The Answers to All Your Feeding Questions

[Flash44]

Some of my favorite resources:

Horse Health - Triple Crown Feed

Home - Triple Crown Feed

Kentucky Equine Research - World Leaders in Equine Nutrition

Safergrass.org

Before you go online and ask a bunch of nice, polite, well meaning strangers. For example, I thought the molassas in beet pulp was like the stuff in my kitchen cabinet. NOPE - "There are two types of shredded beet pulp: with molasses and without. Beet molasses is created during the sugar removal process; however there is no commercial market for the product. Somecompanies add a small amount of this molasses back into their bagged product. It is such a small amount that the two products look identical and have essentially the same NSC values. " - See more at: https://www.triplecrownfeed.com/horsefeedblog/feeds-blog/shredded-beet-pulp-superior-source-fiber-molasses-calories-in-your-horses-diet/#sthash.pB42BKmh.dpuf

I’m sure there are other great research backed websites. I just usually go to the above ones first.

[Lady_Eboshi]

Remember to take any “nutrition” articles produced by feed companies with a grain of salt. Their No. 1 goal is to sell as much of THEIR feed as possible; not to turn your horse into an air-fern easy keeper. :winkgrin:

They’re unlikely to tell you to feed more hay, less beet pulp.

[merrygoround]

^^^^^This!!

[cutter99]

[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;8332424]
Remember to take any “nutrition” articles produced by feed companies with a grain of salt. Their No. 1 goal is to sell as much of THEIR feed as possible; not to turn your horse into an air-fern easy keeper. :winkgrin:

They’re unlikely to tell you to feed more hay, less beet pulp.[/QUOTE]

You have obviously never talked with Triple Crown!

[Flash44]

Ditto. Agree that companies will market their products, but TC has been at the forefront of equine nutritional research for decades. Their products are based on feeding hay/pasture as the bulk of the diet, except in the situations (dental, etc) where the horses cannot eat hay.

Besides, when you talk to a TC rep, they can’t actually sell you anything. So you can just hang up when you get the information you need and go buy another brand if you want.

I always keep an open mind, if anyone has any other resources they like.

[Pehsness]

If people hate answering feeding questions/threads so much, why are they answering? Why is it such a big deal that people are utilizing the horse care section of a bulletin board to ask feed related questions?

[MysticOakRanch]

Even if they are the BEST resource that exists on the planet, it still doesn’t help those of us who don’t have access to their feed. There are plenty of reasons that people post questions about feed - some of us live on the West Coast where hay is very different (for example no one grows timothy here - alfalfa, rye grass, cereal grains, wheat are all quite common. This year I had to drive out of my county to find any orchard grass at all). In my county, I can find Purina, Nutrena, LMF, and TSC. And a local mill called Elk Grove Milling. That is it. I was very grateful when one of the vendors started carrying LMF, which I consider much better quality then those other three. TC isn’t available at any feedstore within an hour’s drive.

So - there is plenty of reason for people to post questions - not everyone lives in your specific area. Hay choices are different, concentrate choices are different. Soil content is different.

All this research that occurs in the Midwest and East Coast is in very different climate then we have - we don’t have deep freeze, we don’t have snow, we have very different varieties of grass, etc. So you might find SOME answers here, but a lot of it is much less relevant for a Californian and there are a LOT of horses here. The grass varieties discussed on many of the Safer Grass articles are not varieties we have - I’ve read quite a few of their articles over the years, and tried to figure out how to project it to the California hay selection and pastures. Our grasses are different, our environment is different, our soil is different (and we are in the middle of a historic drought, so that makes things even more interesting). KER focuses on Kentucky - granted, that is big horse country, but again, very different grasses and environment then in California.

So these are good resources, but not applicable to all.

[Ghazzu]

[QUOTE=MysticOakRanch;8333267]
Even if they are the BEST resource that exists on the planet, it still doesn’t help those of us who don’t have access to their feed. There are plenty of reasons that people post questions about feed - some of us live on the West Coast where hay is very different (for example no one grows timothy here - alfalfa, rye grass, cereal grains, wheat are all quite common. This year I had to drive out of my county to find any orchard grass at all). In my county, I can find Purina, Nutrena, LMF, and TSC. And a local mill called Elk Grove Milling. That is it. I was very grateful when one of the vendors started carrying LMF, which I consider much better quality then those other three. TC isn’t available at any feedstore within an hour’s drive.

So - there is plenty of reason for people to post questions - not everyone lives in your specific area. Hay choices are different, concentrate choices are different. Soil content is different.

All this research that occurs in the Midwest and East Coast is in very different climate then we have - we don’t have deep freeze, we don’t have snow, we have very different varieties of grass, etc. So you might find SOME answers here, but a lot of it is much less relevant for a Californian and there are a LOT of horses here. The grass varieties discussed on many of the Safer Grass articles are not varieties we have - I’ve read quite a few of their articles over the years, and tried to figure out how to project it to the California hay selection and pastures. Our grasses are different, our environment is different, our soil is different (and we are in the middle of a historic drought, so that makes things even more interesting). KER focuses on Kentucky - granted, that is big horse country, but again, very different grasses and environment then in California.

So these are good resources, but not applicable to all.[/QUOTE]

There are differences, but you can still test yur hay and work off the analysis and not the species designations.

I agree there’s nothing at all wrong with threads on the subject.

[Flash44]

[QUOTE=Pehsness;8333251]
If people hate answering feeding questions/threads so much, why are they answering? Why is it such a big deal that people are utilizing the horse care section of a bulletin board to ask feed related questions?[/QUOTE]

Because people on the bb’s passionately post information that is not correct. See my example about the molassas in beet pulp. I always thought is was the same stuff you get from the grocery store. And there is another thread where people are criticizing the use of wheat middlings in “processed” feed, as if this ingredient is somehow not good for horses.

[JB]

@MysticOakRanch;8333267

Even if they are the BEST resource that exists on the planet, it still doesn’t help those of us who don’t have access to their feed.

I see this as less about “these feeds are the best and should be the only ones fed” and more about "this is how you dissect an ingredient list so you can make educated choices with what you have available. Even if it comes down to wanting or needing just a v/m supplement, nearly every one out there can be mail ordered. Almost everyone has access to things like alfalfa pellets and some form of rice bran.

Even KER makes products that can be ordered online.

The list of topics just under Feed Ingredients in the KER research link is large - carbs, fat, managing metabolic horses, managing hind gut ulcers, and more. Then there are tags for vitamins and minerals, growth, and more, all of which educate on those, so one has a better chance of choosing a suitable feed that is available.

Even if you view the TC links on their specific feeds, if you understand the underlying concepts enough, you can see why that feed might or might not work for your horse, and then extrapolate that into a feed that you have access to.