Read the Label

Have you checked the ingredients on your animals’ feed? You might be surprised what’s in there. You’ve no doubt noticed that grain prices have increased cost for livestock feed. This, in turn, may have you searching for the cheapest feed out there. But what seems good for your pocketbook may not be so good for your animals. And, in the long run, it isn’t good for your pocketbook, either.

Stretching Dollars

Livestock feed producers, and this includes many popular national brands, make their profit by creating a product as cheaply as possible. To boost profit, they stretch that high-cost grain by adding fillers, which are less-expensive ingredients that bulk up the weight of the feed but provide no nutritional benefits to your animal. Straw, rice mill, soybean stubble, cottonseed hulls, corncobs, peanut hulls and citrus pulp are among products often added as inexpensive fillers to livestock feed. “Cereal by-products,” is another frequently used filler, but what that consists of is anyone’s guess — Oat hulls? Wheat middlings? — because it might vary in the factory from day to day, depending on what’s available. And because cereal by-products could consist of any number of ingredients that are not listed individually on the packaging, you’re really not sure what you’re feeding your animals. That also means that when you pay for a 50-pound bag of feed, you’re also paying for ingredients that have little to no nutritional value for your animal. For example, corn stalks, peanut hulls, soybean stubble, wheat straw and cottonseed hulls are among fillers with the least-digestible nutrients. Because fillers create the need for animals to eat more to get the right amount of nutrition, you end up buying more of those 50-pound bags. And that’s not good for either your animals or your pocketbook.

Finding Proper Feed

When you’re choosing food for your animals, be sure it has the proper ingredients required to keep your animal healthy and nutritionally sound. Read the ingredients label and steer away from feed that has a long list of fillers. Instead, you want a quality, nutrient-dense feed that is properly balanced and highly digestible so your animal will absorb the nutrients he requires. You may have to read several brands’ ingredient labels until you find one that meet your standards. A local brand may be your best choice. They sell to friends and neighbors, so a local brand is more likely to offer the highest-quality ingredients. That means when you buy a 50-pound bag of feed, you’re paying for 50 pounds of nutritious ingredients, and not fillers. You’ll be rewarded with healthy, bright-eyed animals that maintain their peak condition, whether they’re supplying you with eggs, competing in the show ring or taking you on a trail ride.

Only the Best for Your Animals

At Agsentials, our passion is animal health and wellness. We want what’s best for our customers and the animals they love, so you’ll find only the finest and highest-quality ingredients in our feeds. We also give our feed something extra by adding essential oils, which have a proven track record of restoring and maintaining health. Our animal feed products bring this vast history and rich legacy of using natural, earth-given remedies to grow healthier, happier animals.