THE DREADED FEED TAG by Mike Mehren Ph.D.

THE DREADED FEED TAG
BY MIKE MEHREN

Feed Tags; I know that subject strikes terror in the heart of men. Who in their right mind would ever bother to read the instructions for using a product? The feed tag does have some interesting information other than just instructions, and I hope you’ll use it.

All feed tags have a lot and/or batch number on them. The lot number refers to a single formula. This can be used to find out where and when it was made. This is true whether the feed is medicated or not. If a manufacturer has more than one production site, they use these numbers to identify the plant. Sometimes the lot number is just the date in reverse order. For instance: April 5, 2007 might be 02070504. The first two numbers would identify which batch that product came from. A plant may make 20 different batches of the same formula in a day, and each is identified separately. In this example, this bag of product came from the 2nd batch made that day.

Let’s say something terrible happened and this feed needed to be recalled. This just happened to a Canadian firm that manufactured pet food. Some compound in the cat food caused severe liver damage to cats. The manufacturer used their lot and batch numbers to identify the feed that was subject to recall. A feed recall is a complex process because the product may have been sent to distributors, who in turn delivered it to feed stores, who sold the product to the final consumer. Hopefully, each business that handled the product kept track of which lot numbers went to which customer.

If you have questions about a product, having the lot and batch number can make it much easier for the manufacturer to answer your questions. For instance, if the product looks or smells different from the product you purchased last time. It may be something simple, such as a different source of distiller’s grain, or calcium carbonate, or mono-dicalcium phosphate. The suppliers of those products all have their own way of making the product, and each will test or analyze the same, but each may look or smell different. Two mills may make the exact same product and it will look different for this same reason. However, it is possible that a mistake was made at the mill and your feed was labeled incorrectly.

The feeding directions can be used to estimate how much feed your animals will eat for any length of time. Two examples follow:

The list of ingredients sometimes leads to confusion. Feed manufacturers are allowed to use collective terms to describe certain feedstuffs. This is because they would go crazy changing labels every time a new screening or by product was used. Look at a couple of examples:

Forage Products	Roughage Products
alfalfa hay bermuda grass hay dry corn plant	ground almond hulls apple pomace dehydrated barley hulls
Grain Products	Processed Grain By Products
Corn Oats Wheat Barley	Corn flour millrun wheat Malt Sprouts Corn Distillers Dried Grains

It’s interesting to note that the only calls I receive about ingredients come from women. They obviously pay more attention to detail than we do! Looking at the wide variety of feeds that fall into these categories it’s easy to understand how difficult it is to compare products that are designed for the same purpose. One may list ‘processed grain products’ and be adding corn distiller’s grain while another manufacturer may be using corn flour. These two feeds are very different in their make up. The corn distillers is high in protein and fat, while the corn flour is low in protein and low in fat. Price is usually a good indicator of quality. A slight difference in cost may be due to the ability of the feed manufacturer to take a good position on a feed ingredient that has increased in cost. A great example would be a firm taking an early position on corn before prices started to rise. Performance of the product and reputation of the manufacturer are the best measures of value.

One more point about ingredients. Just because a vitamin or mineral is listed in the ingredients, does not mean that there is a biologically important amount of that ingredient. If a quantity is listed in the Guaranteed Analysis section of the label, then you know how much is present. Having a huge number of ingredients listed looks impressive, but check the guaranteed amount.

A friend and I were looking at a vitamin mineral supplement for people. She was impressed because it had everything our body needs. When we read the label, cadmium was listed as an ingredient. Cadmium is considered a toxic mineral for man and animals. It accumulates in the body, so long term ingestion leads to toxicity even at low levels. Let’s hope this supplement doesn’t have very much! Almost all of the so-called miracle supplements on the market for humans have a statement in large print that says ‘The FDA has not evaluated these statements’. If you try that stunt with livestock feed you can expect a visit from the State Dept. of Ag. feed inspector in the very near future. The ingredients used in livestock feeds must be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) or properly tested and approved as a feed additive prior to any use.

This probably won’t encourage you to read the entire label on feed you purchase, but there is a wealth of information that your wife or significant other can share with you just for the asking!

Michael J. Mehren, Ph.D. is a livestock nutritionist who’s been labeled when working in Hermiston, Oregon. He can be contacted by Email at mehrens@eotnet.net.