Modesto Milling Organic Senior Horse Pellet Horse Feed, 40-lb bag

Modesto Milling Senior Horse Pellet can be appropriate for Cushings when fed correctly. The Starch content is approximately 13.7% and the Sugar content is approximately 3.2%. It is recommended to speak to your vet to see what is suitable for your horses's current diet plan.

The NSC content is 14%, which is considered low starch, but not as low as the 10% recommended. A feed that has a low feeding rate, even though it has a slightly higher NSC, can be perfectly adequate for a metabolically challenged horse. Keep in mind that NSC is the sum of starch and sugar in a feed. Although this may be slightly above the recommended level for horses with metabolic issues, since it has a very low feeding rate (1 lb/day) it would not be a problem, especially if you split the 1 lb recommended feeding into 2 meals of 1/2 lb each. You see, in 1 lb of Modesto Supplement Pellet with 14% NSC there is only 2.2 oz starch (16 oz x 0.14 = 2.2 oz). If you feed ½ lb of the Modesto Supplement Pellet 2x day that will be only 1.1 oz starch per feeding (8 oz x 0.14 = 1.1), which is a very small amount if you consider the overall size of the horse and the total amount of food a horse is consuming (probably more than 20 lbs). The 10% NSC recommendation comes from the amount of starch that will not cause a significant glycemic response in the horse. Physiologically, 1.1 oz of starch fed to a 1,100 lb horse would hardly result in any more of a glycemic response than the hay would. To put this into perspective, the levels of starch in a meal found in research that will result in a moderate rise in blood glucose are >1 g starch per kilogram body weight or > 100g starch/100 kg BW. To convert to pounds, that would be 3.5 oz starch per 220 lbs body weight or 17.5 oz starch per 1100 lb horse. Clearly, 1.1 oz of NSC in a ½ lb of Modesto Milling Supplement Pellet is well below the 17.5 oz of starch threshold defined in research and for this reason we can be confident that it will not result in a glycemic response over what meal of hay would.

The pellets in the horse feed are much softer than pure alfalfa pellets. They are soft enough that you can break them up with your fingers and will also absorb water much faster, since they are not as dense.

This horse feed does not require soaking. However, some customers like to soak their feed rather than feed as is.