Ration Balancing
11/1/21
“Have you ever spent hours in front of a spreadsheet trying to balance your horse’s ration / forage?”
If you fall into this camp, I have a special announcement for you.... YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME.
What do I mean? See my list of reasons below as to why this is an epic waste of your time:
Mother Nature isn't perfect. Horses have evolved as creatures that experience feast, famine and everything in between. Mother Nature doesn't come with a spreadsheet, she's a total jerk sometimes too to the wild horse. Yet, these horses have evolved for millions of years and survived the elements without intense number crunching.
I know what you're thinking, "Horses in the wild don't live as long as domesticated horses, mostly because we provide ours with better nutrition." That is partially true, but there are also advances in veterinary medicine, shelter we provide, the fact that the domesticated horse just has to wake up and exist and will have quality forage and feed handed right too them (all very much unlike the wild horse) - all things here are contributing.
So yes the domesticated horse does live longer but below are more "whys" on why I don't give credit to your spreadsheet.
I've been responsible for creating the diets of thousands of horses... THOUSANDS. Horses ranging from minis, to drafts, to Olympic hopefuls, to starvation cases, horses in their mid 30's, etc. - I've seen them all and I've helped all of them all thrive. I make sure that every single horse I work with has a balanced diet, so I 1000% agree that balance is important, but I also accept that perfection is not possible, and I don't get carried away trying to make the numbers align perfectly. More on the why below...
99% of the horses I work with have no forage analysis that comes with them. This is because they are boarded or don't have enough hay from the same supply that makes it worth doing an analysis on (you need a lot from a single cutting and the same field to make this worthwhile).
Well that really throws a wrench into balancing things perfectly doesn't it?
Not completely for 3 reasons. 1) We have averages that can be used for forage, the NRC nicely provides us with these based on thousands of samples. 2) The feed companies you're buying products from have (hopefully) hired PhD nutritionists to create a balanced diet for your horse, even in the absence of good quality hay. 3) Because feed companies are always trying to outdo eachother and get into "tag wars", most products are fortified so heavily that you can meet most nutrient requirements through the feed or balancer when fed as directed. In summary - your hay could be total garbage (which I don't recommend feeding crappy hay), but if it is, your horse will often still receive a full nutrient profile from the feed. (talk to a nutrition advisor to be certain about balance in this area)
Back to Mother Nature being imperfect.... did you know, that even across the same field and cutting of hay, there is variation? Did you also know that some of those values on your forage and feed analysis doesn't represent actual **bioavailability **of certain nutrients? Some things also just don't get sucked up into the body and come out in the urine. We are dealing with a living, breathing body here. **Horses, just like people, don't all metabolize nutrients the same and beyond that (as just mentioned), the raw numbers don't tell us bioavailability or digestibility of each nutrient.**
This part does throw a wrench into things doesn't it?.. still no, but it does tell us we need to go outside and enjoy life when we reach hour 2+ of trying to create a perfect balance in a spreadsheet, because I promise you - it will NEVER be perfect when you're dealing with variation in bioavailability and a living, breathing, body going through it's own internal challenges and processes.
I could keep going on but I am going to wrap this up with a few pieces of advice:
1. If you're going to spend time balancing your horse's ration, more power to you, but be realistic. Mother Nature isn't perfect. I'm guessing your own diet isn't perfectly balanced either (I know mine isn't!). Remember that every cutting, crop and field or forage has variation. Getting close to ideal is wonderful, but trying to achieve the "perfect" balance and adding isolated minerals to make the ratios perfect is often** **wasted time and money. Sure they can be an exception, but largely, this is unnecessary.
2. Know that feed manufacturer recommendations are put in place to be your guide for achieving nutrient balance - this has been done by a PhD that probably did spend hours putting this into a spreadsheet so you don't have to. If you don't have a forage analysis, use the bag recommendations as a guide. Double check with a nutrition advisor if you're still uncertain. While I know national big brands of feed often get beat up on social media, they are the ones who hire PhDs to formulate their products. I promise you can't get a PhD in "Purina" or "Triple Crown" or "Buckeye" - so even if it seems like it's big companies dictating what goes into their formulations, their products are created by those who truly know the nutrition needed and spent MANY years in school to understand digestive physiology. Every single day I work with horses well into their 30's that are doing amazing and being ridden after years of being fed these products. I promise, their owners haven't spent hours trying to perfectly balance their ration and I haven't spent countless hours doing this either. **Yes they all have balanced rations that I've evaluated, but I have accepted that the balance is perfectly imperfect**. What I mean by this is all nutrient requirements have been met and surpassed (to a small degree, remember too much of a good thing isn't good and sometimes it's toxic!) and I feel confident that I've given each horse I work with every nutritional tool possible to thrive. I also ensure that the forms of nutrients are at rates and in forms that will maximize digestion. So yes I am doing this work, but the way I do it still is not nearly as complicated as someone spending hours number crunching to perfect ratios.
3. Another option is to learn how to create a healthy, balanced and sustainable diet for your horse(s) without wasting precious time in the process. Learn this by taking my course, Equine Nutrition Essentials. The course is open now and for the foreseeable future, you can start today if you'd like!
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