Well, basic horse nutrition isn’t rocket science, but so many owners (and indeed BM and trainers) have outdated, wrong headed or peculiar ideas, that repeating the basics is never a bad idea 
As far as credentials, all I have is a ten week Coursera on basic horse nutrition, a good reference book, the ability to understand and integrate information quickly and to know what I don’t know, the ability to read a hay test for the basics and the ability to get horses fed up nicely at reasonable cost.
This however in terms of nutrition education honestly puts me ahead of every other person in my large self-board barn, which is also an excellent place to observe the results of all the individual care plans owners devise for themselves, everyone thinking they are doing the best for their horses.
I know a trainer who kept her horse with tendon injuries on low protein crap local hay “so he wouldn’t get too hot.” He never recovered and is retired young.
I know a couple of owners who foundered their obese horses because they bought into the idea of 24/7 feed. One foundered a pony on “good coarse local pony hay” which is low nutrition but scary high in NSC. And yes, she had seen the hay tests for that hay and continued feeding it (25% NSC).
Another is dealing with laminitis right now in an obese young stockhorse who was getting free choice alfalfa Timothy mix, guaranteed low sugar, organic, non GMO, from a niche hay dealer who charges double the going rate per ton. The stockhorse has been obese and going short in front for most of the past year, but it only reached a vet call crisis last week. Owner can’t understand why horse is laminitic because the hay is said to be low sugar. Horse has been going through about 30 lbs of this hay a day since the past fall.
And these are both owners that consider themselves caring and concerned and are looking for the best for their horses, just can’t see the big picture.
Other owners do no harm, but dither with a sprinkling of this and that, at levels that can’t possibly impact the diet (half a cup of alfalfa pellets, a sprinkling of ration balancer, etc).
Lots of horses are of course doing just fine on good hay and some level of ration balancer or commercial feed. The owners don’t test the hay, don’t know how to read a hay test, don’t know what’s in the feed, but nothing bad happens. Some of them get nutrition advice at the co-op feed mill, but just retain the recommended brand name, not the rationale.
The problem is, when these folks get introduced to a new idea like free choice organic hay, they don’t have a knowledge base to evaluate how that is working for their particular horse or see problems before they get acute.
I feel confident to repeat the basics that I know to be current best practice on COTH, especially as I know that if I oversimplify or get something wrong, someone catch me on it and I will learn something!
in our market in Western Canada there are two mills making versions of standard feed products, but no American brands of feed. I expect it would be bringing coals to Newcastle, as they say, to ship up American brands with tariff and transport and 30% exchange rated added on, when we have the grain terminals right here in town. The cost of the local manufactured feeds is significantly higher than the cost of plain oats or beet pulp or alfalfa cubes. So the “natural foods” model makes a lot of economic sense here. I understand that in some markets in the US the cost of whole oats is on a par with the cost of a manufactured fortified feed, especially if you aren’t in a grain growing region or the manufacturer has economies of scale that let them produce the feed cheaply. So there is an incentive here to think about feeding the components, that may not exist in some markets in the US, especially outside the grain belt.
Thanks, everyone. This has been very helpful. I downloaded “Feed Your Horse Like a Horse” this morning and am two chapters in. Love it so far. Very user-friendly and seems to cover a good bit. It’s a great start and I’m glad for the recommendation, Scribbles.
:encouragement:
