Ep. 114: 5 Things Horse Owners Misunderstand About Feed Tags

Episode Notes

On this episode of the Feeding Fumbles & Fixes series of Beyond the Barn, host Katy Starr chats with Dr. Kelly Vineyard, PhD equine nutritionist to discuss one of the most overlooked (and misunderstood) tools in your barn – your horse’s feed tag, including:

• How to interpret feed tag numbers without being misled
• Why feeding directions are more than just a guideline
• The limitations of feed tags and what to look at beyond the label

Whether you’re feeding a performance horse, a senior or your light trail horse, this episode will help you look beyond the label and better understand how to build a balanced and effective feeding program.

🎧 Listen now on the Beyond the Barn podcast

Have a topic idea or feedback to share? We want to connect with you! Email podcast@standlee.com

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Learn More From Our Other Feeding Fumbles & Fixes Episodes – 

• Ep. 113: 3 Changes to Make When Transitioning Horses Back to Work
• Ep. 109: 4 Horse Feeding Mistakes That Increase Laminitis Risk
• Ep. 108: 4 Simple Ways to Stretch Your Hay Supply Without Sacrificing Nutrition
• Ep. 106: 5 Ways Horse Owners Waste Money on Feeding
• Ep. 105: 5 Nutrition Mistakes Horse Owners Make in Winter

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*Views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Standlee Premium Products, LLC.*

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Read full episode transcript

Katy Starr (00:01):

Hi, I'm Katy Starr and you're listening to Beyond the Barn. Join me on this journey as we bust equine and livestock nutrition myths and sit down with some of the most intriguing experts from across the country. We'll also take you behind the scenes of how premium Western Quality Forage is grown and brought to your favorite farm and ranch retail store. I'm so glad you're here.

 

Katy Starr (00:27):

We spend thousands of dollars each year feeding our horses, but many of us make those decisions based on numbers or information we don't fully understand. Welcome back to the Beyond the Barn podcast. We're back to our Feeding Fumbles and Fixes series. It's all about learning from real life feeding mistakes and experiences, and finding simple practical ways to make improvements for your horse ownership journey. In this episode of the series we're discussing common misunderstandings horse owners have about feed tags and labels. As a reminder, any of the topics we cover on the Beyond the Barn podcast are more generalized and not specific to any individual horse or any specific situation. Be sure to always work with your veterinarian and nutritionist before making any drastic changes to your horse's feed program. Or you can reach out to us with questions for our PhD equine nutritionists on any specifics you'd like to know.

 

Katy Starr (01:22):

Every feedbag has a tag on it with product ingredients and guaranteed analysis, or it's printed directly on the bag. It's legally required, but let's be honest, for a lot of horse owners that tag can sometimes feel more confusing than helpful. Here's something interesting, those nutrient guarantees you see listed, they're not exact amounts. They're minimums or maximums, so keep that in mind when feeding your horse. And those feeding directions on the tag or the back of the bag, they're developed by PhD equine nutrition experts based on research and nutrient requirement data. Yet sometimes they're treated like suggestions by horse owners. The reality is when feed tags are misinterpreted or misunderstood, there can be a real world consequences. Imbalanced energy intake can contribute to weight loss, weight gain, or even an increased risk of colic. Mineral imbalances over time can affect bone strength and soundness. So, let's break down some common ways horse owners misunderstand feed tags and discuss what they actually mean. Today we're talking about five things horse owners misunderstand about feed tags. The goal of this episode is to help you understand what you're reading on your horse's feed tag and what you need to know about what's not included on a feed tag or label as well. So, Dr. Vineyard misunderstanding number five, when reading feed tags or labels believing that if a nutrient is not on the guaranteed analysis, it is not in the feed.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (02:58):

So, this is a big one. I think it's important for horse owners to understand that a feed tag is a legal document, that's basically what it is. You know, there's the AAFCO regulations, so that's the American Association of Feed Control Officials and also state regulators set the rules of what must be on that legal document. Okay? So, companies have to follow those rules, hopefully are following the rules. And there are not many nutrients that are required to be on the GA. I mean, there are definitely requirements protein, fat, fiber, calcium, phosphorus, you know, you've seen all these things, but there are several nutrients that are not required to be on that document and they may not be included due to space or other reasons. But just because there's not a line item on that GA, you know, say for example like omega, Omega-3 fatty acids, that's when you don't see very often. Some tags will have that, but even if it's not on there, I guarantee you if you analyze that feed. There's going to be omega threes in or omega sixes, you know, and that same thing could be said for many other nutrients.

