Weather Update + Choosing Feed

(post by Jason) As I begin to write this blog the mid afternoon temperature at the farm is 18 F. This may or may not be a record…it probably is but I’m too tired of the cold weather to bother checking. The thermometer on my weather station has an unhappy face which appears whenever the temperature goes below freezing. Interestingly it exactly matches the look on Melissa’s face whenever I mention the weather. January has been a very cold month. Even TEMA, normally quick to pounce on any chance to declare a cold weather emergency is strangely silent this time. 

Technically we are still under the same State of Emergency as last week which they never allowed to expire despite being almost 60 F on Sunday. Apparently they could not be bothered to issue a new one this week. Like most of the rest of us maybe they have finally quit caring. People have even stopped stocking up on milk, bread and eggs. There were ample supplies of each in the grocery store this morning and no panic buying that I could see. At this point warming up to seasonal norms in the low 50’s would feel like a tropical heat wave. Now I will move along to a topic other than the weather.

Today’s blog is going to seem like a bit of a cheat on our part because we are going to ask you to do much of our work. I am curious as to what criteria you use when choosing a grain or supplement for your horse. To prompt you I will share what I was thinking about when I designed our current feed.  

1. Most of the nutrients in our horses’ diets comes from pasture or hay. We regularly test both for energy, protein, fiber level, mineral content and vitamin content. When designing a grain the first thing on my mind is that I want the nutrient content of the grain to roughly equal the difference between what the forage provides and what is required. 

2. Many of the older horses here have poor teeth and/or poor gut absorption. Thus I want our grain to be as energy and nutrient dense as possible. The most energy dense ingredient is fat but it is also relatively expensive compared to starches. As a general rule feeds with high fat content (8-10%) are found more often in higher priced premium products. 

3. Bioavailability in minerals is also important. As a general rule mineral chelates/proteinates are the most bioavailable form, followed by mineral sulfates, with mineral oxides being the least bioavailable. Thus mineral chelates and proteinates tend to be found more readily in premium products. 

4. Low sugar/starch – Since so many of our clients are IR or are being treated for Cushings it is important that anything we feed not be exacerbating their condition. Thus we achieve energy density from fat rather than starch. We also like to make sure there is significant fiber in our grain. This helps in two ways. The first is by aiding in saliva production which acts as a buffering agent. The second way is by slowing hindgut digestion. Slowing hindgut digestion gives some of our elderly horses a bit more time to absorb nutrients across the gut wall.  

5. Our hay and pasture is of moderate quality for most of the year. There is no great difference in nutritive value between pasture and hay except perhaps briefly in April when the warm season grasses are at their peak quality. Generally warm season grasses are considerably lower in sugars and starches then their northern cool season counterparts. The further north one goes the more massive this difference becomes. At the Canadian border the difference between energy content, fiber levels, sugars, starches and protein in peak quality cool season grasses and moderate quality grass hay is HUGE. 

So now I’m curious about what you are doing ! Please tell us what you’re feeding for grains and supplements and why you chose the feeds you did.

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Dolly

Gus and Lofty

George

Ritchie and Leo having fun

Lighning and Noble were also being playful

Clayton, Toledo and Rocky were having fun together

Elfin was napping in the sun

Feed Myths and Truths; What you can't see is just as important as what you CAN !

Myth: I always choose pelleted feed because it doesn't have much or any molasses in it.

Although it makes intuitive sense that sweet feed contains lots of molasses and pelleted feed contains none, often that is not the case even though appearances would certainly suggest it is. In truth, pellets may or may not contain molasses in varying quantities and it would be impossible to tell which did and how much without having the ingredient formulation sheet in front of you. Believe it or not, I have seen dry, well made pellets that contained as much or more molasses than the goopiest sweet feeds on the market.

Myth: Fixed formula feeds are always superior to flexible formula feeds.

The first thing to understand is that the nutrient profile of flex formulas is actually fixed. What changes in a flex formula are the ingredients used to achieve a fixed nutrient profile.

Whether or not flex or fixed formulas are more suitable for your horse depends on a lot of factors, including such things as the price point of ingredients, how "flexible" the ingredient profiles in flex formulas really are (usually not very flexible, believe it or not), which ingredients are being substituted and at what rate, and probably most importantly, how fussy your horse is regarding relatively minor ingredient changes which may have minor influences on feed palatability each time a batch is reformulated. Of course if your horse has known allergies to specific ingredients a fixed formula that doesn't contain any allergenic ingredients may be best. As a very general rule of thumb with lots and lots of exceptions, the cheaper the horse feed in question the more likely it is to be a flex formula rather than a fixed formula feed.

