Curious to find out if your feeding regime is meeting your horse’s nutritional requirements? http://www.feedxl.com is offering a 24 hour free trial of their basic “lite” service. Plug in your data and see if your feeding your horse appropriately.

Feedxl.com makes recommendations based on your horse’s age, weight, body condition, workload and health. You enter in the amount and type of feed in his current diet (there are no “scoops” or “cans” so be prepared to list how much you feed by weight) and it provides a rudimentary analysis of whether the diet is sufficient in the areas of:

• Digestible energy
• Protein and Amino Acids
• Minerals
• Vitamins
• Total feed intake
• Forage intake

The “lite” version of the program doesn’t use enough parameters to really make a detailed recommendation but it does provide a good “back of the envelope” analysis. Certainly it would be a good starting point for people who are just starting to think about equine nutrition. I know plenty of folks who give their easy keepers a handful or two of grain but who never consider if that limited quantity of grain might provide an adequate supply of vitamins and minerals.

Would I use this instead of consulting a nutritionist? Probably not. Then again, I don’t have any problem working with the free nutritionists who work for the feed companies. Yes, they are likely to be biaised toward the feeds that they sell but then again, I’m already feeding those feeds. Twice I’ve had the nutritionists from Purina out to my barn and I thought they provided solid advice and they had the added benefit of looking at my horse and helping me evaluate him.

So, how did my horse’s feeding regime stack up to the Feedxl analysis? He’s getting just what he needs. Whew!