Re: Re: Re: Think! Animal By Products in feed

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Robyn, I have an pathology exam tomorrow that I have to go study for, so I'm
going to (try) to make this short.  You make a reasonable point that you
practically have to be a biochemist (or nutritionist) to fully understand
what's on a feed tag, and my interpretation of your post is that it should
be good enough if we feed our horses as was done a hundred years ago,
'relying on the wisdom of our forefathers'.

The problem is that that's rarely possible these days.  A hundred years ago,
on average, we didn't ask our horses for the same level of performance that
we are today---yes, the cavalry horses covered some miles, Pony Express
horses went hell for leather, but at the same time, there were plenty of
horses to be had and if one broke down, no sweat.  They were a tool and a
mode of transportation but for the most part, weren't coddled pets as a lot
of horses are today.

A hundred years ago, we didn't push to get maximum production out of every
farmed acre, so that the soil got depleted and maybe it got replenished and
maybe it didn't.  That's the norm these days and the average values printed
in the reference texts can wildly flucuate.

A hundred years ago, there were alot of instances of nutritional disease
that now we know how to avoid because those damned nutritionist figured it
out for you.  Example, no one knew what the heck caused 'bighead' or
'miller's disease'.  Horses belonging to grist mill owners got it and no one
knew why.  Turns out those horses were fed heavily with the wheat bran that
was swept up from the floor and those horse had so little calcium in their
bodies, bone was being replaced by cartilage to try to stabilize everything.
Now it's common knowledge to understand about calcium-phosphorus ratios.
Not long ago, owners would have been complaining about this concept that
they didn't want to be 'blinded by science', never mind that it was at the
expense of the horse  (hell, I still get emails from people saying that).
Relying on the 'accumulated wisdom of our forefathers' is fine, except that
we no longer live in our forefather's world.  Nor do our horses.  Nor do our
crops come from
grandpa's world anymore.

Funny thing is, alot of the feeds we give our horses *are* feeds that have
been fed for generations.  Beet pulp has been fed practically forever, and
was great for horses, they just didn't know exactly why it was so great.
Now we know exactly *why* it's so great, and what it will do for animals
that eat it.  How is the science that produced that data a bad thing, just
because you don't understand it?

Perhaps I'm wrong, but your comments make it sound as though the advances in
research and knowledge are a BAD thing, as though life was so much simpler
when our horses got sick and we could just shrug our shoulders and blame it
on God's will.  For me, I wanna know what I can do to support my horse the
best way I can, and that means taking advantage of cutting edge knowledge
and translating it into something simple like, 'hey, if I feed beet pulp
before a ride, he won't get as dehydrated.'  If you've been to one of my
seminars or read my articles, you'd see that that's what I try very hard to
do---act as a translator between Techno-Speak and real life.  Am I special
in doing that, hell no.  I know how hungry people are to get it in straight
language so they can USE it, not just bury their head in the sand and mourn
that nobody feeds the way great grandpa did anymore.

I disagree that nutritionist want you to 'defer to their knowledge'  Believe
me, nutritionists would *love it* if the average horse owner had a
basic understanding of what role nutrients play in the body and how they're
absorbed and stored (or not) in the body and how the GI tract works.  Most
people, including yourself, don't have the time or interest to go find out
for themselves, even though the information is readily available in
easily-read format.  So it's not that the nutritionists want you to 'defer'
to them---you just haven't availed yourself of the opportunity to
knowledgeably make an educated decision yourself, have you?  If you had (and
many others *have*, I get emails from them constantly), then you'd have the
relatively simple knowledge it takes to use commodity feeds to put together
just the ration your individual horse needs to provide every nutrient (even,
stunningly enough, those nasty little micronutrients), far better than any
mass-production feed company could.

Instead, here we have a population of horse owners that want the best for
their
horses, but don't want the hassle of learning to balance a ration by hand,
don't
want a bunch of different bags lying around the feed room and yet still know
that they're asking a lot from their horses.  No problem, the nice people at
the feed company who HAVE learned all the pesky details will put it together
into a nice convenient bag for you.  They'll even tell you what went into
the bag, and AAFCO has gone a long ways in providing rules that make it
fairly simple reading for the average consumer.  C'mon, those ingredients
just aren't all that difficult.  Example, dicalcium phosphate---what could
it possibly be *other* than two calcium molecules bound to a phosphorus
molecule and therefore a source of both minerals?  I was reading and
understanding feed tags and what they were telling me long before I went
back to school to learn about it in depth.  Since you've already said we all
have the same brain, and in earlier posts you describe yourself as having an
'extensive background in chemistry, biology and science', how could it
possibly be foreign to you and 'blinding by science'?  How come I managed it
back then and you or any other horse owner can't?  Nonsense.  The ONLY thing
stopping anybody is the willingness to pick up a damn book based on fact and
not conjecture and find out what the real deal is and what makes their horse
tick inside.  Horses aren't nor are they fed as 'test tubes', nutrition
ain't that tough and if feed companies pay attention to nutrients more than
the ingredients, it's because that's how the horse's body looks at it, too.
PICK UP A BOOK.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that people should read labels and find out
what it is and why it's there.  But no one is going to find accurate
information relying on terrorist nutrition rags written to scare the dickens
out of anybody, or from the Whole Horse Journal, or from *anyone* without
the specific academic qualifications to know what the hell they're talking
about.  Spend a couple bucks and get a book based on <horrors> science in
simple language and written by someone that isn't trying to scare you---I'd
be happy to recommend several.

