Crypto Aero is now also being manufactured in or near Waco, Texas. Buying it on chewey.com can be cost prohibitive if you are feeding very many horses. We should be able to get the price down if we can have enough interest for the local feed stores to purchase and sell at least one pallet per month. Jamie Stone has been in contact with the company, and we are excited that a feed store in San Antonio will soon be carrying this product. We like this feed because it has no wheat middlings, no soy, no aluminum, no molasses, no whey, no corn, no ethylenediamine dihydroiodide, and no benzene. I found a website, called horse moms.com, that has a list of 12 ingredients that you never want to see in any horse feed or supplement. The list is enlightening. I have also found out that even though Rosemary is a natural herb, Rosemary Extract is nothing more than our enemy, MSG. Avoid rosemary extract for yourself, your horse, and your dog.
The less ingredients you find in a feed, the more I prefer it. If you are feeding a probiotic supplement, and a feed that has probiotics in it, you may be over-feeding some of the probiotics. You cannot tell, without a fecal sample, which organisms your horse needs. Feeding these digestive enzymes daily to a horse that does not need them can be detrimental.
Crypto Aero has 2 formulas. One with whole oats, and one without. Both have timothy and alfalfa hay, sunflower seeds, green and yellow peas, rice bran oil, ground flax, rose hips (vitamin C), green cabbage, papaya, algae, organic yeast, fenugreek, and anise. No harmful preservatives. It is low protein, low starch, low sugar. It has a minimum of 11% crude fat.
Other feeds that are not too bad
Whole or crimped oats and Concentrace trace mineral liquid
No real downside. The oats just need some trace minerals to go with them, and the product, ConcenTrace, from Trace Minerals, is available on Amazon or from our office.
Renew Gold: available at Tractor Supply
Only a few ingredients: rice bran, coconut meal, flax see meal, yeast, and calcium carbonate. Not wild about the calcium carbonate, but better than most.
Omnis complete performance
Pellets: made from alfalfa, oats, flax seed, and bentonite is used as the binder.
Downside: would prefer they not use bentonite
The problem is, in order to make a pellet, they have to use some type of binder to hold them together.
Tribute senior feed: soy free, low sugar and starch.
Downside: has molasses, wheat middlings, calcium carbonate, and ethylenediamine dihydriodide. I would prefer it did not have so many other ingredients.
Tribute Performance
Soy free, high fat,
Downside: has cane molasses, wheat middlings, whey, calcium carbonate
Triple Crown Naturals
Is soybean free, corn and molasses free
Downside: has wheat middlings, has sodium calcium aluminosilicate, ethylenediamine dihydroiodide, and sodium benzoate.
Exemplify HP D and D Nutrition
Has alfalfa, oat grain, rice bran, coconut meal, flaxseed, yeast.
Downside: has soybean oil, hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate (HSCAS) {TRANSLATION: ALUMINUM},
You want to avoid all aluminum products, including purina zeolite, in your horse feed. These products are hard on the liver. Aluminum is a toxin!
Magnify HF (high fat). D and D Nutrition
Downside. Has HSCAS which is aluminum, and soy oil
Fortify omega 3. D and D Nutrition
Downside has HSCAS aluminum
Simplify CP. D and D Nutrition
Has less ingredients to worry about, alfalfa, oats, rice bran, flax seed
Downside. Has soy oil and HSCAS aluminum
Total Equine
Downside: wheat middlings, soybean hulls, soybean meal, extruded whole soybeans (estrogen, estrogen, estrogen!),
Would be great if they would take the soy out.
Note: most of the feeds that have vitamin C are using ascorbic acid, which is synthetic. We prefer to feed a natural, absorbed by the body vitamin C such as Rose Hips or Camu Camu.