Question

I own a nine-year-old Trakehner/Thoroughbred gelding that competes as a hunter. He’s about 1,175 lb (533 kg). I ride four or five times a week, jumping him once or twice a week. He spends about one-third of his time in a pasture and the rest is spent in his stall. He gets a good bit of grass hay, about five flakes a day, and 1 lb (0.45 kg) of a complete horse feed. He was on a flake of alfalfa hay, but I’ve discontinued that. My gelding seems to have renal issues, with an elevated creatinine level. The vet advised a low-protein diet. I am looking for a ration balancer or fortified feed under 12% protein. Can you help?

Answer

Ration balalancers are designed to deliver certain nutrients in a concentrated form, and protein is one of them. Because the feeding rate is so low, the ration balancer will usually have more than 20% protein. Therefore, finding a ration balancer that is extremely low in protein is difficult.

If you can find a ration balancer formulated specifically to be fed with alfalfa hay, it will be low in protein because alfalfa usually provides more than adequate protein. A ration balancer made to complement alfalfa hay will usually have less calcium as well. Reduced protein and calcium are likely to be the only differences between forage-specific balancers. There are only a handful of feed manufacturers that produce a balancer specifically for alfalfa, so such a product might be hard to find.

Another option would be a vitamin and mineral supplement like Micro-Max (manufactured by KERx). This product will balance out the diet nicely, and because it is fed at a rate of 3-4 oz (85-110 g), the amount of protein it contributes to the diet is minimal.

Commercial feeds with a protein value of less than 10% or 12% are usually not made, but there is very little difference in the amount of protein the two supply. For example, if you feed 1 lb (0.45 kg) of a 10% protein feed, it would supply 1.6 oz (45 g) of protein, while 1 lb of a 12% protein feed supplies 1.9 oz (54 g).

More importantly, protein supplied is relative to the amounts fed. If you feed 5 lb (2.3 kg) of a 12% protein feed, it supplies 9.6 oz (272 g) protein, but if you feed only 1 lb (0.45 kg) it supplies 1.9 oz (54 g). To put this in perspective, the forage is the major source of protein in the diet of the horse, and if you feed 20 lb (9 kg) of an 8% protein grass hay, it supplies 25.6 oz (726 g) of protein.

Perhaps you can now understand that the biggest impact you have had on reducing the protein in the diet was by taking out the alfalfa hay (18% protein).