Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Read your feed tags.  One of the ingrediates can be sweepings.  Guess what that is???

 

Carolyn Burgess

Carol Suggs <limofunder@xxxxxxx> wrote:

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. 

 

Carol-Mariposa

----- Original Message -----

From: Dabney Finch

To: Carol Suggs ; ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 9:20 PM

Subject: Re: [RC] RC: Alfalfa Pellets

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."

 

Would you share the Rest of the Story?

 

Dabney--Murrieta, CA

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Carol Suggs

To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 8:51 PM

Subject: [RC] RC: Alfalfa Pellets

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.

 

Carol-Mariposa, CA