Ep. 050: Top 10 Most Common Feeding Mistakes Horse Owners Make

Episode Notes

On this episode, co-hosts Dr. Tania Cubitt and Katy Starr discuss the top 10 most common feeding mistakes horse owners make according to Dr. Cubitt's experience as a PhD equine nutritionist. Starting off with a few honorable mentions, they countdown the list to the number one most common feeding mistake horse owners make. Minor spoiler alert - a number of these mistakes end up costing horse owners more money than they actually need to spend!  

We all know owning horses is not a cheap hobby - let's start the new year off right, re-evaluate our habits, and see what areas we can improve to keep our hard-earned money saved for a fancy new pair of chaps or show outfit instead 😉

Dr. Cubitt rounds out the episode by sharing a grand finale item that even Katy didn't know was coming! Any guess on what it is?

Have any topics you want to hear more about? Let us know at podcast@standlee.com.

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*This event is now closed - Standlee Equine Veterinary Nutrition Seminar registration link for veterinarians, vet technicians, and vet students:

https://eventory.cc/event/feed-the-need

On-demand, virtual participation is open from December 5, 2022, through January 31, 2023.

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• Check out the Standlee Barn Bulletin Blog
• Find more nutritional resources from Dr. Stephen Duren and Dr. Tania Cubitt at https://www.standleeforage.com/nutrition/
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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.*

Read full episode transcript

Katy Starr (00:01):

Hi, I'm Katy.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (00:02):

And I'm Dr. Cubitt. We're going Beyond the Barn. Come join us on this journey as we bust equine and livestock nutrition myths and interview some of the most intriguing experts in the country.

 

Katy Starr (00:15):

We’ll go behind the scenes of how premium Western Quality Forage is grown and brought to your favorite farm and ranch retail store. We're so glad you're here. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Barn and Dr. Cubitt, welcome to 2023.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (00:34):

It sounds so crazy for you to say that, but I am excited to be back.

 

Katy Starr (00:37):

Yes. So coming into the new year, this is a time for a lot of people to kind of be reflective on, you know, their habits, the things that they do, evaluate goals and things like that. And so today we're going to be talking about the top 10 most common feeding mistakes that horse owners make per your experience, Dr. Cubitt. And then obviously we have a few honorable mentions that we're going to be chatting about as well. But I think this will be really interesting to discuss because I don't know if people, you know, they always talk about, they get together in some of these Facebook groups and these forums and asking questions. So I think this will be a really great episode for people to kind of understand am I doing something wrong and is it avoidable? You mentioned that when we were kind of prepping for this, is this preventable or you know, how much control do we have over these types of things and how can we improve some of our habits?

 

Katy Starr (01:37):

So just a reminder for our listeners, any of the topics that we cover on the Beyond the Barn podcast, they are more generalized and not specific to any individual horse or any specific situation. So 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 talk to us directly with Dr. Cubitt or Dr. Duren on specifics that you would like to know. So we do, like I mentioned, have a few honorable mentions that I'd like to start off with today and then we will work our way down to kind of the number one on our list. So our first honorable mention, not offering enough free choice water. Can you talk to us about that Dr. Cubitt?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (02:20):

Yeah, it's really important that horses have free access to water at all times. That it's not too cold, not too hot, not dirty in a container that is not in a, and let's say scary location. So if you have a herd full of horses, it's not in the corner where the least dominant horse is going to feel like he's penned in when he is drinking. So all of that aside, and it's only an honorable mention because most people really do offer their horses plenty of water, but it's just the little side notes that we need to make sure that we're doing. And in the wintertime especially, trying to find ways, that it's clean. I know water and cold weather are two things that nobody wants to deal with, but we should be washing those water buckets out regularly, making sure it's the right temperature and that they always have access to it. If your horse isn't drinking a lot of water, maybe put a tablespoon of salt in your horse's feed just to encourage them to drink water.

