Oh I agree that most people don’t even begin (or try to begin) to understand human nutrition. It’s just funny that we don’t come at parents like we do pet owners.
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You’re right!
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Our vets used to roll their eyes at owners adding supplements to their horse feed by the last fad around.
Vets would say, companies spend millions on tests and studies and ongoing research to formulate their rations and an owner could completely unbalance it adding assorted supplements.
I think that is even worse today.
Oh, but we do!
Join a social media mom group and post a picture of a child drinking formula… or juice… or eating processed food. 
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lol- I supposed not having kids saves me from all that “advice” 
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Mine countersurfed 200g dark chocolate with chili … ate the lot.
Yet most feeds are so completely unbalanced, it’s not funny!
If I fed my black horse the hard feed required to fulfill his copper requirements, he’d die of founder.
I wish feed companies would stop adding useless amounts of minerals to feed. There is a trend now in Australia to produce unmineralised feeds - so you can find a base that suits you, and add a balancer as your horse needs. I feed the same base to all bar one horse, and a different amount of different balancers to each feed. The fat horse gets extra chaff, the yearling gets all protein and a calcium-heavy balancer, the black horse gets extra balancer, and the giant useless redhead gets extra oil. Fibre, calories, protein, or minerals - it’s all adjustable yet all the same.
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Gahhh. Hope you got him to upchuck before it was an issue.
Some dogs are borderline impervious to supposedly toxic stuff though - looking at you, Remy (my sisters late pitbull).
Yes, refining the basic rations for each horse is what barn managers do, especially with race horses, each gets basic and individualized supplements, best vet and trainer can, while following regulations of what can be fed that is legal for racing.
One reason companies can only put so much into rations is regulations.
Once regulators caught that drug makers were buying iodine to make some drugs, now those in the animal feeding industry can only add so much to rations and it is not enough.
We have to buy restricted products and sign our intended use so we can add enough to be useful.
Nutrition balancing is an exact science, application of that science is more complicated than adding whatever by measure, is it.
How so? In and of themselves, they are pretty well balanced, at least here in the US, and all the ones I’ve seen from CN and the UK (which I’m aware isn’t all of them, but I’ve seen a lot)
Their goal (and again, at least here) is to make sure the average forage a horse is eating, either in the country if they make only 1 formula, or for a region they support, has enough of everything in a reasonable balance to at least not allow or cause disease
They can NOT account for every individual crappy hay, or a horse’s abnormally high nutrient requirements, or any other weirdness. That’s why supplements exist. No feed is designed to provide the 600mg of Cu some horses need
Defined how?
Many in the US do this as well, using hay pellets or even oats for the calories (however min or max), then a ration balancer (which IS fortified, as I assume your “balancer” is as well), or a forage balancer (no/insignifiant protein/calories, higher levels of a few minerals or more moderate levels of more minerals). It’s not a new concept here.
Not enough for who? Most feeds (regular, ration balancers, even forage balancers) are providing 2-3mg iodine in a minimum serving, which is enough for most horses.
Each species requires different amounts of iodine.
For cattle on wheat pasture, 4% is necessary, but cattle commercial rations can only provide 2%, why we have to buy and mix 2%.
Regulations also impact how rations are formulated and how products are permitted in general, but not in some cases, like for wheat pasture mineral mixes.
Was meant as an example only, sorry I didn’t explain properly.
That’s the clarification that was needed, thanks.
He died of cancer years later (at 13) so it wasn’t an issue.
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I fed raw exclusively for my previous cats but will not be feeding any raw poultry of any kind now when I get my next cats. Northwest Naturals is a brand I buy-
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As I mentioned before, I wouldn’t feed raw poultry to anything, man or beast.
I hope that too many people haven’t been feeding raw poultry.
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This is why I would not feed raw- at least no raw poultry.
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