I'm also transferring my shopping behavior which has been quite hard. Rider's Warehouse is getting quite a bit of love from me right now but man their website makes me nuts. Filters, folks, it's all about the filters when shopping!
Anyway, supplements. First step was to pick my new supps. For the curious, I settled on:
UltraCruz Equine Wellness/Joint Performance Supplement - This is a combo multi-vitamin and joint support supplement that I found on scahealth.com while pricing out supplements. I test drove it through my XL Feed account and it filled in a lot of the gaps in Theo's feed program. It also gave me all the stuff I look for in a joint supp. Since it comes in pellet form, it's an all around win for me.
UltraCruz Equine Probiotic Supplement - For show season, I find a probiotic useful for keeping Theo happy. I use omeprazole when trailering but I want to make sure his gut is in tip top shape when he's stressed. Couldn't argue with the price (150 days for $30) so I tossed it in the cart. Powder but I'm not as worried about him getting all of it into his system.
Vita E & Selenium Crumbles - Same supp he's been on for ages since there's no selenium in New England.
Vita Flex MSM - Just pure, powdered MSM. Boring but helpful in bug season for a certain someone that blows up like a pineapple as soon as the horse flies spot him. This is also a powder but I've found most horses accept it well since it has zero taste and sticks to pellets pretty easily.
Horseshoer's Secret Concentrate - Hello, biotin! Theo's feet are not fantastic and grow very slowly. 25mg of biotin a day helps to keep his feet in the best shape possible. Also helps him grow that amazing tail that I have to spend hours maintaining. Wait, why am I supplementing this again?
My buckets of supps arrived in two boxes. I am so that horse mom. I tested some tuperware containers I had in the house and found that the 2 cup size was perfect. I ordered a stack of them off Amazon and filled them up based on a 28 day schedule. It should help me to stay on top of things if I use the four week cycle.
I got the ones with screw top lids so I don't have to worry about the lids popping off if they don't seal completely and they'll be easy to manage come winter when people are wearing gloves. Black sharpie didn't show up on the blue lids so I had to get a bit blingy.
I don't know why people think my horse is spoiled. It's not like I bring him his supplements in royal blue containers with his name in gold or anything.
I'm not expecting any changes in Theo from all of this. According to my FeedXL account, this will be very similar to what he's on now. There are a few things different between the UltraCruz and the SmartPak multi-purpose supplement so it's possible he'll notice. But not likely. With the powdered supplements now part of the picture he'll also be getting an ounce of wheat germ oil to make everything stick. That's more likely to cause a difference and I'm hoping for more gloss on his poor summer coat. The bugs really got him while I was away and I'm gooping him up with everything in the cabinet to help with the itching.
According to my worksheet, I will be saving between $15 and $20 a month with this so that's an extra couple of lattes. Go me.
Fingers crossed that this system will work. I don't want to become one of those boarders that never seems to have their supps ready for feeding.
Oh, wow, that actually a pretty decent price difference. SmartPaks are definitely convenient, but they're not as pretty as hand packaged supps with golden print :P
ReplyDeletewow that is a godd savings thank you for sharing this with me. If i can get off my butt I could do this. ONE horse at home. COME ON :) thanks so much again!
ReplyDeletegood if i could only spell :)
DeleteI think if I one day have a garage or dedicated space for me (and can find Dante's multivitamin in pellet form) I'll switch off smartpaks... hmm actually now that I'm thinking about it I wonder if I can just switch him to a good pelleted ration balancer.
ReplyDelete