Vegetarian Feeds
The True Vegetarian Option
 We all know that horses are vegetarian animals they have evolved as grazers and for most horses grass, hay or haylage makes up the majority of their diet. As caring owners we tend to spend a lot of time assessing our horse’s diet, whether they are getting enough energy, enough vitamins and minerals or even too many calories! But we don’t very often stop to think whether what we are giving our horses is vegetarian. The mix or cubes you give your horse looks really appetising and as horses are vegetarian their feed must be too, right? - Wrong!
Many horse feeds contain gelatine-coated vitamins, but of course gelatine is an animal derived product. Gelatine is a by-product of the slaughterhouse industry, being made of protein originally from bones, cartilage, tendons and other tissues, certainly not the sort of the thing that you would expect to find in a sack of horse feed. But how do you go about finding out whether the feed you are giving your horse contains gelatine-coated vitamins? Many feed sacks state that they only use a vegetarian recipe which can be very confusing as this doesn’t necessarily mean that the vitamins in the feed will be free from a gelatine coating, or feed may be made in the same mill as products such as dog food which by its very nature will contain animal by products. If you want to be sure that your horse’s feed does not contain any gelatine coated vitamins look for the Vegetarian Society symbol on the feed sack which is your guarantee that the feed is free from any animal by products including gelatine coated vitamins.
With growing concern over the use of genetically modified ingredients The Vegetarian Society also stipulates that products with its approval must also be made from non-GM ingredients. Quality feeds will use non-GM ingredients, which are described as ‘identity preserved’ meaning that they are grown from non-GM plants and their traceability is assured. Identity preserved ingredients cannot be stored, transported or produced where they may come into contact with other ingredients, which may be from GM sources to ensure that contamination does not occur.
Soya Oil, its environmental impact and quality
Soya oil is a common ingredient in horse feeds, it is a nutritionally sound ingredient which offers many benefits. However not all Soya oil is the same, firstly there is the matter of where the oil has originally come from. The rainforests are being destroyed to make way for farm crops such as Soya and unless the Soya oil used in your horse’s feed has been sourced from elsewhere there is a chance that it may be from South America. Secondly there is the matter of how the oil has been extracted. Hexane, a potentially harmful distilled petrol product is often used to extract the Soya oil. When used, residues of hexane are left in the oil, causing a bitter smell and because the oil is heated more than once during the process its quality is much diminished. Look for Soya oil that has been pressed rather than hexane extracted to ensure quality.
Hidden Ingredients
Other hidden ingredients in your sack of horse feed may include waste products from the human food industry such as biscuit meal, the nutritional content of these types of products are highly questionable. Other ‘nasties’ such as binders in the form of by products from the wood and paper industry are often used to make pellets more durable.
What about the extra herbs that are often added to your horse’s sack of feed, surely these must be natural? You would expect so, but often artificial flavours or ‘nature identical’ products are used instead and it is a good idea to check whether real, natural herbs are being used.
Focus on Feeding Regulators
There are schemes in place to ensure that the consumer has confidence in where feed ingredients are being sourced from and that best practice is carried out during the manufacture of products. Below is a list of the different regulating authorities feed manufacturers can apply to be approved by to ensure your horse’s feed is vegetarian, safe and healthy.
• Vegetarian Society will only endorse products that are free from animal constituents and are formulated without genetically modified ingredients.
• UFAS (The Universal Feed Assurance Scheme) offers reassurance to where food has come from and that it is safe to eat.
• ISO 9001:2000 is the standard addressing best practice in the application of quality management systems.
• ISO 14001 helps ensure compliance with the extensive environmental legislative requirements. Companies which have registered to ISO 14001 have made significant reductions in environmental impacts, costs and energy usage.
• Non GM Ingredients are ingredients that are not genetically modified. At Allen & Page, we have a policy of only using non-GM ingredients in our mill and we only use premium grade vegetable oils - no recovered oils such as chip fat, no animal fats, and no fishmeal.
• The UKASTA Assurance Scheme is a code of practice for the manufacture of safe compound animal feeding stuffs. The code is a define set of principles for the production of safe animal feeding stuffs including the sourcing and evaluation of feed ingredients as well as manufacturing, storage, loading, transport and delivery of the feeding stuffs themselves.
Buying feed from a company with the above standards will mean that you can be sure it is of high quality and it has been made under strict standards. Ensure that all of the company’s products meet these standards, CHECK THE SACK BY LAW IT HAS TO TELL YOU.
As a matter of policy, Allen & Page has taken a positive attitude towards producing non-genetically modified feed that meets all of the above regulators very strict guidelines in our quality assured mill that is ISO9002 Approved, UKASTA Feed Assured, and Soil Association Licensed.
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