Bay's senior pellet has a lot of molasses in it, and it's pretty sticky. I've taken him off of that for awhile... he's fat enough, nothing hard-keeper about him yet, I was cutting it with cob anyway, so it's easier for now to just feed everyone the same 12%. If he starts having difficulty keeping weight, I'll re-think it then.
The Horse Chow 100 I use has 10% protien.
All my horses, with the exception of Rusty are very easy keepers too, and require less then the reccommended amout. I think you just have to play with it for awhile and watch the horses closely. I've been giving Harley the same amount as Rusty and Rocky all winter so far, and he's really a bigger horse, and probably still growing some. Just in the last few weeks did I think he was dropping abit. I wanted to up him too since I'm hoping to start using him more.
Rocky stays the same, when being use or not. I think the regular worming is more key to them being easy keepers or not, unless they have some other problem, like Rusty. But because Rusty has improved so much since I've had him, I really think this feed really fills all their needs. Of course he would have picked up on hay/grain too, the complete just takes alot of the guess work out of if they are getting everything.
Becky