Phoenix Company

How much additional protein to add to your horse’s diet is one of the most misunderstood topics that I encounter when discussing equine nutrition with horse owners. While most horse owners base the feed concentrate that they add to their horse’s roughage source (hay) on its protein level, many don’t really understand how that affects the total nutritional profile.

Understanding the percentage of protein in a feed supplement seems to be a very confusing issue. Do I feed a 10% instead a 12%, a 12% instead of a 15%? Let’s take a look.

Where protein is concerned, the considerations should be total protein added to the diet, what proteins are actually provided, and what you are trying to achieve.  Renew Gold™ is 15% natural vegetable sourced protein. Is this too much if your horse seems to get along with a current product that is 10%, or 12%? Looking at the total amount that is contributed to the diet will give you a clearer picture of just what the true protein numbers are and what effect they will have on your horse.

One pound of Renew Gold provides 68 grams of quality, highly usable, vegetable-sourced protein. This would be a typical daily inclusion of Renew Gold in most horse’s diets.

One pound of a “Brand X”, you fill in the name, 10% protein grain-based feed concentrate provides 45 grams of protein. But, according to feed instructions typically found on their label, you will be told to feed four or five pounds, or more, of this product. If we take the lower number of four pounds, you are adding 180 grams of protein per day into your horse. Even if you only feed several pounds of a 10% feed, you are still adding almost 1/3 more total protein than you are with Renew Gold. As you can see, if you are concerned about too much total protein added in the diet, Renew Gold adds much less, even though the label guarantee per pound is higher.

If your goal in adding protein is meeting additional energy needs, we feel that there is a better way. Rather than rely on more added protein in your horses diet like most feed companies do, we designed Renew Gold to provide the type and amount of quality protein necessary in the diet to support tissue repair, healthy growth, and to help meet essential amino acid needs. Then, instead of more added protein as an energy source, Renew Gold provides additional cooler energy more efficiently by the inclusion of three sources of high quality, easily digestible natural vegetable fats. Additionally, Renew Gold’s digestive aid and light foot print in the system promotes an overall improvement of digestive efficiency.

Not relying on additional protein for energy support allows you to take high amounts of added feed out of the diet. Doing this has additional benefits. Less grain means lower total NSC numbers which, in turn, can lower colic risk, and moderate temperament. At the same time, Renew Gold supports a digestive system that can then function closer to how nature intended. Our goal in the end is better use of the roughage that your horse eats, improved efficiency and a consistent predictable energy level from one day to the next. All of this gives you a greater ability to adjust that energy level to your needs.

When you think about it, doesn’t this make more sense?

If you have questions contact us today.

“Cooler Energy” refers to the calm reserves of useful stamina that can result from replacing high starch grain based feed with lower starch components that provide concentrated useable energy. By limiting grain ingredients in the ration your horses digestive system can function in a more natural way. Horses are grazing animals that evolved to consume high fiber, low starch, roughage as their primary source of nutrition. Many natural plant food sources also provide a significant amount of naturally occurring vegetable fat that the horses system readily identifies and utilizes for energy. What a horse did not naturally eat, was a large amount of mature grain. We humans decided that was a good idea, not the horse.

High levels of grain in a feeding program alter the effectiveness of the digestive system with little benefit in return. Supplementing with high starch feeds can elevate blood glucose levels resulting in what we commonly recognize as “grain high” or nervous excitability. This type of “hot energy” is rarely beneficial to the horse or the rider. Additionally, grain based rations, when fed in significant amounts, may pass through the upper part of the digestive system undigested to ferment in the hind gut.  The result is a new set of problems. Fermenting high starch grains can alter the environment that sustains a healthy population of beneficial bacteria. These beneficial bacteria are necessary in the hind gut, and assist in breaking down the roughage that a horse has eaten for efficient digestion. Proper digestion of roughage is the most natural utilization of available nutrition.

So, what do you do to provide additional useful energy when more is needed than that provided by the hay?  The best answer is to provide an energy dense source of “Cooler Energy” with as little disruption to the natural function of the digestive system as possible. The Answer is Renew Gold™.

If you have questions contact us today.

We are commonly asked if Renew Gold is a feed or a supplement. Interesting question, so let’s look at what the difference is when talking about equine nutrition.

What’s a feed?

An equine feed is most often sold in large bags with recommended feeding rates of five pounds per day or more, sometimes much more. The most common source of energy in feeds is a blend of grain and grain by products. The protein source in most feeds is also usually grain based, but, in low quality feeds may be from other sources.