Myth: Quality is the last thing horse feed manufacturers worry about. I listen to media reports abd I feel like I'm playing Russian roulette with my horse's well being every time I buy a bag of feed.

The reason feed manufacturing incidents that harm horses make the media at all is because they are exceedingly rare events. While anything can happen to any of us at any time, and while there are still a (very) few fly by night outfits out there that are peddling who only knows what to whomever will buy it, these sorts of companies and the products they sell are usually pretty easy to identify. Often it's as simple as looking at the length of time they have been in business.

I think you'd be surprised at the rigorous QC measures that reputable equine feed manufacturers have in place. You'll often find the symbols for such certifications as ISO 9001, Fami QS, Six Sigma and many others printed somewhere on each bag of feed. If you are in doubt about quality control, by all means ask someone what measures are in place to assure quality control.

I'm working on another post answering a few more of the questions I have been regularly asked through the years in regards to horse feed. If you have any thoughts or questions you would like discussed please let me know in the comments section.

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Harmony, Maisie and Missy napping in the sun

Romeo

Bear was waiting for someone to drive him around in the Kubota . . .

. . . and Jo the fainting goat was trying to steal the hay out of the back
Chimano taking an afternoon nap
Rocky and RampalFaune had his tail flagged and was on full alert a moment later Winston, Faune and Gus took off for a gallop Clay
Fuzzy
Rocky Johnny and Stormy were soaking up the sun

Myths and Truths: Ouch, the Feed Bill (post written by Jason)

I don't think anyone reading this blog needs to be told that every part of horsekeeping is expensive, but given the recent run on commodity prices and the shellacking this is likely to lead to for anybody buying commodities on a small scale, I thought now might be a good time to have a look at one of the largest ongoing expenses of keeping a horse and that is feeding it !



Myth: The price of feed seems to go up for no reason. The feed store owner must be lining her pockets right now !



Truth: There are a lot of reasons I don't own a feed store, but one of the best reasons is that the margins on feed for feed re-sellers are razor thin. The reason that feed changes price so often is that there is very little margin for the retailer to eat price changes. When the company they buy feed from raises prices, so does the retailer. A typical retail margin on bagged feed is $ 1.00 per bag or less, and I want to highlight that margin doesn't equal profit; this is what they pay the light bill, pay their help and run their business on. The folks who make (and lose) the most money on commodities are those who trade futures and options on the Chicago Board of Trade, NOT the people running your local feed store or local farm supply co-operative.



Myth: The only difference between high end and low end feeds is the price and the shininess of the graphics on the bag the feed comes in.



Truth: I've been kicking around the feed industry a long time and it's my opinion that there are plenty of differences between feedstuffs beyond price per bag. More often than not you get what you pay for in this world, and feedstuffs are no different than anything else. If my myth was actually true I promise you I'd be feeding the cheapest local no-name knock off which currently sells at $ 6.00 per 50 lb bag) to our retirees rather than Triple Crown Senior which we get for $17.95 per 50 lb bag when we buy three tons of it at a time. That said, I'm not a hundred percent stuck on using *ANY* feed so long as it meets my various criteria for quality control, ease of feeding, ease of delivery, and, of course, nutrient profile. I'd be happy to share my criteria for feedstuffs and feed suppliers with anyone who asks.



Myth: My horse loses weight every winter and it doesn't matter what I feed him.



Truth: While some horses are more prone than others to lose weight in the winter, and while any horse's weight can fluctuate a bit at any time, sustained and considerable weight loss every winter is not normal and it is something that can almost definitely be managed. First thing I'd do is take a good long look at the type of forage your horse is eating and if it's possible to do I'd up both the quality AND the quantity on offer. Within reason, and depending on your horse and what you are asking of him or her, improving the quality of forage on offer can play a huge role in maintaining adequate body condition in the winter. When forage has been addressed and if one's horse is still losing weight, then one needs to look at the quality and quantity of the grain on offer. We pay a lot of attention to forage quality and maintaining each horse's body condition on this farm, and when the horses are on spring grass (very high quality forage), our grain bill drops by a third.

