Read your labels, of course, but the vast majority of commercially available medicated chick starters today contain amprolium. Amprolium is not an ionophore and is safe for horses. In some countries, it is even sold as a dewormer (in chick starters it is used as a coccidiostat): https://horseprerace.com/amprolium-9-6-solution-1-gallon/.
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Nope, I haven’t heard new cases. I haven’t read anything new on any of the Ontario Equestrian FB groups.
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I’m in Ontario and I haven’t heard anything about ionophore cases, weird colics, etc.
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I haven’t either, but I haven’t spent much time on FB lately, so could have missed a lot.
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I’m on those groups daily… not a whiff of this anywhere other then her Facebook page and the one statement from MadBarn.
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Good to know!
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Oof. Apparently a positive from the Maritimes, but how would you know as the results she posted show a fraction of the test result (one wonders why she hiding the rest). Likely from her friend at Tip Top Equestrian Nutrition out east who dislikes MadBarn because their advertising is “sleazey” and who asks people to not contact her….then sends them several messages.
Curious if there were any test samples sent completely independent of Valarie Findlay and associates.
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Common sense needs to be used here.
If this company had a problem with contaminated feed there would be recalls. Just like the yogurt at costco. The CFIA isn’t knowingly letting people feed their horses contaminated feed.
It would also be all over the industry news. Every feed store would have pulled it from the shelves.
Random willy nilly samples that say “positive” on one woman’s Facebook page are ridiculous. Since when does the average consumer interpret lab results before making buying decisions?
And yet she goes on about the unstable behavior of others…
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I am not sure what you are saying?
The person who claims that Mad Barn is the cause of the death of her horses is suing a bunch of people?
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Haha, I just saw the Facebook posts too. It’s a bunch of pot and kettle.
It also seems like she is now targeting only US consumers… maybe because mad barn is newer to that market so they’re more easily swayed? Not sure. She’s posted a US article about monensin that, if you google, has been written about ad nauseum by mad barn themselves over the years.
Anyway. I happily fill my horses feed buckets with all things mad barn because it’s so convenient and they bloom like roses all year long.
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There are a number of folks who also had sudden palatability issues with Omneity a few months ago, but opted to just say, “Meh, Mad Barn has palatability issues with a few of their products - maybe they changed a raw ingredient or something. This is a thing. Screw it, changing back to different company’s vitamin/mineral.” instead of keeping samples/lot numbers, etc.
At this point it is hard to believe much of anything this person says about this case.
I can say that I have, from time to time, a palatability issue with my horses and their Smartpaks. Sometimes it happens in the middle of the month, sometimes it happens with a new month.
Heck, I have the same problem with alfalfa pellets. I literally just had this problem in the middle of a bag. Maybe I had a little too much or not enough water?
My point is simply, horses can be jerks about their willingness to eat their supplements/food, it does not necessarily mean there is something nefarious.
Disclaimer, I do not use any Mad Barn products, I am not sticking up for them in any way, I am making a horse generalization.
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These people all had horses who had been on Omneity for years. New package, boom, refusal. I don’t think think this was a horses can be jerks thing. This was definitely a palatability issue with a product which none of those horses had had a problem before.
But, whatever, nothing to be done about it at this point. I am however very interested to see whether anything further develops on the AT+ front - whether CFIA actually does come out with something (or not) and if so, what that something will be.
My horse will decide mid bag he has palatability issues. It is because the grass is growing or the hay is softer or the wind is blowing.
I emailed CFIA directly to ask if there is an active investigation and/or recalls. 10 day response time.
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That can definitely happen if the supplier of an ingredient changes. I know there are various lysine supplements for example, and I’ve had horses who didn’t bat an eye with one, but gave me the hairy eyeball for another.
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I’m not sure how that relates to more than one horse absolutely refusing a brand new container of the supp they’d been on for ages and never before refused?
Thanks for letting us know!
A semi aside/hijack - I wonder if we need to start listening to our horses better about feed (as we have started to do with other issues!) instead of just saying, “Oh he’s being an ass again - so fickle and picky he might as well be a cat!” The better I personally get about this (and my current horse has given me a hell of an education lol) the better I’m able to pinpoint the issue and fix or mediate it.
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We also can’t assume that investigation = guilt. I work in investigations and often see complainants stating “Look, I was right that there was wrongdoing because Organization is now investigating it.” An investigation needs to be completed to determine if there is a problem, but doesn’t necessarily mean that problem exists.
If accurate, the recent test results are concerning. We’ll see what the CFIA says.
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Yup. Should there have been an ingredient change? IMO, no. For the price and supposed safety of Mad Barn products, no. And if there were, any inquiries should have been met with, “Yes, actually we changed one ingredient. You’ll see on the packaging it now says “X” instead of “Y.” We made this change because “Z.”” Inquiries were met with “No changes. It’s fine. Reintroduce it gradually.” IOW, it’s all in your horses’ heads.
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Do we? Not all of us immediately jump to that conclusion. Some of us, even with our broader ponderings, do not necessarily jump to that conclusion. Concerns and questionings are not conclusions.
I definitely do not assume guilt. It is still HIGHLY ridiculous to me that the only updates to this are on this one persons facebook page. Snips and screen shots that say there is an active investigation? Uh huh.
So I want to find out. Is there or isn’t there. you’re not investigating a product that can cause death without publicizing that investigation and recalling the product.
re: the palatability - I haven’t heard of anyone having issues so I would be inclined to believe there are other reasons a horse would suddenly refuse, and the owner isn’t putting two and two together. Obviously that’s just my opinion, but it’s my knee jerk reaction without knowing more. Mine goes through periods of refusing various supplements regularly. Currently it’s the spirulina - he just says no mas, and leaves the whole bucket behind in favor of hay. So, I won’t feed spirulina for a while.
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