Many feeds are formulated to meet their printed label guarantees at the lowest cost by reformulating every week with different components. This is called “least cost formulating”. While the protein, fat and fiber levels may be the same from bag to bag, the actual product inside may not be. In general, the easiest way to spot a “least cost formulated” feed is to look for a tag on the bag that lists the nutritional information rather than having that information printed directly on the bag. If the manufacturer is constantly changing the formulation as ingredient pricing varies, it is easier to change the ingredient list on a tag than on a pre-printed bag.

When a feed product is made to the same formulation every time, no matter how the ingredient costs vary, it is called “Fixed Formulating”. Usually, a fixed formulated product will have the ingredients printed directly on the bag. The exception to this might be bulk packaging for large users, but in general, fully printed retail store packaging means “Fixed Formulation” and the consistency that goes with getting exactly the same product every time you buy.

What’s a supplement?

When we think about supplements for horses, we usually imagine a small bucket with a little scoop inside. The recommendations for use commonly tell us to feed one or two of these little scoops per day. The goal here is to supplement deficient, or totally missing, pieces of the nutrition puzzle. This can be of value in some situations, but many supplements are not what they seem

As a person who has formulated many equine supplements over the last twenty years, I can speak with some authority on the subject. Not all equine supplements are created equal. The equine supplement market is a very competitive place, and quite price sensitive. There are a number of different ways to compete in this market. Let’s take a look at some of those ways.

The first is to use low quality components and provide an inexpensive product. For the horse owner, this is usually money wasted, no matter how inexpensive the product may seem. If the ingredient quality is low, it is seldom utilized by the horse in the manner promised on the label.

The second is to lie about what you put in the product. This is more common than you might think, and very hard for the consumer to detect, other than lack of result from the product. With the financial problems we have in most states, product testing by state regulatory agencies is not as common as it used to be. Many low quality manufactures know this and take advantage of the situation by making products that simply do not contain what the label states.

The third is to use high quality ingredients and charge more for the finished product. If the product is well formulated, and the feeding rate is proper, the results can justify the added expense in some cases.  The best equine supplements follow this course, and, while usually expensive, can work for the horse and its owner unless you fall into the next scenario listed below.

The fourth might be the most confusing. That is to use quality ingredients and have accurate ingredient guarantees, but lower the recommended feed rate to hit a lower price per day. I see this often with higher priced supplements. They may work well if you use a higher feed rate, but the maker is afraid that you will not buy the product if you really knew how much you needed to feed, and how much that would cost, for your horse to get the response from the product that the maker promises.

This is where Renew Gold is different.

Renew Gold creates its own category between feeds and  supplements. It could best be called a bio-supplement. While we commonly refer to the value of Renew Gold in replacing high starch grain based feeds in the ration, we also see significant benefits in its ability to reduce or eliminate the need for many supplements in the ration. Unless there are specific underlying health problems in a horse there should be little need for added supplementation in a proper diet being digested by a healthy and efficient digestive system.  If you are adding a digestive aid, hoof conditioner, coat conditioning product, or vitamin supplement, Renew Gold, with its ability to maximize digestive efficiency can greatly simplify your program.

While we see benefits from Renew Gold with very small inclusions in the diet, this product is feed at significantly higher feed rates than commonly used in “equine supplements”. The result of this is that you actually feed enough to make the desired changes that you seek, while commonly lowering total daily costs.

It is interesting that, as a group, horse owners who use large amounts of grain based feed also use large amounts of supplements to try to address the problems generated by those large feed inclusions. Renew Gold is a better answer. Removing the high starch, grain based roadblocks and maximizing digestive efficiency in your horse can provide much of the health support that you try to address with a long, expensive list of additives. In addition, simplifying your feeding program saves money, and makes consistent day to day nutrition more assured. Something we all can enjoy.

If you have questions contact us today.

How much additional protein to add to your horse’s diet is one of the most misunderstood topics that I encounter when discussing equine nutrition with horse owners. While most horse owners base the feed concentrate that they add to their horse’s roughage source (hay) on its protein level, many don’t really understand how that affects the total nutritional profile.

Understanding the percentage of protein in a feed supplement seems to be a very confusing issue. Do I feed a 10% instead a 12%, a 12% instead of a 15%? Let’s take a look.

Where protein is concerned, the considerations should be total protein added to the diet, what proteins are actually provided, and what you are trying to achieve.  Renew Gold™ is 15% natural vegetable sourced protein. Is this too much if your horse seems to get along with a current product that is 10%, or 12%? Looking at the total amount that is contributed to the diet will give you a clearer picture of just what the true protein numbers are and what effect they will have on your horse.

One pound of Renew Gold provides 68 grams of quality, highly usable, vegetable-sourced protein. This would be a typical daily inclusion of Renew Gold in most horse’s diets.

One pound of a “Brand X”, you fill in the name, 10% protein grain-based feed concentrate provides 45 grams of protein. But, according to feed instructions typically found on their label, you will be told to feed four or five pounds, or more, of this product. If we take the lower number of four pounds, you are adding 180 grams of protein per day into your horse. Even if you only feed several pounds of a 10% feed, you are still adding almost 1/3 more total protein than you are with Renew Gold. As you can see, if you are concerned about too much total protein added in the diet, Renew Gold adds much less, even though the label guarantee per pound is higher.

If your goal in adding protein is meeting additional energy needs, we feel that there is a better way. Rather than rely on more added protein in your horses diet like most feed companies do, we designed Renew Gold to provide the type and amount of quality protein necessary in the diet to support tissue repair, healthy growth, and to help meet essential amino acid needs. Then, instead of more added protein as an energy source, Renew Gold provides additional cooler energy more efficiently by the inclusion of three sources of high quality, easily digestible natural vegetable fats. Additionally, Renew Gold’s digestive aid and light foot print in the system promotes an overall improvement of digestive efficiency.

Not relying on additional protein for energy support allows you to take high amounts of added feed out of the diet. Doing this has additional benefits. Less grain means lower total NSC numbers which, in turn, can lower colic risk, and moderate temperament. At the same time, Renew Gold supports a digestive system that can then function closer to how nature intended. Our goal in the end is better use of the roughage that your horse eats, improved efficiency and a consistent predictable energy level from one day to the next. All of this gives you a greater ability to adjust that energy level to your needs.

When you think about it, doesn’t this make more sense?

If you have questions contact us today.

$30.00+  for a thirty pound bag???

Wow, can I afford Renew Gold™?

Seems like a lot, so let’s clear up a few misconceptions regarding just what it costs to feed Renew Gold, and how the price affects your feeding program.

Renew Gold is a very energy dense, low starch, ration balancing product that commonly replaces, or greatly reduces, a number of other commonly used feeds and supplements in your feeding program.
Let’s suppose that you are feeding one of the popular “premium” grain based horse feeds on the market. Let’s say Brand X, (you fill in the name) costs $12.00 for a fifty pound bag. The label tells you to feed four to six pounds per day based on the weight of your horse, and level of use. Many feeds recommend much more, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and split the difference by feeding five pounds per day split into two feedings.

Your cost on this will be, at a minimum, $1.20 or more per day. This is certainly a very average scenario for many horse owners. In addition, you might add some flax, Rice Bran, or beat pulp to the program, let’s throw in some direct fed microbials, to try to get your horse to digest all this in a digestive system that was really not designed by nature to handle that much concentrate and you can easily have $3.00 to $5.00 or more per day into the feeding program without considering what you are paying for hay.

What do you get for this? We feel that you get a system that is overburdened with concentrate and starch, a hit and miss level of efficiency in digesting your hay, and a lot of the nutrition that you paid for on the ground behind your horse. Take a hose to the manure and see how much undigested feed is in there.
Now let’s look at Renew Gold. Feeding one pound per day costs 93 cents. This provides concentrated energy in a package that fits in the horses digestive system while providing real support to hind gut efficiency to better utilize your hay. No additional, or greatly reduced, feeds, No additional Flax, no additional Rice Bran, no additional beat pulp, no additional pro-biotics. The result? No starch overload to disrupt hind gut function, no grain high, cooler usable energy, and a higher level of natural efficiency throughout the entire digestive system. Guaranteed. This is sound science and sound nutrition from horse people for horse people.

If your goal is a comprehensive feeding program that makes usable energy without stressing your horse’s digestive system, you will get more for your feed dollar with Renew Gold.

If you have questions contact us today.

We are commonly asked if Renew Gold is a feed or a supplement. Interesting question, so let’s look at what the difference is when talking about equine nutrition.

What’s a feed?

