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 Veteran
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| Ugh... what feed companies are safe to use nowdays? |
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 Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11490
 
Location: 31 lengths farms | winwillows - 2015-11-11 11:24 AM
This is the gift that keeps on giving from changes in the feed industry in general. As someone who has been in that business for a long time, I can tell you that things have changed in the last fifteen years or so. Least cost formulation is much more common now, as is the practice of making horse products and medicated cattle products at the same plant. In the past, most premium horse feeds were made only on non-medicated production lines, and were fixed formulated. If your feed has a sewn on tag that lists the ingredients it is most likely "least cost formulated" and different every time you buy it. If it is fixed formulated, the ingredients will be printed on the bag, not on a tag. A fixed formulated product is made the same every time. Variations in ingredients used and the quality of those ingredients used to be found only in low end, low priced feeds. this is just not the case anymore. Whether or not you have an opinion about GMO ingredients, that is another change that was not present years ago. I firmly believe that a forage based diet with supplementation held to an amount that fits the horses digestive system better, results in better health, less risk, and a better overall result.
Wow, really good info on the tag attachment alone!!! Note to self.
Edited by run n rate 2015-11-11 6:28 PM
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 Lived to tell about it and will never do it again
Posts: 5408
| Our local Co-op mixes a lot of feed. A few years ago several people had horses die that were getting their feed from them. One family was smart enough to keep some feed and had the vet send it off for testing. They ended up with at least two dead after lots of vet bills. They did get a settlement after a long court battle. |
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Sock Snob
Posts: 3021
| Neutrina has been likethat a long time right after safe choice came out i starting buying it for my good mare ater about 6 months she stopped eating this feed, i then found out they did not have a fixed formula. I changed fedd never looked back.
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Expert
Posts: 3147
| RunfastNTurn - 2015-11-11 2:53 PM
Ugh... what feed companies are safe to use nowdays?
Blue Bonnet is a monensin/ionophore free mill. I'm lucky in that I live ten miles from The mill in Ardmore, Ok. |
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 Saint Stacey
| RunfastNTurn - 2015-11-11 1:53 PM
Ugh... what feed companies are safe to use nowdays?
If you have Facebook, go to the page Is My Horse Feed Safe?. There is a list of ionophore free companies. You do need to watch Purina though. When that list was made, Purina appeared to be safe. Some mills aren't though as Purina sort of glossed over some stuff. |
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 A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | BMW - 2015-11-11 8:26 PM RunfastNTurn - 2015-11-11 2:53 PM Ugh... what feed companies are safe to use nowdays? Blue Bonnet is a monensin/ionophore free mill. I'm lucky in that I live ten miles from The mill in Ardmore, Ok.
BlueBonnet is about the safest out there, I have been using BlueBonnet for many years and the owner of the feed store feeds it to his horses and race horses and hes got some humm dinger of horses. I really like BlueBonnet.. |
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 My Heart Be Happy
Posts: 9159
Location: Arkansas | SKM - 2015-11-13 6:55 PM
RunfastNTurn - 2015-11-11 1:53 PM
Ugh... what feed companies are safe to use nowdays?
If you have Facebook, go to the page Is My Horse Feed Safe?. There is a list of ionophore free companies. You do need to watch Purina though. When that list was made, Purina appeared to be safe. Some mills aren't though as Purina sort of glossed over some stuff.
Please tell me more about "glossing over".
Edited by Chandler's Mom 2015-11-13 10:23 PM
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Hungarian Midget Woman
Location: Midwest | SKM - 2015-11-11 12:49 PM barrelracr131 - 2015-11-11 7:01 AM SKM - 2015-11-10 7:28 PM We actually have a Cargill plant where I live. Cargill makes Nutrena. I went to the plant and visited with the people that work there. My plant makes both horse feed and medicated cattle feed. Here is what I learned: 1) They only use ionophores in bulk feed, not bagged feed. A) Like this should make a horse owner feel safe?!? If you as a horse owner don't find a problem with this....maybe you shouldn't have horses. Just a suggestion. 2) They run something like 20 tons of chicken feed after the ionophore feed before they run horse feed. The chicken feed cleans the equipment. A) Again...like this is suppose to make me feel safe? They had just told me they only run ionophores in bulk. So why are they now telling me they run chicken feed to clean out unless the same equipment is used?!? 3) They have a HCAPP plan in place. A) If you ask to see that HCAPP plan, you get a deer in the headlight look and crickets start chirping. Apparently they HAVE one...but no one seems to have any idea what it actually says. Yep...I'm feeling really great about this company now!! When I called the Nutrena 800 number, pretty much the same song and dance. From my own personal experience, I don't hold much faith in Nutrena to keep my horses safe. Draw your own conclusions from this. Just be aware, if your Nutrena label says STRL on it...you might want to keep my story in mind. Do you meean HACCP plan, or are you referring to something else
They should all know the HACCP plan, but if you asked specifically about an "HCAPP" plan they might have misunderstood, as I'm not sure what this would mean either. Though I'm venturing to guess they should have been able to put 2 and 2 together to realize what you were referring to. Sorry. Transposed letters and yes, they knew what it was since they were the ones bragging about having the program in place.
Thanks for clarifying |
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Saint Stacey
| Chandler's Mom - 2015-11-13 9:22 PM
SKM - 2015-11-13 6:55 PM
RunfastNTurn - 2015-11-11 1:53 PM
Ugh... what feed companies are safe to use nowdays?
If you have Facebook, go to the page Is My Horse Feed Safe?. There is a list of ionophore free companies. You do need to watch Purina though. When that list was made, Purina appeared to be safe. Some mills aren't though as Purina sort of glossed over some stuff.
Please tell me more about "glossing over".
They claimed to not use the same mills for horse and cattle feed so their horse feed was ionophore free. BUT they do have a few mills that do both. They are sequestered so Purina claims it's no big deal. I just know I wasn't happy with the way our horses were looking on Omalene 200 so I started mixing my own feed of oats, barley, timothy pellets, beet pulp shreds, flax, stabilized rice bran, trace minerals and Muscle Mass. I verified the individual items came from ionophore free facilities. I'm 3 weeks in and I'm havingto cut back because everyone is getting fat. I ddidn't increase the amount of grain I was feeding, just the type. I went with the timothy pellets because my main forage is alfalfa with some grass. If my forage was grass, I would have used alfalfa pellets. |
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