Höveler Pur.Muskel — Lowest Starch, Highest Protein Concentration
Pur.Muskel is the lowest-starch option we list, at 5.8% starch and 4.1% sugar. It is built as a muscle-support feed rather than an energy feed: 20% crude protein, 15.0% fat, and 14.1 MJ/kg digestible energy, with a targeted amino acid profile of 0.85% lysine, 0.25% methionine and 0.6% threonine — the building blocks that support muscle maintenance and topline when paired with correct work.
Because it is so concentrated, you feed very little of it. The published rate per 220 lb of bodyweight is 30–50 g for light work, 50–80 g for medium work, and 80–100 g for heavy work. For a 1,100 lb horse in medium work, that is roughly 250–400 g a day — a couple of scoops, not a bucket. That small serving is what keeps the actual daily starch contribution almost negligible. It is alfalfa-free, which suits owners avoiding alfalfa for their own reasons, and it carries no added vitamins or minerals: it is a supplementary feed, meant to sit alongside a balanced base, not to be the whole ration. Soy is present in the form of soy flakes. The product is FEI-relevant, meaning it is formulated with competition-clean standards in mind. A 44 lb bag is $52.99. This is the feed to reach for first if the goal is topline and muscle with the least possible starch.
Höveler Original Sport — Reduced Starch With Real Working Energy
Original Sport answers a different question: what do you feed a horse that is genuinely working and needs energy, when you still want less starch than a traditional grain mix delivers? At 15% starch and 4.6% sugar, it is not the lowest number on this page, but it is meaningfully reduced for an energy feed, and it gets there through grain-free components rather than cereals. It is a muesli-style feed with 15.1% crude protein, 9.0% fat, and 12.6 MJ/kg digestible energy, with 1.0% lysine and 1.0% threonine and added Diamond V yeast, which supports hindgut fermentation and feed efficiency.
It is fed by the pound rather than the scoop: 250 g for light work, 400 g for medium, and 600 g for heavy work per 220 lb of bodyweight, alongside forage — the published guidance pairs it with about 3.31 lb of hay per 220 lb. It is soy-free, which distinguishes it from Pur.Muskel and matters to owners managing soy sensitivities. Original Sport is also FEI-relevant. A 44 lb bag is $49.99. Choose it when the horse needs fuel for work and you want that fuel to come with as little cereal starch as a performance feed reasonably allows.
Match the Feed to the Workload, Not the Other Way Around
The single most common planning error is picking a feed by its starch number alone and then discovering the horse has no energy for its job, or the reverse — feeding a hot performance mix to a horse that only hacks out twice a week. Start from the work. A retired or lightly ridden horse rarely needs a cereal-based energy feed at all; a tiny amount of a concentrated feed like Pur.Muskel plus good forage often covers it. A horse in daily schooling, jumping, or endurance needs a real energy source, and there Original Sport's reduced-starch approach earns its place. Be honest about the workload, because overfeeding energy to an under-worked horse is how excess weight and metabolic strain begin.
Read the Guaranteed Analysis, Not the Marketing
"Low starch," "cool," "non-heating," and "calm" are marketing words with no fixed meaning. The guaranteed analysis is the contract. Look for the actual starch percentage and the sugar percentage; if a bag advertises low starch but does not print the number, treat the omission as a warning. Compare like with like: a concentrated feed showing 5.8% is not automatically better in your bucket than a 15% feed, because the deciding factor is how many grams reach the horse per day. Always read the analysis and the feeding rate as a single unit.
Count Starch by the Day, Not by the Bag
This is the criterion most owners skip, and it flips more decisions than any other. A feed at 5.8% starch fed at 100 g delivers about 5.8 g of starch a day. A feed at 15% starch fed at 600 g delivers about 90 g. Both can be entirely appropriate — for different horses doing different work. The point is to do the arithmetic for your own horse before you decide, rather than assuming the lower percentage always wins. Multiply the starch fraction by the grams fed, and you have the number that actually matters. bifid's feeding calculator does this math for you if you would rather not.
Don't Forget the Forage — It Is Most of the Diet
Concentrate is the part owners obsess over, but forage is usually 60–100% of what a horse eats, and grass and hay carry their own sugars and starches. A rich spring pasture or an unsoaked high-sugar hay can undo a careful concentrate choice entirely. For a sensitive horse, having the hay tested for non-structural carbohydrate is worth far more than switching bags, and soaking hay can lower its sugar content. No low-starch concentrate can compensate for a forage base that is working against you. Fix the biggest part of the diet first.
Prefer Named Fiber and Protein Sources Over Vague "Grain Products"
An ingredient list that names its components — beet pulp, soy flakes, named oils, specific fiber sources — tells you what you are buying. Vague catch-alls like "grain products" or "cereal by-products" can vary batch to batch and often signal cheaper, starchier fillers. Feeds built on fiber and fat for energy, rather than cereals, tend to run lower in starch by design. This is the mechanism behind Original Sport's grain-free components: the energy comes from sources other than the cereal starch you are trying to limit.
Check Whether the Feed Is Complete or Supplementary
This distinction trips up more people than it should. A complete or fortified feed carries its own vitamins and minerals and can form the backbone of the ration. A supplementary feed — Pur.Muskel is one — deliberately leaves the vitamins and minerals out because it is designed to sit alongside a balanced base or a separate mineral balancer. Feed a supplementary product as if it were complete and you can leave gaps in the diet; feed it as intended, alongside forage and a balancer, and it does exactly its job. Read the bag to learn which kind you have, and build the rest of the ration around that answer.
Weigh Your Scoops — a Scoop Is Not a Unit
Manufacturers publish feeding rates in grams or pounds because a "scoop" varies wildly by feed density and by scoop. A scoop of a light muesli and a scoop of a dense pellet can differ by half their weight. If you feed by scoop against a rate written in grams, you are guessing, and with a starch-sensitive horse guessing is exactly what you are trying to avoid. Spend five minutes with a kitchen scale to learn what your scoop of your feed actually weighs, then feed to the published gram figure. It is the cheapest accuracy you will ever buy.
Buy From a Source That Stands Behind the Feed
The last criterion is about the seller, not the sack. A low-starch program is a commitment over months, and things come up — a horse that won't transition, a question about a guaranteed analysis, a bag that arrives when your plans have changed. A seller with real support behind it turns those moments into a phone call rather than a loss. bifid holds a 9.0/10 rating across 24,098 reviews, runs a 24/7 veterinary team you can actually reach with a feeding question, backs orders with a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee, and ships from Florida. When you are asking a feed to support a sensitive horse over the long term, that backing is part of what you are buying.