Susan G

> > > Now my horses - that is entirely different.  Horses are herbivores, ie
> > vegan >vegatarians!  Even when starving, I don't believe a horse will
eat
> > the >deceased members of its herds...
> > > dogs will, as will humans.  Horses should not be eating animal by
> > products, >in my opinion, because they are not designed to do so by
mother
> > nature.
> >
> This post is no way intended to flame, criticise, or demean Susan G's
> perspective on the subject, just offer a different perspective on this
> subject.
>
> The feed companies high-tech approach focuses much more on nutrients and
> chemical formulas that it does on ingredients. If you accept that this way
> of thinking is suitable for horses, then it is to be said that the feed
> companies are doing a very good job. But along the way, we *** the
> consumers*** are blinded with science, (and no longer trust our own common
> sense) and so many different claims are made for so many horse feeds that
it
> can be hard to know where to turn.
>
> In the old days when ignorance was bliss, we had little more to worry
about
> than protein, carbohydrates, and fiber. Now we have to deal as well with
> micronutrients, and there has been such an explosion in our knowledge that
> more has been written about the roles of vitamins and minerals in disease
> during the last twenty years than was written in the previous two hundred!
> Micronutrients are needed in only the tiniest quantanties, yet they play
> vital roles in the maintenance of strong bones and teeth, normal nerve
> conductivity, muscle contraction, vision, and so much more. Within the
> complex processes of metabolic activity, a whole chain of interactions can
> be stopped in the absence of one vitamin or mineral.
>
> The explosion in scientific knowledge makes it apparent that the role of
> micronutrients within the equine (as well as the human) diet is an
> exceedingly complex subject which only a biochemist could expect to
> understand! Yet the truth is that horses are more than test-tube
processes:
> they have evolved to eat grasses throughout the seasons, and to deal with
> flucuating mineral and vitamin levels (in contrast, the vast majority of
> feeding regimes must make it seem like spring every day!) Their ability to
> store, conserve and manufacture micronutrients is almost without parallel,
> and it is a godsend to us that horses are so adaptable.
>
> In the case of feeding, there is no third party in between us and the feed
> producers - no equivalent of saddlers and farriers - whom we can easily
try
> to blame for our problems. The feed companies do what they do extremely
> well, and their technical know-how is not in question. So as we work our
way
> through the jungle of information about feeding, how much do we need to
> know? The nutritionists in the feed industry want us to defer to them, and
> to question the accumulated wisdom of our forefathers. They want to
convince
> us that common sense, a keen eye, and the traditional ' rules of good
> feeding' are no longer enough. Unfortunately, in view of the complicated
> choices we face about the contents of our feeds, it is all too easy to
> become so blinded by science that we forget about simple wisdom, and our
own
> common sense.(e.g - I don't buy into the argument that it is OK to feed
> horses animal fat just because scientific research (at this moment in
time)
> states that horse's appear to digest it just fine, or the theory that
> nothing we do with our horse's anymore is natural to their design,< so
> hell>, let's just give up on everything evenly remotely natural for the
> horse while we are at it. The brain that I was given tells me that animals
> products of any kind should not make their way into the horse's digestive
> system period! Of course this is only ***my conclusion/ personal
> opinion***.)
>
> Today's good feeder (so the feed companies want us to believe) relies not
> just on the traditional rules, but also on the latest in biochemistry.
> Although, the feed companies stop short of blinding us with the chemical
> formulas which guide and fascinate them, the basic premise of their
> advertising is that ' the more scientific it is, the better it must be'.
> Once we accept that, it follows that we should indeed leave them to
> formulate our horse's rations. This allows us to remain relatively
ignorant,
> and simply to follow instructions. All I am suggesting is that you owe it
to
> your horse, to read your labels on your horse feed. Research and learn
what
> those ingrediants "really" are, use the common sense and the brain that
God
> gave you ( you are given the same brain as doctors, scientists, chemists
> etc.) and make the most 'logical' conclusion for your horse.
> THINK!
> Robyn
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