Flourish / TOTAL Horse Feed - Opinions Wanted

[Taliesan]

I was wondering if anyone on here feeds their horses Flourish horse feeds? (They used to be called TOTAL Horse Feed.)

My horses would not be getting the full amount, just a small scoop to carry their supplements in.

At the moment I feed:
Speedibeet
Grass nuts
Wheat bran
Rolled oats
Micronised linseed

My mum's older horse is also on the above and gets copra as a addition to his feed.

My two pretty much have a sprinkle of everything and that is it. My mum's old horse has about double to triple the amount my boys do. He does exceptionally well on this and has come through winter looking the best he ever has.

Looking at the ingredients in the Flourish feed they seem very similar to what I feed now. Only all in one bag. I know of one person who does feed this and hers get a couple of scoops of the flourish feed mixed in with speedibeet and linseed.

What are people's experiences of it? Would it be worth swapping mine over? The only reason I'd be considering it is ease and cost (it might be cheaper, it might not, I'd need to work out how long a bag lasts and price it up). My mum's old horse would go onto it as well but he'd have his feed beefed up with copra and linseed to increase the calories for him.

My horses do look well on what I feed now, too well perhaps, but I'm always open to the idea that there is a better alternative out there so would be keen to hear people's views on this particular feed.

 

[ponyparty]

Did you switch to Flourish? I’m considering trying it after I’ve got through my current assortment of feed and balancer, herbs, god knows what else. It’s all getting a bit over complicated and annoying me I listened to a podcast (Mark Johnson) in which they interviewed the creator and owner of Flourish, and it does sound interesting but, like you, I’d want to do the maths first and preferably hear others’ real life experiences/reviews.

 

[Birgitte1]

We started feeding our 4* eventer Evolve in December. He has struggled with ulcers for a long time. We also did a food intolerance test and one of the things he was intolerant to was coconut. Within weeks of feeding Evolve he gained weight and is looking the best he ever has.

 

[Taliesan]

I did move onto Flourish in the end, purely for the sake of convenience. I am not sure it gives any cost savings but the time savings and simplicity has been well worth it.

Both of my horses absolutely adore the food. One of them is a bit of a picky eater and he had no issues when I started to introduce it into his feed.

Admittedly I do not feed the recommended daily amounts because that would be prohibitively expensive (even though the bags are about £25, they are only 15kg and not the usual 20kg that most other manufacturers do) and my boys only need a token amount to carry their herbs and joint supplements. I didn't swap my mum's old horse over in the end as he is doing well on the copra, speedibeet, grass nuts and linseed. As he hasn't got long left I figured there was no point in changing anything for him when the current feed regime suits well enough.

My boys are on a handful of flourish, handful of linseed and then either a small amount of soaked grass nuts or speedibeet - just so everything binds together.

I have to say that they do look excellent on it and I am glad I made the swap.

 

[Timewaster]

I have used flourish (previously Primero total) for about 12/14 years. I had a horse who had colic and was told he mustn’t have any grain. I had to feed him a multitude of different things, including Equijewel which he carefully left at the bottom of every feed. He was extremely fussy and couldn’t keep on weight. I googled “grain free horse food” and came upon Primero total. I have fed nothing else since and my whole yard are on the same feed. Before I switched, I did a very detailed spreadsheet about costs and the amount of expensive food/supplements I was having to feed that horse meant Primero was marginally cheaper. However, for a horse which does well on any of the standard feeds, I think it would work out more expensive, But I would never switch back. All my horses do so well and you don’t need any supplements. At one point, I was asked by a mainstream feed producer who was giving a lecture, what I fed my horses. She had never heard of it and told us all we should be giving a multivitamin supplement regardless of what we were feeding. She took a sample of Primero and came back saying “you don’t need any supplements. This really is a complete feed“. In those days, no other feed producer made a “Grain free horse food“. Now all the mainstream horse food producers make a grain free feed. I order a full pallet at a time, which is a big outlay, but I share it with some friends which keeps the cost down. I should probably get a job with flourish, as they are now known, because I would be a great ambassador!!