 

Katy Starr (03:18):

And I mean obviously dehydration is kind of a common concern with that. But what else can happen specifically with a horse if they don't drink enough water?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (03:28):

Really it's dehydration and horses get dehydrated so very quickly. But the other thing that's really important to point out is especially in boarding facilities or facilities where there's multiple different types of horses, it's really important that you get to know what is normal for your particular horse in that particular season. So in the wintertime, if you're lucky enough that you've had this horse for several years and you've been through all of the seasons, if you know he typically drinks two five gallon buckets a day and all of a sudden he has sucked those down and it's only lunchtime and he wants another bucket, well something could be going on or that he hasn't drank those two buckets of water, then that might be something to investigate. And now there might be another horse in the barn that only drinks one bucket of water, but that's completely normal. So knowing what is normal for your particular horse is really, really helpful.

 

Katy Starr (04:23):

Right. That is most definitely true. And not having enough water moving through the digestive system if the horse is eating can be a concern for impaction colic, right? So next on our honorable mention is underfeeding.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (04:39):

And again, only an honorable mention. It's not really one of the things that people fall prey to because most of us, quite honestly overfeed our horses, but underfeeding is not a big deal. In the wintertime though, what I find is that people tend to lean on concentrates and grains to try and increase the warmth of their horse. You know, there's a kind of a a myth that gets around that if you should feed your horse corn or grain to keep him warm in the wintertime. So I would say in the wintertime, especially making sure that you're supplying enough hay and not underfeeding hay. If there's one part of the diet that we can sometimes fall into a little bit of trap, it's not feeding enough hay. So, underfeeding hay and in the wintertime when the weather gets colder, we want to make sure we're feeding a little extra hay just to help them stay warm.

 

Katy Starr (05:33):

And next honorable mention we have is not offering salt.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (05:38):

Horses should be offered free choice salt all the time. Some horses will eat it, some horses will lick on it occasionally. I typically just like plain white loose salt if that's a possibility. If you have salt out in a field, then maybe the harder, the compressed salt block will be better so that that it doesn't just turn into seawater when it rains. But horses should be offered salt. If you have one of those horses that seems to just annihilate salt blocks and just eat it down really quickly, that is when I will lean towards the Himalayan salt. Now the Himalayan salt, it's literally just dirty salt. It's salt that's got other minerals in it, but it's really hard cause salt is just sodium and chloride. So that's what salt is. So it's that there's anything else in it, it's just additional minerals. But the Himalayan salt is really hard so horses don't seem to be able to chew on it really.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (06:31):

If you have one of those that is like likes to chew the salt down. But again, if your horse doesn't really seem to bother with the salt or doesn't eat it, but you still feel like they're lacking in their water intake, then maybe I would put a tablespoon of salt actually in their feed. But for most horses I just want them to have free choice access to salt as well because the other thing is, every day there's salt requirement changes. If it's cold one day, hot one day, exercise a lot, sweat a lot, don't the next, their requirement for that salt actually changes based on the environment and the workload.

 

Katy Starr (07:08):

Excellent. I'm really glad that you brought that up. And our last honorable mention on this list is not feeding on a regular schedule.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (07:15):

Yeah. And this one it sounds silly because, oh you know, why do they need to be on a regular schedule? And again, an honorable mention because most horses are on a regular schedule, they fit into our schedule and we have to go to work or we're doing lessons or something. So they have the same feeding time, morning and evening. But if that deviated for some reason, maybe you had a late night and you didn't get out there early enough in the morning or there was a new barn help or something. Horses really do stress, they get used to that schedule. If you come at 6:00 AM every morning and then all of a sudden you come at six thirty or seven, there's actually been real research to show that that increases cortisol. And cortisol is a hormone that we measure as an indicator of stress. And so trying to stick to a really regular schedule year-round is very important.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (08:12):

And now people will ask about daylight savings or when we go in and out of it, spring forward, fall back, what do they do? Because that forces a schedule change. We all know when to turn the clocks forward and back. And so I would say if you have horses that really are more sensitive to that change, then for a few days prior to that, just start moving your feeding either forward or back so that when you have to change your clock, it's not a huge adjustment for them. You've already kind of started doing it over the last couple of weeks.