 

Katy Starr (04:05):

Right? So, what does that actually mean? I mean you talked about Omega-3 fatty acids and things, but what does that mean for us?

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (04:12):

What it means is, number one, you can find out if there's a nutrient you're very interested in. You can contact the manufacturer and ask them how much manganese is in this feed, right? Manganese is like kind of another one of those. It's not always on the tag, but there is a requirement for a horse and most of these, many feeds will have that in there. So, you can always ask if it's not on there, don't necessarily assume a company's trying to hide something, it just may be space, right? Or it may be proprietary. Maybe they're trying to like have a little bit of like their proprietary formulation that they worked really hard on. They're not trying to show it to the world, but they would tell a horse owner if you contact them and let you know, you can always send it off yourself and find out too.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (04:57):

You have to pay for it, you have to pay for it. But you know, the good news is AAFCO does, you know, there are reasons that there's laws and they have these regulations. They're requiring the manufacturers to put the most important nutrients on there to your horse. We all kind of may know calcium and phosphorus is very important because if you get that inverse, so if you feed your horse more phosphorus than calcium, that is a very big problem. It can lead to something called big head disease. So, AAFCO is like, nope, we need to make sure we're not putting products out that have this and inform the horse owners so they know what they're feeding. But again, just because it's not on theGAdoesn't necessarily mean it's not in the feed.

 

Katy Starr (05:37):

Excellent. Okay, so misunderstanding number four, when reading feed tags or labels is following the feeding directions is optional.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (05:45):

This one gets me as someone who's written many feeding directions and formulated many feed specifically to a minimum feeding rate to meet NRC nutrient requirements. But then I, you know, I go in barns and talk to horse owners where, you know, maybe they're only feeding, you know, half a pound a day of a feed that I formulated to be fed at minimum three pounds a day. And it's not optional. Those feeding directions are there for a reason.

 

Katy Starr (06:13):

Yeah, I see it all the time in like Facebook groups, horse Facebook groups and things like that. People saying, oh, I just feed this much of this or this and it's not along the feeding guidelines at all. And so I think that one is very common. But why don't you also, I mean break down what that means. If that's how people are thinking and using feed products, what does that mean?

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (06:34):

Right. Well what it means is your horse might be deficient in something if you're not feeding according to the feeding directions. Or on the flip side, if you're feeding, say for a ration balancer for example, it's a very concentrated feed product. It's made to be fed, it may be one to two pounds a day only. But if you aren't bothering to read the feeding directions and you're like, oh look my horse looks a little thin, I'm going to bump him up to five pounds a day to see if he can gain weight. Number one, ration balancers really aren't going to help your horse gain weight. But number two, you could create a toxicity because that is such a concentrated product and you're feeding it five times the recommended amount. That's selenium would be something I might be worried about specifically, especially if you're feeding other supplements, it might have some of that too.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (07:16):

So, take a minute, read the feeding directions, make sure you're feeding at least the minimum recommended feeding amount by the manufacturer. Another big way people miss the feeding directions is when you're feeding a senior horse or when you're feeding a senior feed, a lot of commercial senior feeds have like the hay built into the feed. And so some of these senior feeds are actually a little more dilute because if you have a horse with no teeth, think about it. They have to eat, it replaces their forage and their concentrate. They may be eating 10 pounds a day because their forage is built in, right? That senior feed has ground up hay and ground up forage in it. Well, if you're not reading that and you only feed one pound a day of senior feed or two pounds a day of senior feed your horse is really going to be deficient in some nutrients because that's even kind of like a more dilute feed. So, feed the feeding directions and you can avoid that.

