shops own Vs branded horse feeds ?

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hannah28

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how do you feel about shop brand ? my friend told me not to feed shop brand pony nuts to my horse as there rubbish ?? is more expensive feed better ?

what are your thoughts ??
 
We feed Countrywide Horse and Pony Nuts and also Countrywide Conditioning Cubes

The horses look great and have actually improved condition compared to some of the big names. I've fed most of the big name brands and find that they're no better for the majority of horses than what I currently feed.

I can't speak for other feed manufacturers but I know that Countrywide have always made animal feeds and have been very successful with local farmers, so I can't believe that they would make "rubbish" horse feeds.
 
The only difference should be that the more expensive brands are made to a formula and list the ingredients

The cheaper brands like countrywide are making to a ration and price, therefore only give protein values etc. So the key difference is with countrywide you protein could be coming from soya one week, cereals the next, beans the following and so on. So the disadvantage is why is nutritionally the same, its coming for various sources.

In the case of pony nuts which are mainly dust and grass, I wouldn't worry. However it is a problem when feeding higher energy mix in a competition horse where you don't want massive variation in feed.
 
Our own brand feed is made by baileys a 'brand', so I wouldn't think twice about feeding it, it's like everything when it has a label on people 'think' its better sometimes it isn't I always think its worth a shot.
 
It does vary quite a bit even on the shops own brands.

Some shop brands are actually made by the big names and virtually identical to the branded feeds. You might have a slightly lower vit/min content etc. which for most horses isn't a problem.

Eg my local equestrian store has their own conditioning cubes. Comes in a plain white sack, made by BIG brand and identical in composition except for the removal of pro-biotic.

If feeding competition horses do be aware that the branded feeds will guarentee no banned substances, but the non-branded ones don't offer that protection.

for 95% of horses I wouldn't hesitate to feed own brand feeds.
 
our local feed shop is also the head office for saracen so we don't really get a shop brand as such but have stuck with them a their nutritionist is also on site so it all links together quite nicely :D
 
we tried swapping to own label (Countrywide) but straight away had 2 horses go down with choke and it kept happening until we swapped back to their usual feed (D&H).

we tried feeding it many different ways but it always resulted in choke so swapped back pretty sharpish and haven't tried again.
 
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