An equine feed is most often sold in large bags with recommended feeding rates of five pounds per day or more, sometimes much more. The most common source of energy in feeds is a blend of grain and grain by products. The protein source in most feeds is also usually grain based, but, in low quality feeds may be from other sources.

Many feeds are formulated to meet their printed label guarantees at the lowest cost by reformulating every week with different components. This is called “least cost formulating”. While the protein, fat and fiber levels may be the same from bag to bag, the actual product inside may not be. In general, the easiest way to spot a “least cost formulated” feed is to look for a tag on the bag that lists the nutritional information rather than having that information printed directly on the bag. If the manufacturer is constantly changing the formulation as ingredient pricing varies, it is easier to change the ingredient list on a tag than on a pre-printed bag.

When a feed product is made to the same formulation every time, no matter how the ingredient costs vary, it is called “Fixed Formulating”. Usually, a fixed formulated product will have the ingredients printed directly on the bag. The exception to this might be bulk packaging for large users, but in general, fully printed retail store packaging means “Fixed Formulation” and the consistency that goes with getting exactly the same product every time you buy.

What’s a supplement?

When we think about supplements for horses, we usually imagine a small bucket with a little scoop inside. The recommendations for use commonly tell us to feed one or two of these little scoops per day. The goal here is to supplement deficient, or totally missing, pieces of the nutrition puzzle. This can be of value in some situations, but many supplements are not what they seem

As a person who has formulated many equine supplements over the last twenty years, I can speak with some authority on the subject. Not all equine supplements are created equal. The equine supplement market is a very competitive place, and quite price sensitive. There are a number of different ways to compete in this market. Let’s take a look at some of those ways.

The first is to use low quality components and provide an inexpensive product. For the horse owner, this is usually money wasted, no matter how inexpensive the product may seem. If the ingredient quality is low, it is seldom utilized by the horse in the manner promised on the label.

The second is to lie about what you put in the product. This is more common than you might think, and very hard for the consumer to detect, other than lack of result from the product. With the financial problems we have in most states, product testing by state regulatory agencies is not as common as it used to be. Many low quality manufactures know this and take advantage of the situation by making products that simply do not contain what the label states.

The third is to use high quality ingredients and charge more for the finished product. If the product is well formulated, and the feeding rate is proper, the results can justify the added expense in some cases.  The best equine supplements follow this course, and, while usually expensive, can work for the horse and its owner unless you fall into the next scenario listed below.

The fourth might be the most confusing. That is to use quality ingredients and have accurate ingredient guarantees, but lower the recommended feed rate to hit a lower price per day. I see this often with higher priced supplements. They may work well if you use a higher feed rate, but the maker is afraid that you will not buy the product if you really knew how much you needed to feed, and how much that would cost, for your horse to get the response from the product that the maker promises.

This is where Renew Gold is different.

Renew Gold creates its own category between feeds and  supplements. It could best be called a bio-supplement. While we commonly refer to the value of Renew Gold in replacing high starch grain based feeds in the ration, we also see significant benefits in its ability to reduce or eliminate the need for many supplements in the ration. Unless there are specific underlying health problems in a horse there should be little need for added supplementation in a proper diet being digested by a healthy and efficient digestive system.  If you are adding a digestive aid, hoof conditioner, coat conditioning product, or vitamin supplement, Renew Gold, with its ability to maximize digestive efficiency can greatly simplify your program.

While we see benefits from Renew Gold with very small inclusions in the diet, this product is feed at significantly higher feed rates than commonly used in “equine supplements”. The result of this is that you actually feed enough to make the desired changes that you seek, while commonly lowering total daily costs.

It is interesting that, as a group, horse owners who use large amounts of grain based feed also use large amounts of supplements to try to address the problems generated by those large feed inclusions. Renew Gold is a better answer. Removing the high starch, grain based roadblocks and maximizing digestive efficiency in your horse can provide much of the health support that you try to address with a long, expensive list of additives. In addition, simplifying your feeding program saves money, and makes consistent day to day nutrition more assured. Something we all can enjoy.

If you have questions contact us today.

Supplementing your horses feeding program can be confusing at best, and downright intimidating at worst. What, other than hay, does my horse need? How much is too much? How much is not enough? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could provide an efficient, healthy program, and do so without wasting money and time? Perhaps you can.