 

Katy Starr (08:06):

. That is such a good one. Yeah. Okay, so misunderstanding number three. When reading feed tags or labels, thinking more fortified is always better in a product.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (08:17):

This is tempting to do, right?

 

Katy Starr (08:19):

More is better, right? more is better.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (08:21):

More is better. Just kidding. But that kind of seems logical, but it is absolutely, when it comes to nutrition and nutrients, more is definitely not better. Sometimes more is just more and sometimes more is harmful. And you know, if you don't really know what is the difference, then you have an issue there. And understand, you know, when you're reading a horse feed tag guarantee, looking for the most of something is really not appropriate. If you had that mindset and you have one tag guarantees 3000 IUs of vitamin A and the second tag is 15,000 IUs of vitamin A. Vitamin A sounds good, right? We all need vitamins. Someone may choose that second feed with 15,000 IUs a day thinking they're doing better. Especially if those two feeds are the same price, right? Like oh, let's pick the one with higher.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (09:10):

But where the rest of the story goes is that 15,000 IUs of vitamin A say you fed, you know, five, 10 pounds of that, you're approaching toxic levels of vitamin A. Whereas that feed that was formulated with 3000 IUs of vitamin A may actually be more appropriate according to that feeding direction. Now, 15,000 may be just perfect for a ration balancer, but maybe not for a feed that you feed in large amounts. So, again, it kind of goes back to the feeding directions too. Another thing that I can kind of point out from an insider's perspective from the feed industry is something we like to call tag wars. And so what companies will do is they come out with a product and they're like, well we know we have this competitor that targets the same type of horse. They have 200 ppms of zinc, we're going to put 250 because that's going to make us look better.

 

Katy Starr (10:02):

Interesting, okay.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (10:05):

And so they're looking at their competitors and they're kind of playing tag wars. So, I am just saying it happens, sometimes it benefits a horse, you know, everybody's like fighting on vitamin E and giving them some more vitamin E have at it, but sometimes it absolutely does not benefit the horse. There's so many more important things to focus on than those specific numbers. I mean, yes, they are important, but there are other important things too.

 

Katy Starr (10:32):

I don't know if I would've thought about something like that. And so I'm really glad that you brought that up, especially if you think, I mean you could easily think about that. Obviously more is better like getting more bang for your buck, right? But it's not always, especially like if you're feeding a concentrate of some sort of balancer or whatever, and then you have other supplements that you're adding on. Like it could get really tricky there if you're starting to put all these things together and not necessarily paying too close attention to the full diet. Because you know you have your hay and everything in there too. And so that can get a little bit tricky.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (11:07):

I understand the challenge, it is challenging to really know what you're looking at. So, my best advice to horse owners is like, stick with a reputable manufacturer that you have trust in that does use a good GAthat you know, tells you what's in there, but follow those feeding directions. And then I think we may talk about some other things that are important too. And that's how you choose a reputable manufacturer.

 

Katy Starr (11:32):

Excellent. Yeah, that's really great. Okay, so misunderstanding number two. When reading feed tags or labels ignoring the purpose statement, what is the purpose statement?

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (11:42):

Yeah I was going to say, some people may not even know what that is, and that's the problem because again, going kind of back to this legal document, the purpose statement is required on every feed tag, and basically it will be usually under the name of the feed and it will say for maintenance horses or for performance horses, or for growing horses and lactating mares. And as you can really think about it, a maintenance horse is really different than a growing horse or a lactating mare, and their nutrient requirements are very different. So, the purpose statement speaks to how is this feed formulated and what type of horse and what type of nutrient requirements was it formulated for? And basically you should find it on every single feed tag should have this, some of the feed bags will have it on the front. You know, you can look at it there too. If a tag is missing the purpose statement, and I have seen them, that's a huge red flag.

 

Katy Starr (12:35):

Well, I think about that because I've heard some people say that this feed is for every horse or something along those lines. And I see that and I'm like, eee I don't know about that. .

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (12:48):

A lot of people think that. And that is a really valid question. And what I would say to that is it depends on the feed. So, especially if it's like a non fortified forage product, absolutely. It could be for all horses, right? Because that's intended to be fed with other things.

