sassy in the meantime.

[WishIWereRiding]

I would hold off on the grain for now, maybe a small amount of bran mash if he gets upset at feeding time. I think the Ultium sounds pretty close to what he was getting. My horse and a bunch of others at my barn are on it, and they look fantastic.

[jn4jenny]

I'm getting a new horse from England. He is a 9 yr. old ISH gelding who has been regularly eventing at our prelim level and will be eventing here as well. When in work in England he ate Baileys Number 4 (12.5% protein, 10% fiber and 12.5 MJ/Kg of digestive energy (is that fat?)). I'm thinking Purina Ultium will be a good choice for him when he gets here. Any other suggestions?

Congratulations on your new horse! he sounds divine.

In the long term Ultium is a great feed, but it has little resemblance to Baileys Number 4. The Bailey's web site lists these as the ingredients to #4:
Micronised Wheat, Cereal Fibre Meal, Wheatfeed, Distillers' Grains, Micronised Soya, Molasses, Soya Oil, Calcium Carbonate, Vitamins and Minerals, Calcined Magnesite, Sodium Chloride, Vitamin E

So basically a whole lotta crushed wheat, some wheat middlings and wheat meal, some distiller's grains and soy product (to add protein I assume), molasses, vegetable oil, and vit/mins.

Ultium shares the similarity of veggie oil and soybean hulls, but it also has things this horse isn't used to: alfalfa, beet pulp, rice bran, flaxseed, etc. So you should introduce it slowly.

Agree w/ others that ample hay and grass, at first, is the best plan. If you want to avoid hissy fits at meal time, a small handful of hay pellets or a few hay cubes should keep him chilled out.

PS--I have to throw in my gripe about Ultium, which is its enormous price tag. Consider the alternatives by other brands that are VERY similar to Ultium: Triple Crown Complete and/or Triple Crown Senior, Tribute Kalm Ultra, etc. Pretty much every brand has one and most of them don't share Ultium's ridiculous price tag.

[tlw]

Seems pretty unanimous. Thanks folks. I'm very excited to get my new boy here. I had to retire my best friend when she came up with DSLD so this has been a bit of an up and down road.

[flyracing]

You don't have to put the horse on ultium because it has similar protien and fiber percentage to what he was being fed (which will be over 2 weeks from when you begin giving him any grain). Its a big misconception that the feeds will be at all similar!!! Also, most likely, he is not used to a super high sugar feed like ultium and there is plenty of research you can look up and the potential negative side effects of a high sugar diet. If you do decide ultium is the feed you want to try, start out really, really slow with it. If you have access to a grain like stategy or triple crown complete, I'd go with that. You may also want to add some oil to his diet (like in an epsm diet) to help him with weight, coat and cut down on extra grain products that cause their own set of issues.

Just my .02 cents...

Agreed with all of the above that the horse should be on just grass hay for the first week and you may want to consider putting him on a week or two of gastrogard or ranitidine to help stop any developing stomache issues. This is a STESSFUL move for a horse.

Have a great time with your new boy!

[Not So Practical Horse(WO)man]

Ultium is not high sugar?! My "hot" mare had been on it forever because it is a low starch feed. I switched her over to Pennfield because she was extremely lethargic on the Ultium, it looked and felt like the feed was different and there was a formula change. Don't know for sure but I do know that I saw the Penfield difference in just 2 weeks. Oh my god what a difference!!! I'm in loooveveeee

[flyracing]

Ultium is a high cane sugar/ low grain sugar feed. So although it's low in nsc's since it's basically made from non-grain products, it is very high in molasses. Out of the approximately (cause I only counted it twice and gave up :lol:) 45 ingredients, cane molasses is the 4th most used ingredient by weight in the bag:eek:. It has more molasses in it than it does rice bran or beet pulp! When my mare (not know to have any sugar issues) tied up on it after only half a bag, we learned that the nsc count was from the "grain ingredients" not the later molasses as that is flavoring and not substance :confused: So basically, I want to know what ultium's nsc is from someone other than the one marketing it. Other than that, it looks like an awesome feed. In general though, I stay away from all molasses added feeds if I can. And don't forget feeding 10 pounds of a low nsc feed may still give your horse more sugars than 2 lbs of a moderate nsc ration balancer and 8 lbs of alfalfa pellets. So again it's a marketing thing.