Low sugar/starch balancers

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Hollylee1989

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Hi all

Looking for recommendations for a low sugar/starch balancer ready for the winter. I have a cushings lamanitic shetland, and a good doer Irish sports horse. I possibly won't feed my shetland one, but struggling to find any that's below 9% starch and 7% sugar. I understand 10% and under is safe, but looking to see if there is anything lower. So far I've looked and written off blue chip low calorie, lami light, baileys lo cal, top spec lite, thunderbrooks, saracen.
Thanks all
 
I'm a vet nurse and feed my two rescued elderly PPID ( Cushing's) mini Shetlands and HW good doer cob Science Supplements veteran powder. My cob is only 7 but is EMS and PSSM2, and the SS veteran is excellent for him as high in vit E, v low sugar and starch, at work so can't look it up but look up the Science Supplements site, you can ask their nutritionist any questions . SS is Dr David Marlins own line and is the only horse supplement line to have undergone scientific testing and analysis in the UK. Just add the powder to the lowest sugar & starch carrier that suits your horses. Mine have theirs in a tiny bit of dampened micronised linseed for the healthy fat content. You don't have to go for any of the commercial 'feed balancers' , there are no laws on horse feed marketing so the vast majority of commercial horse feed is overpriced marketing above feed quality.
 
Leah3horses said:
I'm a vet nurse and feed my two rescued elderly PPID ( Cushing's) mini Shetlands and HW good doer cob Science Supplements veteran powder. My cob is only 7 but is EMS and PSSM2, and the SS veteran is excellent for him as high in vit E, v low sugar and starch, at work so can't look it up but look up the Science Supplements site, you can ask their nutritionist any questions . SS is Dr David Marlins own line and is the only horse supplement line to have undergone scientific testing and analysis in the UK. Just add the powder to the lowest sugar & starch carrier that suits your horses. Mine have theirs in a tiny bit of dampened micronised linseed for the healthy fat content. You don't have to go for any of the commercial 'feed balancers' , there are no laws on horse feed marketing so the vast majority of commercial horse feed is overpriced marketing above feed quality.
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This sounds good! I'll have a read up on it, thank you.
 
With balancers it's often worth looking at the amount of starch and sugar that it would work out as in grams rather than % because often the amounts of the balancer being fed are so small that the amount of sugar or starch in it in grams would be absolutely tiny compared to most other feeds even if the % is higher than 10.
 
Squeak said:
With balancers it's often worth looking at the amount of starch and sugar that it would work out as in grams rather than % because often the amounts of the balancer being fed are so small that the amount of sugar or starch in it in grams would be absolutely tiny compared to most other feeds even if the % is higher than 10.
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This. The quantities of balancer you feed are so small it’s a negligible difference. In the grand scheme of a horse’s diet, it’s simply not worth worrying about
 
TheMule said:
This. The quantities of balancer you feed are so small it’s a negligible difference. In the grand scheme of a horse’s diet, it’s simply not worth worrying about
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Just be aware that even small amounts if some substances can affect some horses disproportionately. We stopped using Forage Plus balancers when we realised that both horses were hypersensitive to linseed.
 
a lot of the pelleted balancers are mostly cereals or alfalfa meal to bind them as well which can send some completely batsh!t loopy

I use progressive earth pro balance basic for my 2 PPID/EMS mares
 
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