 

Katy Starr (13:04):

Yes.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (13:04):

But, there are some kind of all purpose feeds out there that are for all classes of horses. And can I give you a little insider secret on how we get that.

 

Katy Starr (13:12):

Yes, I love it. .

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (13:13):

Basically you formulate to the highest common denominator. So, that's almost always going to be your growing horse or your lactating mare. And so if you formulate a feed to meet the nutrient requirements of that growing horse by proxy, it's going to meet the maintenance horse requirements or the performance horse requirements. It just may be a little bit higher than what they really need, right? It may be a little bit more, or the proportions may be off a little bit, but not in a way that it would be harmful. It's just may be a little bit over.

 

Katy Starr (13:43):

Right? Okay. So, let's say we do ignore the purpose statement , and we just are like, ah, this bag looks pretty. I'm going to go ahead and take this one. So, what does that actually mean?

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (13:53):

Or I'm going to feed it to every horse in my barn because like I feed it to one of the guys.

 

Katy Starr (13:56):

Yes.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (13:57):

Well, yes, sometimes it can work, sometimes it can't. Because again, going back to nutrient requirements, they do differ greatly between horses. Biggest difference between a maintenance horse and like a growing horse. And if you feed, and to me the biggest potential problem is feeding a growing horse, a non-growing horse feed. So, that means they're probably not getting enough copper for cartilage development. They're probably not going to be getting enough other like calcium, phosphorus and other nutrients for bone development that will have lifelong consequences. You can't catch up from that. After that horse is done growing, the damage has been done. So, always feed a growing horse, a growing horse diet, please. And then on the flip side, say you've got like a bunch of performance horses and then you've got a metabolic obese pony in the barn and you just, you know, I've got this really great high fat, high fiber feed.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (14:48):

Everybody likes it in the barn. I'm just going to give a cup or two a day to my metabolic pony because he's fat and he doesn't need all those calories, but we'll just give him something to eat. Well, he's still going to be deficient in nutrients because one to two cups a day, kind of going back to the feeding directions, that's not near enough to get the zinc in there, to get the copper, to get the glycine and amino acids. So, instead, it would be better to change feeds, feed a rational balancer to that obese pony. And again, sort of the purpose statement, if it doesn't say this is good for metabolic or if this is good for, you know, maintenance horses, or if it's for a high performance horse, that little pony probably doesn't apply. And then, you know, finally, I think the other mistake when you misread the purpose statements comes with senior horses and horses that can't eat hay. You know, make sure that if you truly need a hay replacer, that the purpose statement says that, that it is designed to fully or partially replace hay.

 

Katy Starr (15:45):

Yes. Okay. Excellent. All right. So, misunderstanding number one, when reading feed tags or labels is thinking the feed tag or label tells the whole story.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (15:57):

Yeah, I mean we could probably record a whole podcast on this one because this is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about and I know it's a big challenge because it's hard to like tell the difference between products and select the right product. And most horse owners want the best for their horse. And no question, I have no question about that. But it can get really confusing with all the marketing language and all the ads. And it's like, how do you really know what the real story is? So, what a lot of people will get caught up in that tag comparison game or like the tag wars, because that is kind of the one of the main things that we have to look at that seems equal between companies. But here's what I would say to that is remember this, horses don't eat feed tags, okay?

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (16:42):

They don't eat the numbers, they don't read the NRC. It's really tempting to use that tag kind of as your primary driver for choice to inform your feed choice. But don't fall into that temptation. It's a piece of information. But understand that it's very, very easy to do something called tag dressing. Okay? Companies can add a bunch of GA's on there that kind of are not as relevant to the horse. It gives you like a fault sense of quality on a feed tag with an extended GA that sometimes can be good. And as a nutritionist, I actually love extended GA's. Because when I'm balancing a ration, I don't have to call the company and ask them, what's this, this and that. But just because it's listed there doesn't mean it's in the right amount. Doesn't mean it's doing anything. And there's actually a whole lot of other things that are important too.

