Eat My Money

After a week my eyes seem to be mostly back in order, thank fuck. They had consistently just hurt throughout the day, and my right one still seems a bit wonky, but I'm blind in that eye anyway so it can do it's own thing.

Fortunately that means I can return to blogging!

Unfortunately I don't really have anything exciting to blog about.

Fortunately I still have a couple posts chilling in my drafts folder!

pretty much have done nothing with this creature but take his picture and dope
along bareback. not even on the same day. 

Much like my last post dredged up from drafts, this one follows the line of experimentation with little thought and zero science put into it. Because that's what I bring to the horse world. Find insightful, researched posts elsewhere.

Opie came off the track in good weight. He was obviously racehorse fit, but he didn't have that drawn, tucked up look that a lot of Thoroughbreds can be seen with. When I brought him to his new home, he went right on ulcer meds, tons of gorgeous hay, a relatively low grain diet, and got introduced to turnout his second full day of being there. He came from a nice barn and had a good transition into his new one.

one day you'll be a white beluga whale like momo

But he was also only four years old and midget sized, and while he never really went through that ugly transitional phase from racehorse to riding horse where all the old muscles disappear before any of the new ones come in and transform them into beautiful butterflies, he did go through some awkward AF growth spurts where he look a little unthrifty for my taste--my taste being round rolly poly hippos.

I didn't really want to up his grain to anything over the 3 quarts he was already getting twice a day so I went down the supplement rabbit hole instead. Honestly it's one of my favorite places to explore.

First up I tried Bobby's old combo of Cool Calories and TriAmino. This eventually got Bobby fat even with his genetically gifted monstrous rib cage and just generally awful looking body parts. It did okay for Opie, and I kept him on it for the entirety of the winter and into the spring. He didn't necessarily look skinny, but he was definitely holding more muscle than weight and still looked like a young racehorse at our first show.

meh. didn't help that he was being an anxious fruit loop at the trailer all morning.

While at that show, I was talking to a trainer who recommended Purina Amplify for extra weight. I'd vaguely heard of it before, so did an online search and found that my local feed store could order it for me. I dropped the Cool Calories but kept the TriAmino for another month or two and fed the Amplify throughout the summer. Again, Opie did fine on it. Nothing drastic, but he was still going through stages where he'd look just how I wanted him and shoot up or out into a growth spurt and look not at all how I wanted him.

two months of amplify

The Amplify turned out to be a giant pain in the ass to order through my feed store, and since I wasn't seeing anything jaw dropping as far as its effects, I quit on that and went in search of something else.

I finally decided to try a tub of DAC Bloom. It was supposed to last a month, but even with the extra large portion I was feeding, it lasted me a solid month and a half. That was a good deal, it was easy to get through Big Dee's, but it smelled and looked weird. It's essentially supposed to be Cool Calories with added minerals, and it kind of has that Cool Calories texture, but in yellow with bits and pieces in it. Opie wasn't a huge fan and it usually took him both feedings to clean it out of his bucket. Plus the more I read about--after buying it, as one does--it seemed like to have it really make a difference you needed to also feed MOAR DAC PRODUCTS. Which was not going to happen.

three months of amplify. some days he looked like a tank like this, other days
he looked scrawny still. 

I would casually scroll through the ever popular weight gain threads on OTTB Connect and kept seeing people suggest Nutrena Empower Boost. (Along with lots of bat shit crazy things, but that comes with the territory.) My local feed store theoretically carried it, but after all the fuckery with the Amplify I wasn't eager to deal with them again. The Tractor Supply by the barn didn't carry it at all, the one by my grocery store carried it but never had it in stock, but of course the one that I never go to for anything always had it in supply. I grabbed a bag once the DAC Bloom finally ran out, and added it to Dopie's twice a day two quarts of Carb Guard.

It's basically fancy rice bran. It also has a bit of an off-putting odor to it, but Opie doesn't seem to mind it in the least. He cleans it right up every meal every time. And, most importantly to me, it gave me instant gratification. It started to fill Opie out right away, and he's holding his roundness.

Each 40lb bag costs me $34 and I buy it every two weeks. Feeding two pounds a day, it obviously lasts a bit longer than that, but my organizational OCD is satisfied to buy it at the same time I get dog food. I just chuck the extra bag on the shelf with the rest of the barn's grain until I need to refill his tub. It's definitely the most expensive option I tried, but I'm super happy with the results and will keep him on it for the foreseeable future.

He turns six next month so I'm crossing my fingers he's done with growing and will hold all his calories this summer.

i would like to see this beefer all next year please.

Does anyone else have to feed supplemental weight gainz to their horses? Do you also like to spend money on things without doing more than cursory reading? I would recommend it. Life lessons learned an all that.