Ridecamp: Re: [RC] musings re "the good old days"

*Chiming in for the refrain*

I've lately become very interested in the whole subject of performance
supplements, both for dairy cattle and horses.  A few of my observations (I
think I foresee a new direction for my career as a nutritionist shortly):

1)  The feed industry still sees horse people as somewhat gullible....if
they promote something as an improvement for performance, hoof health, etc.,
the public will buy it (sort of the human nutritional supplement mentality).
Basically, what they count on is that most horse people don't have the
technical knowledge of nutrition, or regular access to a professional
nutritionist, that livestock producers do.  And let's face it--horses are
part of the family---1000 head of dairy cattle are just considered work.  I
confess, I'm just as bad--I'll baby a horse, but a cow is there to be
milked, period.

2)  The "if some is good, more is better" mentality is alive and well in
many feed rooms.   A lot of people will have all sorts of supplements
around, and give some of all of them, whether they really need to or not.
Good for the feed industry bottom line, bad for the owner's pocket book and
sometimes the animals as well.  There is no legitimate reason to piggy-back
a lot of these nutritional supplements.  In some cases it can be dangerous,
if by doing so the mineral ratios and vitamin ratios are thrown out of
balance.

3)  One size does not fit all.  I see a number of mineral/vitamin
supplements out there that are formulated for "all classes of horses"...from
foals to lactating mares, to miniatures....and it doesn't seem to matter
where they are located geographically.  I was looking at an ad for an iron
supplement in The Equine Marketer(a  local horse industry ad booklet), and
it was clear by the simple presence of that ad that the maker of the product
had no clue what the iron status of feedstuffs and water is around here.  If
anything, we need some sort of supplement that could subtract iron from the
diet.

4) Very few horse owners bother to test their forages, and as a result I
think there are a lot of horses, especially ones that are basically
classified as being on maintenance diets, that get fed sweet feed or other
grain mixes when they really don't need it.

5)  To scoop or not to scoop, that is the question.   No doubt about it, we
horse people are the worst when it comes to how we measure our feeds.
Rations are balanced by weight, yet most horse owners feed concentrates by
volume.  If Maxwell House ever stopped packaging coffee in cans, the horse
industry would go into mourning.


And I see that once again Susan and I are on the same wavelength (her tale
of the oversupplemented warmblood just arrived in my inbox!)

I sometimes think I could make a full-time career out of independent
consulting, just on the simple things....is it possible?


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
 Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=