 

Katy Starr (17:30):

Yeah, well, ease and convenience sometimes I think can pay a price in that manner if you're just not paying attention to the details. And so with that misunderstanding, what does that actually mean about thinking that it tells the whole story and we're taking it by its word?

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (17:45):

Yeah, I mean there's so many other things that the tag can't tell you. So, here's some things you ask yourself and kind of do a little bit of sleuthing yourself is number one, what's the company's approach to quality control? Are they manufacturing horse feeds in anionophorefree facility? That's really important. Ionophores are a cattle additive and antibiotic that, you know, helps growth efficiency or feed efficiency in ruminant animals, but it's lethal to horses. So, we definitely want to avoid those. So, quality control's huge, you know, what do they do about their customer service? Like things happen, feed mills are agricultural products. There's going to be stuff that gets in there that shouldn't be there. There's going to be some problems. But when you have a problem, how does the company approach it? Do they ignore you or do they try to make it right? I think that's a really big deal. It also doesn't tell you about the technical expertise behind those products, which selfishly, I feel like that's hugely important.

 

Katy Starr (18:40):

Yes.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (18:41):

Because anybody can formulate a horse feed. Doesn't even have to be a nutritionist, doesn't even have to be anybody with a PhD. But there are plenty of companies out there that are trying to do the right thing. They employ trained nutritionists to help formulate feeds. Try to find out if that's the case of the company you're working with, because you can run into the risk of missing some important things without that training. Right? And it's, it's not easy to create. I mean it, it is easy to create a formula. It's not easy to create an effective formula that does what it says it's going to do. I would say that, here's a third thing the tag doesn't tell you, if the horse will actually eat it or not. The palatability, and I see this a lot, again, it's kind of easy to throw a formula together, throw some ingredients together, you put it in front of a bunch of horses.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (19:29):

Some of them eat it, some of them don't. Some companies don't have the resources to sort of test that prior to launch, you know, and some companies do. So, I would rather spend my money on a product that I'm pretty sure that company did their due diligence to make sure horses ate it. That's just me . So, again, yes, you've got your fee tag, that's your legal document, but you also have quality control, you have customer service, you have, who formulated that, are they doing research on that product, or are the ingredients in that product research backed? You know, that's huge too, in my opinion, because if it's research backed, more likely it's going to be good for your horse. It's going to do what it says it's going to do. So, kind of do your own research. If you can take recommendations from experienced industry people, you know, people who are having good experience with companies, they can share that your veterinarian sees a lot, right? You know, talk to your vet about what companies they've had good experiences with. I think those are all things horse owners can do besides just look at the feed tag.

 

Katy Starr (20:32):

That is so excellent. Thank you, Dr. Vineyard, for your insight on this topic today.

 

Dr. Kelly Vineyard (20:37):

Well, you're very welcome.

 

Katy Starr (20:39):

Today we covered five things horse owners misunderstand about feed tags and what they actually mean. Here are some key takeaways from Dr. Vineyard. Before switching feeds, because you don't see a nutrient listed on the feed tag under the guaranteed analysis, reach out to the manufacturer and ask about it first. If you're not feeding the minimum recommended amount, you may not be delivering the nutrition the feed was formulated to provide your horse. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. Before choosing a feed because it has the highest amount of a certain nutrient, make sure it's the right amount for your horse when balancing their full diet. Different horses have different nutrient requirements. In this case, one formula does not fit all. If the feed wasn't formulated for your horse's life stage or workload, it's probably not the right fit. And don't compare feeds based on the feed tags or labels alone. Consider the people the research and the quality procedures behind the product. If you want to dig a little deeper into understanding nutrient requirements or balancing your horse's diet, we've linked some additional resources in our show notes and we'd love to hear your feedback on our Feeding Fumbles and Fixes series or ideas for future episodes. Reach out to us anytime at podcast@standlee.com.

 

Katy Starr (22:08):

Thanks for listening to the Beyond the Barn podcast by Standlee Forage. We'd love for you to share our podcast with your favorite people and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite listening platform. Until next time, keep your cinch tight and don't forget to turn off the water.