As
they say about sausage, It is delicious but you do not want to see it
made!
Bob
Bob Morris Morris Endurance Enterprises Boise, ID
-----Original Message----- From:
ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Carol Suggs Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005
11:08 AM To: Dabney Finch; ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject:
Re: [RC] RC: Alfalfa Pellets
Don't shoot the messanger here please.
Years ago I visited a processing plant (which I will leave un named) for a
field trip and saw that some of waste on the floor (hay debris, some bugs,
some rodent poop ect) was being swept up and then dumped back into the
processing for pellets. That was pretty ichy for me. Not trying to
panic anyone out there about this, but just be mindful about what you are
feeding and for me this made me only want to feed certain feeds that come from
manufacturing facilities such as Purina where in they only have a few select
plants around the US and they are all screened very carefully.
I, for one, would be interested in knowing why you
asked if anyone had seen how pellets are made and then finished with that
cryptic "out of sight out of mind."
Dressage barn that I trained at in Los Gatos
years ago used these routinely as their main feed source. Horses
were all stalled and turned out once a day to a dry individual paddock
area. When I asked my trainer why they used the pellets her reply
was simply: easier to handle and store than hay.
Problem is that a horse is meant to spend the
majority of their day eating. I fear that horses that are kept on
such a restrictive diet will develop other vices because they have too
much time on their hands (or hooves!). Plus I have seen horses choke
on cubes and pellets before and that is very scary.
I would only use these when we go high
country camping or on a road trip, making sure that my horse was accustom
to eating them prior to our travels. Soaking has been mentioned,
which is a great idea, especially for the cubes. I personally would
not recommend them for the only source of food, although I do know a lot
of folks that feed it.
Have you ever been to a feed plant and see
how they make some of these pellets? But then again, out of
sight out of mind.