 

Katy Starr (08:48):

Right, slightly adjusted a bit for them. And then also just like people, right, there are some horses that probably get a little bit more anxious than others. And so something like that would probably really stress them out more than the average horse even so.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (09:02):

Because there's so many stresses that we can't take away from horses, trailering, riding stabling. And so, there are some horses that just, you know, life in general stresses them out. So anywhere we can kind of tweak to decrease our stress and feeding on a regular schedule is one of those.

 

Katy Starr (09:19):

So number 10 on our top 10 list is not enough turnout.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (09:25):

Now we get into, you know, these are the numbered ones, so not an honorable mention, this can be a problem. But as you mentioned at the beginning, when we were going through and ranking all of these, some of these, they're still a mistake that we make, but it's not really in our control. So there's a saying, there's no better supplement that you can give your horse than turnout. Giving your horse turnout, and it doesn't have to be turn out to pasture, just turnout, outside maybe with other horses is really, really healthy for decreasing their stress levels for their mental health. But unfortunately, out of our control, sometimes maybe there's snow on the ground, maybe there's not enough turnout where we're at, maybe the fields are really, really muddy. So there's a whole lot of other management factors that go into that one. It is, you know, ideally we want the to turn the horses out as much as we possibly can, but sometimes practicality gets in to the way and we can't. But it is still something we strive for. So I know it's not in everyone's control, but that's why we put it at number 10.

 

Katy Starr (10:33):

Well, and like you said, as much as we can, as long as it's within our power, if we're doing the best that we can, you know, that's what's best for your horse. So number nine on the list, feeding too much grain.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (10:47):

You know when I use the term grain and I should probably change this to concentrate cause you know, I don't like to use the word grain. I think it's causes a lot of misunderstandings, let's say. So when I use the term grain, I really should be referring to corn, oats and barley, actual cereal grains. And when we think about anything we buy in a bag from a store that's really concentrated nutrients, so I like to call that a concentrate. But anyway, all that aside, feeding too much. So let's say over the last three years, the most common question that I have been asked is how do I decrease my feed budget? How do I manage my horses a little less expensive? Cause you know, everything's going up and the first thing I ask people is, do you weigh your concentrate or your grain?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (11:31):

Do you weigh it? No, I have a scoop. And so sometimes without even knowing, people are feeding way too much concentrate or grain. Because if you and I, Katy were in the same space and we had a three quart scoop, let's say, and a bag of the concentrate in front of us or even alfalfa pellets or something, and I said, scoop me out a full scoop. And then we weighed that and then I scooped out a full scoop. I guarantee, I would bet money on it that our scoops weighed differently. So if I'm telling a customer that they should be feeding three pounds a day of product X, but when we weigh it out one day it's 3.2, one day it's 3.3, one day it's 2.9, you know, it averages out that we're feeding too much unintentionally, but we're really wasting money. Then the horse is gaining weight, well now we got to ride him more or we deal with the problems that are accruing because he's overweight. So I think again, sometimes we just feed too much because we feel bad and we want to feed them. Other times it's unintentional, but we really should take better notice of exactly how much we're feeding,

 

Katy Starr (12:46):

Being able to save yourself money. We've talked about this so much, horses are not a cheap hobby. So if you have an opportunity to save some money, that's a good way to do it. It's a good way to do it without cutting out what a horse actually needs.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (13:01):

Yeah, let's just say you have four horses in the barn and every day you feed a quarter of a pound too much. That's a pound a day because you've got four horses, right? And in 50 days that's another bag of feed that you just wasted.

 

Katy Starr (13:14):

Okay, number eight on our list. Paying more attention to grain or concentrate and supplements than the hay.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (13:23):

Paying more attention to the grain or the concentrate and supplements than hay. I think we've educated people pretty well that hay is the most important part of the horse's diet. But still some people feel, well you know, this is the hay that I have, I can't buy different hay. So you know, I'll focus on, you know, a slight difference in the sugars and starches in the grain or the supplement when, be realistic, if we're trying to decrease the protein in the diet or decrease the calories in the diet or decrease the sugars or the starches. You're feeding 15 to 25 pounds of hay to most of our horses a day or you should be, and three to eight pounds of grain, maybe two ounces of supplement. So small differences in the hay can have huge differences in the total diet. So I think that especially when there are things that we're trying to control in the diet. Look first at the hay, then at the concentrate, and then at the supplement it's just ranking them in order of the amount that you feed the horse.

 

Katy Starr (14:25):

Right. How large of a makeup of the diet itself, overall diet, yep. Excellent.

 

Katy Starr (14:31):

Standlee is hosting its first equine nutrition seminar with two hours of race approved CE credits available. This will be available on demand and virtually from December 5th, 2022 through January 31st, 2023. Equine focus practitioners, veterinary technicians and veterinary students are invited to join us for exclusive equine nutrition content through recorded presentations, a unique look into Standlee's process of going from the field to the feeder, and an interactive chat forum to ask equine nutrition questions. Dr. Steven Duren earned a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in equine nutrition and exercise physiology from the University of Kentucky and will be the key presenter on the seminar topics, including “Dietary Challenges for the Obese Horse or Pony” and “Nutritional Management of the Competitive Equine Athlete.” Check the show notes to find the link to register today.

 

Katy Starr (15:32):

And so number seven on our list is not feeding enough quality hay.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (15:38):

I think this can feed into the previous one a little bit because you know, ultimately I would love it if everybody was able to buy Standlee and that was a hundred percent of their hay that they provided to their horse. But we know realistically that a lot of people are going to use a local hay that is made in their area, that is a little less expensive. But what I would ask them to do to boost the nutritional value of the forage component of the diet is you don't always have to jump first to a grain concentrate, a grain or a concentrate to bring in more nutrition. First let's look at bringing in a better quality forage. So, whether it be alfalfa pellets or cubes, maybe you're buying the compressed alfalfa and using it now a flake a day, the timothy pellets. So using a bagged or compressed forage to boost the nutritional value of the hay is really what I'm getting at there with number seven, instead of saying, oh well you know, people should be buying better quality hay. People buy the majority of the hay based on budget and availability, but there's always ways that we can supplement on top of that.

 

Katy Starr (16:57):

Okay, number six on our list, feeding the wrong forage type or feed to the wrong horse.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (17:05):

And I would flip flop those and say pretty much the biggest mistake in that sentence is feeding the wrong feed to the horse. Well my trainer feeds the black bag so I'm going feed the black bag or you know, I feed senior feed. Really, I would say senior feed is probably one of the most misused feeds, but we'll get to that cause it's further up the list. Ideally, when I help clients choose a feed for their horse, I ask them how much of the product, of which product and I look at the calorie content and the protein and the fat, how much are you feeding now? Well I'm feeding three scoops, two scoops, whatever, and we work out in pounds how much that is. Then I look at the feeding rate. Oh okay, well you are feeding three pounds of product X, but ultimately to get all the vitamins and minerals you need to be feeding six pounds. So that means you're feeding the wrong product. Now we need to find a feed where you can feed three pounds a day. That's the feeding rate and that's going to then give you all the vitamins and minerals for your horse. So I kind of work a little bit backwards and I say, how much food does it take to maintain your horse's body weight, how you want it right now? Let's find a feed that matches that. So that's just a little trick that you can do.

 

Katy Starr (18:27):

And where I see a lot of this is especially with like new horse owners, that they've just really wanted, you know, their whole life to own a horse and they finally have this opportunity, and so, you know, they go and ask advice and you know, no ill will to them because they're, you know, trying to find help, which is great. But then we have people who maybe like to help too much but not in the right way. And so they're like, oh well this is what I feed my horse, like this, you know, feed this to your horse. It's like, like you say, every horse is different. And so we need to be very, very cautious about recommending and giving advice to people where you don't know their situation, you don't know their horse and everything. Okay, number five on our list. Switching feeds or hay too quickly.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (19:17):

Yes, good one. So I believe that most people know that you don't make rapid feed changes with your horse. We want to transition any concentrate or grain over a 10 to 14 day period. And that's because the bacteria that live in the horse's hind gut actually take a full 21 days to adjust to new types of food. Where I think the mistake is often made is with hay. That, oh I ran out, so I'll just go down to the store and buy some more and change it over. No, remember you're feeding 25 pounds a day of it to some horses. So small differences make huge differences in the total diet. So don't forget that if you're changing hay, whether it even be the same, some horses it's a different batch of the same hay cut from the same field, but maybe it's a different batch, they can be sensitive to even that.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (20:10):

So anytime you're making a hay change, don't forget to adjust slowly, try to be proactive and don't run out of your previous hay before you buy new hay or feed so that you can still do that transition. So I think that's what really practically mostly happens is, oh shoot, I ran out of feed or hay now I've got to pop down the store and buy, oh they're out of what I had, now I've got to buy something else. So again, it's one of those that sometimes, it’s out of our control and if that's the case, why don't you pop in a probiotic, say something like live cell yeast to help, but ultimately let's set ourselves and our horses up for success. And if you know you're getting to the end of your feed or your hay, make sure that you're buying before you run out.

 

Katy Starr (20:56):

Right? Just keep an eye on that. Yeah, for sure. And so number four on our list, feeding senior feed when it's not needed.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (21:06):

Yeah. And this one really deserved its own spot and I know we touched on this earlier, but senior feed is the most misused feed on the market because it's very high in fiber because old horses, a true senior horse has very poor teeth. So we can't eat a lot of long stem hay. Some of them can't eat any long stem hay. So as nutritionists, when we design feeds for those particular s, they still need to eat that fiber but they just can't grind it with their teeth. So now we're putting a lot of fiber into these feeds and you have to feed very large quantities cause just because he is old doesn't mean that his fiber requirement changed. He still needs to eat one and a half to two and a half percent of his body weight in dry matter or fiber. So senior feeds are very dilute in nutrition, very high in fiber because we know that we're feeding it like we're feeding hay and we're feeding, you know, eight to 15 pounds a day of it.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (22:04):

Now most people that buy senior feed do not feed eight to 15 pounds a day of it cause their horse either isn't old, can still chew hay, and so they're feeding three or four pounds a day. Well, we're really just short-changing them on all the vitamins and minerals they need. So ultimately there's no age a horse becomes when they need a senior feed. A senior feed is really for those horses when their teeth start to deteriorate. It could be 15, it could be eight, it could be 20, it could be 25, there's no age. But it's just really about dentition.

 

Katy Starr (22:39):

And number three on our list over supplementing with the wrong nutrients.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (22:44):

And this kind of comes to not weighing your feed, not knowing exactly how much you're feeding, randomly buying supplements that maybe you saw on the internet or your trainer feeds or your friend feeds, but we don't really know whether they're doing anything or you're doubling up because this supplement has a lot of copper in it and that supplement has a lot of copper in it and there's an ample copper in my hay and now I'm feeding a feed that's also got copper in it. So, you know, I think that that's just a trap we fall into. We're trying to do the best for our horses, but we buy a coat supplement and we don't realize when we look at the ingredients, oh look at all these other things that are in here.

