What is your favorite feed?

The problem with asking “What is your favorite feed?”

Been thinking about this a lot lately due to the amount of these questions we see on social media forums... the ideal that everybody has a “favorite” answer/solution to a feed problem and how they are happy to share said answer/solution with very limited information is confounding and a bit maddening!

We often see requests for feeding advice on social media forums, such as this one, and we are often a bit perplexed at some of the responses. For example, the other day there was a post from someone who was requesting nutrition advice on how to put weight on a hard keeper. All we were told was that the horse was a gelding and the horse owner wanted to know what supplements that people recommended to add weight.

What was astounding was that there were over 30 responses and no two responses were all that alike and only a few people asked pertinent questions like "How old is the horse?", "What is the horse currently eating and how much in pounds per day?', "Does the horse have free access to high quality forages (grass & hay) and how much?" "Does the horse have any known metabolic conditions?" "Have the horse's teeth been floated recently?" or "What is their current deworming protocol?" Instead, the responses included "Feed XXXX, its the best supplement on earth" or "I feed XXXX and all of my horses are happy and healthy." <insert eye roll>

When we encounter questions like the one described above, we like to get the history of the horse's diet, age, overall health, and level of activity. But, we find when we ask these questions on other equine health and nutrition forums many people get offended, which makes us wonder, is it our approach or is it that they really don't want to hear what we have to say? Or are they afraid of the real answer?

Where we are going with this is when faced with questions regarding “What is your favorite feed?", consider that sometimes the question asked isn't the question that really needs to be asked. And instead of assuming that what works for your situation, consider getting additional details to be sure the advice you give is suitable for the given situation. As horses are often individuals much like us. But if you encounter that type of generalized question via social media and people are not asking the pertinent questions, don’t be afraid to speak up and ask the difficult questions. Who knows, you might actually help someone solve their feed problem.

At RiteBalance, we ask a LOT of questions to be sure that we are recommending the most suitable feed/supplement for the current situation. We never assume!