CountryByNet.com Forums :: Horse Owners Workshop

Richard,
Feet are such a deal breaker for sure. I looked on the web for Pennwoods. Is this it? http://www.pennwoods.com/products.htm If it is, which one are you using? My 4 year old is a bit knock kneed so we really try to stay proactive with preventative measures. He is so darn talented and cowey that we bought him. If Pennwoods has the same make up and is as consistent as Empower with the supplements I would sure make the switch.
Lazy J,
I think, like a lot of folks, we were sort of raised with Purina being the best. Over the last 3-4 years it seems like Purina has not kept up with the Equine industry. It was hard to move off of their product but we ran into a few of issues back to back. The first was some bad feed that the dealer was resistant to resolving. The second was feed availability – at various times we had to go to different dealers to find the same feed. They all said that sometimes it was hard to get feed all the time. We don’t like to switch feed very often so this is a problem. Third – Lack of communication about new or improved equine feed. I think other companies do a better job of listening and delivering to their customers.

In the last year we have found that Purina products we buy around the country have very different physical forms and the horses react to them differently. If we go to a show in NV, AZ, CA, TX or OK I would expect that the feed is the same. If the horses get hot one time and not the next, if they eat it one time and not the next if it smells differently from time to time, if it looks differently from time to time I am very suspicious.

What really tipped it was we got some Empower from Nutrena to try and the horses took to it. They seemed to have better stamina without being hot and the product was consistent. It’s a bit more than Purina in our area and a lot harder to get but so far (have to check out Pennwoods) it’s the best. Nutrena even has a program where one of their reps will come out and analyze your forage so you know how best to supplement or feed(you might check into this and see if its valuable to you. It seems like that would be a nice feature to share with your customers). I think you can buy Nutrena in bulk but I might be wrong on that.

At the last Horse Expo I asked the Purina people about these issues and I got serious attitude. I am not the best rider out there nor do we have the most horses, at the same time, our horses each cost more than any vehicle or trailer we have ever owned (including our new Dodge/Cummins) and we center a lot of our time and energy around the horses so the last thing I wanted was attitude from some sales puke who has no good answer. If you can’t support your product, as a factory rep, then I will move on.

I don’t normally talk much about it since most people just blindly trust Purina but I did mention this to a feed store clerk when we were in So Cal and he said that they no longer push Purina since it was bought by, I think he said, Nestle and the quality has dropped. My experiences, as a scientific sample of one

seem to support that.

Anyway…..it works for us and we keep looking for a better solution.

Mark

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