wispagold
Well-Known Member
I thought I would share what happened to me today...
I work for an agricultural feed company that specialises in ruminant feed. Today I had a phone call from a very nice lady who had been on our website and wanted some more information on our beef diets. I started by asking her which diets in particular and a couple of other questions to try and find out what exactly she needed.
She then proceeded to explain that she didn't have any cows but had a horse that struggled to hold condition. Her vet had told her to go out and buy a beef diet to feed it as they are high is starch! I was shocked to say the least! Beef diets can easily have as much as 40% barley and wheat in them with very high starch and sugar levels in finishing rations.
I explained to the lady that I didn't think a beef diet would be suitable at all and mentioned the risk of hind gut acidosis and ulcers. For ruminant diets we try to design rations with a good level of by-pass starch meaning we use slowly degraded, complex starch sources such as maize which is designed to by-pass the rumen and be digested further on down the digestive system to avoid the pH of the rumen dropping too low and the animal getting acidosis when they are on rations containing large amounts of cereals. The total opposite of what you want to happen in a horse!
I couldn't believe the vet had suggested that she went down this route! I recommended she ring an independent equine nutritionist to seek advice. She was quite suprised by what I told her and said she was going to ring her vet straight back and tell him.
It makes me wonder what other sort of frankly dangerous advice is being given out. I always trust what my vet says, after all they are meant to be the expert! Unbelievable!
I work for an agricultural feed company that specialises in ruminant feed. Today I had a phone call from a very nice lady who had been on our website and wanted some more information on our beef diets. I started by asking her which diets in particular and a couple of other questions to try and find out what exactly she needed.
She then proceeded to explain that she didn't have any cows but had a horse that struggled to hold condition. Her vet had told her to go out and buy a beef diet to feed it as they are high is starch! I was shocked to say the least! Beef diets can easily have as much as 40% barley and wheat in them with very high starch and sugar levels in finishing rations.
I explained to the lady that I didn't think a beef diet would be suitable at all and mentioned the risk of hind gut acidosis and ulcers. For ruminant diets we try to design rations with a good level of by-pass starch meaning we use slowly degraded, complex starch sources such as maize which is designed to by-pass the rumen and be digested further on down the digestive system to avoid the pH of the rumen dropping too low and the animal getting acidosis when they are on rations containing large amounts of cereals. The total opposite of what you want to happen in a horse!
I couldn't believe the vet had suggested that she went down this route! I recommended she ring an independent equine nutritionist to seek advice. She was quite suprised by what I told her and said she was going to ring her vet straight back and tell him.
It makes me wonder what other sort of frankly dangerous advice is being given out. I always trust what my vet says, after all they are meant to be the expert! Unbelievable!