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(Melissa here). I mentioned in the last blog that there were snowflakes coming down. We woke up Friday morning to about 3/4 of an inch of snow. I'll skip the usual complaining as I have nothing new to say on that front. I will say that the snow did have the common decency to start melting right away and was completely gone by Sunday afternoon. Other than that nothing new to report. I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Jo and Mina, World's Cutest Fainting Goats

Jo with a big mouthful of hay

Rocky and Rampal playing

Lily and MyLight dosing in the sun

Faune, Winston, Gus and Romeo

Romeo

Sebastian

Faune and Winston

B-Rad, Darby and Ogie

Fuzzy and Clay

Boo

Toledo, Stormy and Rocky

snow breakfast

Johnny and Rampal

Winston

Trooper, Bear and Bella

Chimano and Asterik

the Big Boys on Saturday afternoon

O'Reilly and Slinky

Noble

Lucky

Tony and Elfin

Levendi and Chance

Thomas

Leo, Apollo and Ivan

Hay

I recently ran across an old picture of my grandad and I taken in the late spring of 1987. I published the photo on my blog under another title but truth to tell it actually got me thinking about haying time more than anything else. I clearly remember that grandpa was peeved about stopping his work to get his picture made that day, but what I didn't go into detail about in my story was why that was so.


Haying time comes all in a rush and there is a huge financial impact centered around weather and machine delays. The trade off is volume vs. nutritive quality of the hay. As hay matures, the volume goes up but the quality goes down. Maximizing both quality and quantity relative to the livestock species in question is the goal. For growing beef cattle, lactating dairy animals (and growing heifers) as well as horses in work, the optimal window for getting high quality grass hay up is less than a week long and it occurs from just before until just after the grass heads out. With alfalfa, the quality/quantity peak occurs from mid bud to very early bloom....maybe ten days to two weeks if the weather is optimal. Hay quality declines linearly (and rapidly) once peak nutritive quality is reached.


A two week delay at the wrong time of year is often the difference between excellent quality and worthless junk. Regardless of livestock species, excellent quality hay = markedly improved performance on (often dramatically) reduced quantities of grain. For those of us in the grass fed beef business, getting up good hay becomes even more critical because we can't supplement an animal's growth by feeding grain, even when it makes economic sense to do so. I need the best forage I can make in order to put weight on in an economically efficient manner in seasons when pasture growth is minimal.


Getting hay put up at the right time is critical, and in humid areas of the country weather is often an impediment to getting forage up when it needs to be. This is especially true in the spring when the grass is lush and wet and the weather is often still cool (and wet). In many cases, trying to bale good quality dry hay in the spring is more or less a futile experience. It takes three or four warm, dry, sunny days in order to cure early spring forage enough to put it in the barn and in this part of the world getting three or four warm, sunny dry days in a row in early April is chancy at best. As such, for most types of cattle the first cutting is often put up as baleage (wilted, baled and immediately wrapped in white plastic) or haylage (wilted, chopped and blown in some type of silo). This reduces the length of time required to dry hay from three or four days to a much more manageable one to two days. As a general rule, it's much easier to bale second and later cuttings as dry hay because these tend to occur in the middle of the summer when it's consistently hotter and there are longer periods between rains.


Of course not every animal on the farm needs to get fed high-test hay every day, and it's important to match forage quality to an animal's ability to utilize it. Most of our retired horses don't require exceptional amounts of protein or energy in order to maintain homeostasis. Because of this we can make use of some well put up (dry and weed free) but later cut hay that would be less suitable for growing horses or horses in work.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!
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Murphy, Boo, Alex, B-Rad, Darby and Ogie making their way through the pasture yesterday. Everyone is pretty sedate but at about the 18 second mark B-Rad shows off his jumper skills and jumps the little ditch.

Wiz, Dutch, Boo, Alex, Chili, Clay and Fuzzy

Chimano and Winston (Asterik in the background)

Norman

Romeo, Faune, Asterik and Gus

Cuffie and Boo playing over the fence

Cuffie trying to get Fuzzy to play with him. Fuzzy looks a bit uncertain. "I've heard about you. You want to lure me over looking all small and innocent and then you bite me!"

MyLight rolling with Harmony grazing nearby. The first thing I thought when I saw this picture was "look at how nice her feet look. Nice big frogs and wide heels!"

Then Lily went down for a nap next to MyLight and Harmony

Noble

Lightening

Trigger and Levendi

Teddy

Thomas

Tony, Ivan and Trigger

Homer

Hemi and Apollo

Elfin