 

Katy Starr (23:27):

And I think if you have the means, I think this is a, a good area where it just would be very beneficial to work with a nutritionist because really if you're spending all this extra money on supplements that may or may not be even working, just the long run, how much it's really going to save you. If you can have somebody working with someone like you, Dr. Cubitt, that could really save you money in the long run. And you know, we're always looking for ways to cut costs when it comes to owning horses. So that's a, that could be a big one right there. Number two on the list, getting down there is overfeeding.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (24:06):

And I think we've touched on it several times throughout as well, is we talked about feeding too much grain. We've talked about, you know, over supplementing with the wrong nutrients, they all feed into overfeeding. A lot of our horses unfortunately are overweight. It's okay if you are not riding your horse as much as you had been in the past, to cut back on the amount of concentrate that he's getting. This is where something like a ration balancer becomes really valuable because if that's always your base and then we build from there, maybe using alfalfa or using, you know, some other feed just to get some more calories, you can take away the calories without taking away the base vitamins and minerals. Make sure your diet is always balanced for vitamins and minerals, but you don't always have to feed them year round the same amount of calories. In the wintertime, if you live in a cold place and you don't have an indoor, it's totally fine that you're not going to get out there and ride as much as you were before. Don't be afraid to change your horse's diet though.

 

Katy Starr (25:09):

And number one, drum roll feeding by volume. So in scoops and flakes, as a lot of people refer to it as, and not weight.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (25:21):

And I think this culminates why the previous happened. Like we've talked about this throughout too much grain, over supplementing overfeeding. This is the reason why primarily it happens. And I do actually have a grand finale. You don't even know about this one Katy, I'm going to throw it in there. You've been alluding to it, but I think it's really the biggest problem that we have. But anyway, this one feeding by volume, scoops and flakes and not actually weighing the product. The feed board says feed three scoops a day and everybody's scoop is different. Every person that feeds, even you today, oh, I'm feeling strong, I'm a bit heavy handed tomorrow, I'm not. So ultimately, do you have to weigh your feed every single day, every time you feed for your 50 horses? No, but let's make sure that when we're at the beginning and we're developing our feeding program and then routinely throughout the year, we have a day where we're just going to, we're going to weigh it all again and we're going to make sure that we redraw the line on the feed scoop again.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (26:25):

And maybe if we've got multiple people feeding that we all come together so that we all are consistently doing the same thing. That someone's not totally shaking the scoop down and really filling it. I love recipes. I love to cook. I love recipes that give weights and not a cup of flour. Okay, go do this in your kitchen, right? Go get flour, get a cup and bang it down and fill it up and keep banging it down and now weigh that and now just scoop it and get your knife and scrape across the top so it's level and then weigh that. Now scoop it and don't level it across the top. Just call it you know what it is and weigh every single one. Someone might consider a cup of flour, but they're going to weigh completely different and they'll completely change your recipe. It'll be dry, it'll be wet or whatever.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (27:22):

So same thing, the other thing is with hay, hay is kind of hard. That's bigger. Who has a bigger scale? All the bales are different. This is one where I say start to feel the flakes, then you'll know it feels a little heavier. Okay, if I have a bit of an estimate, this feels like five pounds, this feels like three pounds, this feels like a pound. Even if you have some hand weights. Go to the thrift store. Someone's always selling hand weights, especially often new you when they just say wanted to exercise and then they're like, ah, I don't want to do this anymore. selling weight.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (28:00):

Or got them for Christmas, I don't need those. And if you had like a one pound, a three pound and a five pound little dumbbell and so someone could hold the hay, feel the weight. Ah, yeah, okay, that's what, this is a around about. What this is. Just getting a feel for those weights I think is important.

