Behind the Bag: The Origins of Feed Ingredients

When it comes to equine feed, every owner wants to be sure their four-legged companions are receiving the best possible nutrition. While exploring the available options in the market, have you ever wondered where the raw ingredients that make up your horses’ feed come from? This is a great question, as the quality of a finished product can only be as great as the inputs used to make it. We’re excited to lift the curtain on this topic and give some insight into where our most utilized feed ingredients are sourced from. Who knows, some of them might be coming from farm fields local to you! Let’s dive in and see what’s really going into your horse’s feed bucket. 

Here at BUCKEYE™ Nutrition, some of our most frequently used feed ingredients include soybeans, oats, flaxseed, wheat middlings and beet pulp. Each of these inputs are used to provide different nutrients in the equine diet. Soybeans are used in multiple forms in our products, such as soybean meal, soybean oil, and soybean hulls, and are a great source of crude protein and essential amino acids, fat, and fiber respectively. Oats and flaxseed drive energy and calorie content higher, flaxseed doing so through fat content and oats through starch. Beet pulp and wheat middlings are both great sources of digestible fiber, and wheat middlings also help supply crude protein to diet. Our quality metrics require that only the highest quality ingredients are used to formulate BUCKEYE Nutrition products, and we work closely with our suppliers to ensure we are receiving top quality goods. 

Now that we’ve briefly talked about some of these ingredients and why we use them, where exactly do they all come from? BUCKEYE Nutrition is a single mill company, meaning all our products are produced at one factory, regardless of where in North America you purchase our feed. Every single bag of feed comes out of our plant in Dalton, Ohio, which is a great location in regard to finding the highest quality ingredients. Ohio is a mecca for crop production itself, and is close to the US Canadian border, allowing for import from Canada as well. 

Many of the ingredients mentioned above are sourced either from Ohio, Michigan or Canada. Our soybean meal originates from Ohio, with the large majority coming from within a 50-mile radius of Coshocton, Ohio. Our wheat middlings are predominantly grown in Ohio as well, with some coming from Michigan, alongside our beet pulp. All our flaxseed originates from Saskatchewan, Canada, with our oats being sourced from both western Canada as well as the US. 

All these different regions have one thing in common; some of the most fertile farmland in the world! Again, a finished product is only as good as its inputs, and the importance of weather, soil quality and expertise in management directly affect the quality of our raw ingredients. Things like weather and soil quality can be outside the realm of control for humans, but knowing geographically where good farmland is, and where weather is optimal, helps us source the best possible ingredients. The farmers in these states and territories working day in and day out to produce the highest quality crops available are what allows us to produce the highest quality horse feed on the market, and we are thankful for their partnership and dedication to their craft. 

 The quality of your horse’s feed truly begins with the raw ingredients that go into it. By sourcing ingredients from some of the most fertile farming regions in Ohio, Michigan, Saskatchewan and western Canada, you can trust that your horse is getting nutrition through science-backed, solutions-based formulas, designed to promote optimal equine health. The dedication of local farmers allows us to provide top-notch nutrition for your equine companions. Understanding where raw ingredients come from helps us all make informed choices when selecting a feed for our horses – ensuring they get the best nutrition possible to keep them happy and thriving.