Let’s look at just what a horse is designed to use as nutrition, and what fits into the digestive system. First off, a horse is a grazing animal. As they evolved they found the nutrition that they needed by eating what surrounded them in their environment in a fairly constant feeding process. Energy requirements beyond what is needed just to maintain body function was limited to the flight requirements that put them a safe distance from predators and to provide energy to raise their young. If a geographic area contained readily available food sources that met basic energy requirements, vitamin and mineral needs, and an abundant water supply the equine population flourished. Typically, feeding performance horses today has very little in common with that scenario, and for some very good reasons.

Horses in training for performance or being fitted for the show ring have additional energy requirements that need to be met on a daily basis. As a base energy source most of us use a roughage source like baled hay, or some variation thereof, to provide the bulk of our horses energy requirements. The challenge is what to use when more energy is required than can be met with just hay.

This is where concentrates come into the picture. Traditionally this means grain based feeds, and often lots of it. The challenge with this “traditional” feed support is that there is just not a place in the digestive system for more than a few pounds of high starch feed to be effectively utilized without causing a disruption of the whole system. Most feed companies are also brokers of grain to other markets, and putting a high amount of high starch grain into your horse gives them another place to sell the commodities that they own.  This makes up most of the product lines that you see in your feed store today. While many “newer” products from the major manufactures tout that they are now providing a lower starch level, they still recommend that you feed between four and ten pounds of those products per day. If you feed once or twice per day, you are still overloading the system with a higher total starch load than we believe it is equipped to handle.

We have proven that raising natural vegetable fat levels and lowering the total starch load in the ration with our formulations allows us to provide your horse with the needed additional energy without confusing the digestive system. Natural function is the best function. Meeting supplemental energy needs with a one pound inclusion of Renew Gold, instead of five pounds of grain based feed clearly allows for a more natural function and a more effective result.

Renewing your horses feeding program by removing significant amounts of concentrate allows every element of the digestive system to function much nearer to its optimum level, and do more with less. This means less health risk, less vet bills and less spent at the end of the month for feed that contributes little or no support to the nutritional needs of your horse.

If you have questions contact us today.

“Cooler Energy” refers to the calm reserves of useful stamina that can result from replacing high starch grain based feed with lower starch components that provide concentrated useable energy. By limiting grain ingredients in the ration your horses digestive system can function in a more natural way. Horses are grazing animals that evolved to consume high fiber, low starch, roughage as their primary source of nutrition. Many natural plant food sources also provide a significant amount of naturally occurring vegetable fat that the horses system readily identifies and utilizes for energy. What a horse did not naturally eat, was a large amount of mature grain. We humans decided that was a good idea, not the horse.

High levels of grain in a feeding program alter the effectiveness of the digestive system with little benefit in return. Supplementing with high starch feeds can elevate blood glucose levels resulting in what we commonly recognize as “grain high” or nervous excitability. This type of “hot energy” is rarely beneficial to the horse or the rider. Additionally, grain based rations, when fed in significant amounts, may pass through the upper part of the digestive system undigested to ferment in the hind gut.  The result is a new set of problems. Fermenting high starch grains can alter the environment that sustains a healthy population of beneficial bacteria. These beneficial bacteria are necessary in the hind gut, and assist in breaking down the roughage that a horse has eaten for efficient digestion. Proper digestion of roughage is the most natural utilization of available nutrition.

So, what do you do to provide additional useful energy when more is needed than that provided by the hay?  The best answer is to provide an energy dense source of “Cooler Energy” with as little disruption to the natural function of the digestive system as possible. The Answer is Renew Gold™.

If you have questions contact us today.

We are thrilled to announce that the next generation in equine nutrition is now available!

Renew Gold™ is a unique formulation of energy dense, low starch, premium quality ingredients designed to be fed at a rate of ¾ pound to 1 ¼ pounds daily. Our goal is to limit or eliminate the use of high starch based ingredients in the overall feeding program. This can help to bring the entire digestive system into proper balance. Using a base of food grade Stabilized Rice Bran we fortify Renew Gold with CoolStance® coconut meal and Flax. Digestive efficiency is then enhanced with the addition of Fermented Yeast Culture. This offers horse owners the opportunity to utilize the well proven nutritional advantages of Stabilized Rice Bran in an even more effective, advanced formulation. By combining three different natural vegetable fat sources, along with an expanded amino acid profile, Renew Gold can improve the efficiency of your entire feeding program, while providing usable “Cooler Energy”. Renew Gold is also calcium / phosphorus balanced so that it can be fed with any type of hay.

Contact us today to find the dealer nearest you. For dealer inquiries call 855.377.3639.