What Are You Actually Paying For in That Scoop? Reading Horse Feed Ingredients Line by Line

One customer reviewed us in three words: “Expensive, but works.” Another told us she only bought the small bag at first, because she is skeptical by nature and it is not cheap.

Both are fair, and we would rather explain the price than talk around it. Most of us compare feed and supplements by the number on the sticker. But a price covers everything in the bag at once: the ingredients doing the job you bought it for, and the ones there to fill space, bind a pellet or make it taste good. Reading the horse feed ingredients line by line is how you tell them apart.

It matters because of what modern horsekeeping already did to the diet. The day fresh grass became baled hay, things came out of it. A good scoop puts specific things back, and the tag should show you what they are and roughly how much of the bag they make up.

One owner found this out the slow way. Her gelding was on a feed marketed specifically for building topline, and he still could not build one.

Start With the Two Parts of the Tag

If you already turn bags over before you buy, you are ahead of most of the feed aisle, and thank you for that. Two parts of the tag are worth reading.

The guaranteed analysis is the box of percentages: crude protein, fat, fiber, and the required minerals and vitamins.

States can test those numbers, so they are real, but they do not say where the numbers come from. Crude protein is the feed’s nitrogen content multiplied by 6.25. Some of that nitrogen is not protein at all, so the figure generally runs higher than the protein actually there. Two feeds can both print 12 percent and do very different things for a horse’s topline, which is one way a feed sold for topline can fall short of its promise.

The ingredient list runs by weight, greatest to least. That order is the most useful thing on the bag.

Reading Horse Feed Ingredients Line by Line

Picture a coat and hoof pellet with flax and biotin printed across the front. Turn it over, and the tag might read something like this, built from ingredients that turn up again and again on budget pellets and pelleted supplements:

Wheat middlings, soybean hulls, processed grain by-products, alfalfa meal, cane molasses, plant protein products, calcium carbonate, salt, vegetable oil, flaxseed, lignin sulfonate, biotin, artificial flavor.

The first three lines are most of the bag. Wheat middlings are the fine bran, germ and flour particles left after wheat is milled into flour for people. Soybean hulls are the outer skin of the soybean. Both supply fiber or calories, and both are inexpensive because another industry already paid to produce them. The third line is a category rather than an ingredient, and we will come back to it.

Alfalfa meal, calcium carbonate and salt are there for good reason. Cane molasses sweetens the pellet and helps bind it, which matters if your horse is metabolic. Lignin sulfonate, a byproduct of paper pulping, is a second binder that keeps pellets from crumbling to dust in the bag. The artificial flavor is there so the picky eater finishes the bowl instead of nosing it into the shavings. The vegetable oil is usually soybean or corn, both heavy in omega-6.

Now find the flaxseed. It sits tenth, after the salt, and that position tells you something. Salt is typically added to concentrates at around half a percent to one percent. Because the list runs by weight, anything named after the salt is usually present in a smaller amount than that. The ingredient on the front of the bag is a sprinkle.

What Can “Processed Grain By-Products” Cover?

An owner who used to work at a feed store told us that job was where she “learned just how unregulated the feed industry is.” The tag itself is regulated. What it is allowed to leave vague is where her point lands, and collective terms are the clearest example.

“Processed grain by-products” and “plant protein products” are standardized group names. “Grain by-products” can mean corn chops, wheat middlings or other milling leftovers. “Plant protein products” might be soybean meal in one batch and a cheaper protein in the next, and sources that match on paper do not always perform the same in the horse.

Group names let a manufacturer adjust the recipe as ingredient prices move, as long as the guaranteed analysis still holds. This is called least-cost formulation. A fixed formula uses the same ingredients every batch.

For your horse, a recipe that can change without notice is a feed change you did not plan. Extension guidance is to switch feeds over one to two weeks, starting at about 10 percent, and to bring your vet in if your horse is metabolic or prone to colic. If your hard keeper started walking away from the bucket and you could not work out why, the formula may be part of it.

One clue to look for: a tag sewn onto the bag usually means the formula can change. Ingredients printed directly on the bag are a good sign it is fixed. If you are not sure, email the company and ask.

What Does a Whole-Food Scoop Cost to Make?