 

Katy Starr (28:15):

Well, and you start paying attention to that more in relation to its weight. Like you said, if you weighed a few times and whatever with, if you get a new like supply or whatever, just like when you're driving around and you're thinking about buying a certain car, all of a sudden you see those cars everywhere. But before you never saw that car. But you start paying attention to certain things, it just kind of allows you to focus in on that a little bit more. So what is your grand finale?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (28:42):

Okay, so my grand finale, you've alluded to it a couple of times and it's really part of the disclaimer that we have at the beginning of every one of our podcasts. And people don't intentionally do this. They try their hardest to feed their horse the best possible way and get all the information that they possibly can about feeding their horse correctly. But unfortunately, sometimes there's too many cooks in the kitchen, to use a cooking reference. And we're going on 15 different Facebook groups. We're asking our trainer, we're asking our friend, and then we have, so this week alone I've had three or four different emails with a person that is just totally overwhelmed because they read this here, then they read something else that was conflicting somewhere else. And then a group that they're in that they love said something completely different and then their trainer said something different and they're like, I am lost.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (29:36):

I don't know what to do. What you need to do is feel free to, to look around and research and look at all the information, but ultimately you have to have people on your team that help you answer the question. So my horse for the first time ever has gotten Laminitis, right? We’re still in the winter, but spring's coming up and I'm sure we'll talk about it more later on. And I don't know what to do and it scares the living daylights out of me. So I am online searching everything I can about how do I treat a horse with Laminitis or what do I do? I guarantee you there are all kinds of wives’ tales or myths out there and everybody's going to have their own 2 cents worth to throw in. But like you said at the beginning in our disclaimer, be careful giving advice to people when you don't know their whole story.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (30:28):

And what we talk about, this is very generalized, and we'd love it if you contact us so that we can hear your whole story and communicate with your vet. So ultimately be wary of asking for unsolicited information, getting information from the internet. What I would encourage you to do is have a good relationship with your vet. Have a good relationship with a nutritionist or your feed rep. Put people on your team that you can trust. You have a farrier, you have someone that does dental work, maybe you have a body worker. Put people on your team that you can trust and ask them first. Then they're a sounding board too. I read this, I heard this, I saw this in a group, what do y'all think? And hopefully if it's somebody that has your best interest, they'll say, disregard that. Ooh, that sounds like something we can investigate. So I think that the grand finale is we try so hard but be careful taking advice from everyone at the same time.

 

Katy Starr (31:27):

That is such a good one. I'm so glad that you thought to mention that because this is something that's I think helped us in the sense of doing the podcast quite a bit is because we've encountered a lot of people that have those experiences of reaching out to others, kind of blanketed like, Hey, I just got a horse, what do I do? And then they just kind of spew everything at them not knowing anything about their situation or the horse or anything. So yeah, that was so good. I'm really glad that you brought that up. And another thing before we wrap this up, I actually wanted to mentioned that I was kind of looking at this list and noticed there's at least five things on this list. Somewhere around five, that are related to money or overspending. A lot of the mistakes that we, you know, are preventable on here...

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (32:20):

They cost us money. Yes.

 

Katy Starr (32:21):

And that's a huge complaint when it comes to owning horses. So just imagine if we kind of honed in on some of these and really just, if you're going to do anything in 2023 and you're a horse owner, kind of evaluate, you know, the layout maybe of some of these questions. Check off like, how am I doing on some of these?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (32:41):

This is a good checklist. Fine tune. Yeah, fine tune because horses eat so much. So again, small mistakes make huge differences overall. And most people, to be honest, don't just have one horse. Horse needs a buddy. Oh, I saw another one. I like. Maybe you've got three, four, five horses, or maybe you've got heaps more. And then it's just compounding and it and your small mistake is exponentially a huge mistake now.

 

Katy Starr (33:06):

Excellent. This was a great episode. I'm really glad that we talked about this topic. I feel like it's a great way for us to start the new year, get ourselves on, you know, the right foot in everything. As we head into 2023. To our podcast listeners, we just want to thank you for being on here with us, following along and learning. Feel free to reach out to us if you guys have any questions or topic ideas at podcast@standlee.com. And of course we love hearing from you. So if you listen on Apple, jump on there, give us a review, rate us just so others can discover our podcast and see if it's something that would be beneficial for them as well. So until next time, Dr. Cubitt, thanks for being here today.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (33:50):

Thanks so much Katy.

 

Katy Starr (33:52):

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.