By Theresa Gibilisco, owner, The Hungry Puppy
Most Triple Crown questions at our counter start the same way: "My friend's horse does great on Triple Crown...which bag do I buy?" It's a fair question. Triple Crown makes a lot of formulas, and from across the barn aisle the bags all look alike. The trick is to stop starting with the bag and start with the horse.
Here's how I match the five Triple Crown feeds people ask about most, plus the cubes, to the horses that actually need them. Always go by the feeding directions printed on the tag of the bag you buy, since formulas get updated, and bring your vet in on any horse with a medical history.
First, does your horse need calories or just nutrients?
This one question sorts out most of the lineup. A horse holding his weight on hay or pasture doesn't need more calories. He needs the vitamins, minerals and protein that hay can come up short on. A horse that's losing weight, working hard, or can't chew hay well needs calories too. Triple Crown makes feeds for both, and mixing the two up is the most common mistake I see.
The easy keeper on good hay: Triple Crown 30% Ration Balancer
If your horse looks great on hay and grass and you mostly want to fill in the gaps, look at the Triple Crown 30% Ration Balancer. It is not a complete feed. It's a concentrated vitamin, mineral and protein pellet that's free of whole grains and low in starch and sugar, and you feed it in small amounts. The label is built around as little as 1 lb per 1,000 lb of body weight a day, so a typical horse gets about a pound, which is roughly three cups.
Triple Crown lists ponies, minis, easy keepers, metabolic horses, broodmares, growing horses and horses eating plain grain as good fits. People sometimes worry that a pound "isn't enough food." It isn't meant to be the food. The hay is the food. The balancer rounds it out.
The chubby pony or the metabolic horse: Triple Crown Lite
Triple Crown Lite is a reduced calorie, high fiber pellet with no grain and no molasses. The label names ponies, miniature horses, mature horses that tend to get heavy, and horses with metabolic disease, including many with Cushing's. The feeding rate is small: 1 to 2 lb per 500 lb of body weight a day for mature horses, and never more than 5 lb a day for ponies and minis. If you find yourself wanting to feed more than about 4 lb a day, the label itself points you to a different Triple Crown formula, usually Low Starch.
Lite and the 30% overlap a bit, since both suit easy keepers. My rough rule: if you want the horse to see a little meal in the bucket, Lite gives you more volume. If you want the smallest scoop that still covers the vitamins and minerals, go with the 30%.
Needs real feed but has to stay low in starch: Triple Crown Low Starch
Triple Crown Low Starch is a pellet with no whole grains, no molasses and no alfalfa meal. It gets its calories from fiber and added fat, including rice bran and flaxseed, instead of grain. It's made for mature horses and ponies, metabolic horses included, and Triple Crown also lists it for horses with HYPP.
This is the bag to look at when your horse needs an actual meal, not just a balancer, and your vet has told you to keep starch and sugar down. The label gives a daily range by weight. For an 1,100 lb horse, that's 5 to 11 lb of Low Starch a day with at least 16.5 to 22 lb of forage, and no more than half a percent of body weight in any one meal. If you end up feeding less than the label's range, add Lite or one of Triple Crown's balancers to cover the vitamins and minerals.
A note for mixed farms: the Low Starch label says it contains copper and should not be fed to sheep.
The senior who's dropping weight or quidding hay: Triple Crown Senior
Triple Crown Senior is beet pulp based and free of whole grains, with more fat and a softer texture than most feeds. It's made for older horses, and Triple Crown also lists hard keepers, rescue horses and horses with heaves as good candidates.
What makes Senior so useful is that it works two ways. If your horse can still chew hay, you feed it alongside hay. If his teeth are worn to the point that he spits out wads of chewed hay (that's quidding), Senior can be the whole diet, and you can wet it into a mash. The label suggests about a cup of water per 2 to 3 lb of feed, added 10 to 15 minutes before feeding. Either way, the label caps meals at 5 lb (3 lb for ponies), so a horse on a full ration gets several meals spread through the day.
A senior that's losing weight should see the vet and the equine dentist before you change anything. Teeth are often the real problem.
The hard keeper or the working horse: Triple Crown Complete
Triple Crown Complete is a textured, beet pulp based feed with a high fat level, made for mature horses. Hard keepers and performance horses are the main target, along with horses with heaves. It can be soaked in warm water for older horses with poor teeth or for horses prone to choke. Fed with hay, the label calls for at least 5 to 15 lb a day depending on condition. If it's replacing all the hay, the label says 1 to 1.5% of body weight a day.
Complete is a special order item for us, so give it a few extra days, especially around a holiday week.
When the hay is the problem: Triple Crown cubes
Sometimes the feed is fine and the hay is the issue. It's short, it's dusty, or this year's cutting just isn't good. That's where Triple Crown Alfalfa/Timothy Cubes come in. They're alfalfa and timothy hay pressed into cubes, so they're forage, not a grain feed. We also carry Triple Crown Timothy Balance Cubes and straight alfalfa cubes. Soak cubes before feeding to soften them and cut the choke risk, especially for seniors and horses that bolt their food.
If you're trying to make your hay last until spring, I wrote a whole post on hay stretchers vs. hay pellets vs. hay cubes.
The quick version
- Looks great on hay, needs nutrients only: 30% Ration Balancer
- Easy keeper, pony or metabolic horse that wants a little more in the bucket: Lite
- Needs calories but has to stay low in starch and sugar: Low Starch
- Older horse, bad teeth, losing weight: Senior
- Hard keeper or hard working horse: Complete
- Hay is short or poor: cubes
Switching over
Whatever bag you land on, switch slowly, mixing the new feed into the old over a week to ten days. And weigh your scoop at least once. Feeding directions are written in pounds, not coffee cans.
Getting it to your barn
Most of these are regular stock in Farmingdale. Complete, Alfalfa Forage and Grass Forage are special order. You can see the whole line in our Triple Crown collection. Our own trucks bring feed right to the barn Tuesday through Friday on your town's route day, free with a $20 minimum, across Monmouth County and parts of Ocean, Middlesex and Mercer. Route days and the details are on our farm feed delivery page. Not sure which bag fits? Call us at 732-938-4470 and tell us about your horse.
Triple Crown questions we hear a lot
Is Triple Crown 30% a complete feed?
No. It's a ration balancer, a concentrated vitamin, mineral and protein supplement fed at about a pound a day for an average horse. The calories come from hay or pasture.
Can I feed Triple Crown Senior to a horse that isn't old?
Triple Crown lists hard keepers and rescue horses as good candidates, so age alone isn't the rule. If you're feeding a thin younger horse, have your vet look at him first so you know why he's thin.
Which Triple Crown feed should I use for a horse with insulin resistance?
Lite, the 30% Balancer and Low Starch are all built to be low in starch and sugar. Lite and the balancer are fed in small amounts, and Low Starch is the one for a horse that needs a full meal. For a horse with insulin resistance or a history of laminitis, get a target from your vet and we'll go over the tag with you.