Byproducts are not automatically bad, and our earlier piece, What Ingredients Are Hiding in Your Horse’s Feed?, goes through which ones can earn a place. Price is its own question. When inexpensive ingredients fill most of the bag, the bag can be inexpensive. When they are not allowed in at all, the scoop costs more to make. This is where that cost goes for us.

Human food grade. Ingredients come from the human food supply and are held to its safety and handling standards, which cost more to meet than feed grade.

Organic wherever available, wild-crafted where it is not. Grown without synthetic pesticides, or harvested sustainably where the plant grows on its own. Smaller supply, higher cost per pound.

Handmade in small batches. Omega-3 rich seeds like flax can go rancid once ground, which is why nutritionists recommend grinding fresh or using a stabilized product. Short runs keep milled ingredients moving instead of sitting in a warehouse.

Made in California at a living wage. People cost what they cost here, and we would rather pay that than move the work somewhere cheaper.

Then there is what we leave out entirely: grain, soy, corn, molasses, added sugars, GMOs, fillers, byproducts, and flavors of any kind. We are not trying to make the cheapest product on the shelf, and we will not add an inexpensive ingredient to lengthen a label or lower a cost. What is left is a smaller scoop where every ingredient has a reason to be there.

Is More Expensive Horse Feed Worth It?

Sometimes. A higher price proves nothing on its own. A premium tag can carry a long list of fashionable ingredients in tiny amounts, or duplicate something your horse already gets from another bucket. The same reading applies at every price, ours included: what each ingredient is, roughly how much of it there is, and whether your horse needs it.

The fairest comparison is cost per day. Divide what you paid by the number of days it lasts at the amount you actually feed. A $28, 50-pound bag fed at five pounds a day lasts ten days, so it costs $2.80 a day. A supplement fed at half a cup a day runs on a completely different clock, and comparing the two by bag price tells you almost nothing.

Your Feed Room Check: What to Look For on Every Bag

Pull every bag and bucket out where you can see the tags. The kitchen table works, and so does the tailgate. For each one, check off anything that applies.

• The ingredient advertised on the front is listed after the salt.

• The first three ingredients are byproducts, hulls or collective terms.

• The tag uses “products” or “by-products” names and is sewn on rather than printed.

• Cane molasses or “molasses products” appears anywhere on the list.

• It contains artificial or added flavor.

• It does the same job as something else in your feed room.

• You cannot say why your horse is on it, or it is fed because every horse in the barn gets it.

What your checks mean

One or two on a bag: Common. Make a note, and read that tag more closely next time you buy it.

Three or more on the same bag: Price that one per day first, against at least one alternative. Most of what you are paying for is likely bulk.

Molasses on anything, with a metabolic horse: Run the whole ration through our Diet & NSC Calculator to see what the sugar and starch add up to, and take the result to your vet.

Either of the last two: Start there. Taking a bucket out costs nothing, and every input you remove makes the rest of the program easier to read.

Start with the bag you have been buying the longest. It is usually the one nobody has read in years.

Next read: For what hay alone stops supplying once it is cut and stored, Beyond the Bale picks up from here.

References

• Anderson, K., “Basics of Feeding Horses: Reading the Feed Tag,” NebGuide G1403, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension, revised December 2007 (salt at 0.5 to 1.0 percent of concentrates, ingredient order by weight)

• Vandergrift, B., “Reading a Feed Tag, Part I,” Retired Racehorse Project, May 2022, updated January 2024 (group listings, grain by-products, sewn-on vs. printed tags and formula flexibility, guaranteed analysis testing)

• Walker, M., Silva, L., and Dillard, L., “Reading the Feed Tag,” ANR-1354, Alabama Cooperative Extension System, April 2021 (ingredient order by weight, 10 percent feed transition over one to two weeks)

• Davison, K., “Formulating Horse Feeds,” Land O’Lakes Purina Feed, via Russell Feed & Supply, March 2012 (least-cost vs. fixed formulas, protein sources differing in quality)

• University of Wisconsin Dairy Nutrient Knowledge Base, “Crude Protein” (nitrogen × 6.25, overestimates true protein)

• Thunes, C., “What Are ‘Wheat Middlings’ in Horse Feed?,” TheHorse.com, February 2019

• Janicki, K., “5 Facts About Flax,” TheHorse.com, July 2019 (rancidity, grind fresh or use stabilized)

• Mad Barn, “Sodium Lignosulfonate” ingredient profile (paper-industry pulping byproduct, pellet binder)