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Location: Willows, CA | I get a lot of questions about the dating of horse feed bags that customers see in the stores. Our bag manufacturer actually printed the date that they made our empty bags on the top white strip last year when we changed to the new poly bags. (this is the date that the bags were made, not when the Renew Gold in the bag was made). This led to a lot of confusion about just when the Renew Gold in that bag was made, with some customers thinking that the Renew Gold that they saw in the feed stores was over one year old based on those printed dates. While you can imagine the confusion this caused, every cloud has a silver lining, and this has led us to work hard to educate horse owners on just how to navigate through the confusing numbers that represent the actual age of the feed that they are buying.
While some producers use a "feed by" date, most put a production lot code and manufacturing date on the bag or guarantee tag.
At Renew Gold, we use a Julian Date code on the bottom tape strip of the bag, or a small white sticker on the lower back. Most other feed companies do the same, so it is a real value to be able to understand how to read these dates codes that appear to make no sense at all.
A Julian Date does not list month and day but instead represents the day of the year from 001 being January 1st, to 365 being December 31st. In addition, the year is typically placed either before or after this number. In most cases, the year is represented by a single number, a "7" represents 2017.
Today, Aug 8th, is the 220th day of 2017. So, a bag using this dating format that is manufactured today would read 2207, or if the year is listed first 7220.
While additional production information may also follow these numbers, in most cases you can date feed bags by looking for what makes sense as a Julian date before or after the "7" year designation.
These dates can sure be confusing if you don't know what you are looking for.
If you are buying sweet feed, you should be looking for a date that is less than 30 days old. Most pelleted feed will last longer depending on ingredients. Remember the shelf life is that of it's shortest lived ingredient, and that will vary depending on the weather and storage conditions at your place, the feed stores, and the distributors warehouse.
Pelleted feed with stabilized ingredients may last up to one year of stored properly.
The bottom line take away here is to look at the date of every single bag that you buy, and know how to read it. Many distribution warehouses may not properly adhere to the "first in, first out" rule of keeping their inventory the freshest possible. On occasion aged feed will ship to your local store without anyone realizing it unless you can read production dates.
Hope this helps, Win
Edited by winwillows 2017-08-15 12:05 AM
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