Ask the 'Feedlady' - Arlene Atkins, Equine Specialist

06/23/2025

🤠 joke!
Did you get it?

06/14/2025

Heads Up! We’re Closed Monday for Inventory
Need feed? Stop in TODAY! We’re open Saturday from 8 AM to 12 PM—Stock up before the weekend’s over!

06/11/2025

Feed them the Freshest - Feed them FCA feeds!

05/18/2025

None of us are too good or too educated to pick up a pitchfork and clean stalls!

It’s that time of year again….graduation season.

Each year we see colleges & universities sending newly minted graduates off into the world in search of jobs & career opportunities….& then the posts begin.

“Looking for a position on a farm, I have a degree in XYZ, not looking to clean stalls.”

Sigh.
The horse industry is a funny one for a few reasons: the horses don’t care if you have a degree, the messes still have to be cleaned up, & the more important you become, the more hours you will have to work. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? You know the next part of that statement: life isn’t fair. If you want to own a business, there are a lot of steps between graduation & your final form as a farm owner. Then comes the dirty little secret….

If you’ve made the conscious decision to join the equine industry, there’s a good chance that you’ll end up with a pitchfork in your hand at some point. Nobody is too good to clean stalls, nobody is too educated to clean stalls.

I own the farm, I run the business, I breed & train horses. My degrees are still in the envelope that the University of Kentucky mailed them to me in…15 years ago. They’re not hanging on my wall…but these brand new DuraForks are!

So pick your favorite, & jump in, there’s plenty of work to be done. I call a turquoise one.

05/13/2025

Very true! 💜
I hope you are as fortunate.

04/24/2025

Farmers Cooperative has proudly sponsored Maryland High School Rodeo Association for over 10 years! The Youth are our future!

It's THANKFUL THURSDAY!!!!!

MDHSRA can't say thank you enough to all of the incredible sponsors who support our association.

We are kicking off the day with saying thanks to Farmers Co-Op. For over a decade, FCA has been supporting the MDHSRA. Contact Lisa or a dealer in your area for more information about FCA's fresh feeds for all species of animals.

04/16/2025

We can help you Fight Flies!!!
www.farmerscoop.com for a dealer near you

04/16/2025

Good tips

04/10/2025

Please stop saying- “they are skinny because they are old”!!!

Let’s pretend you have a toothless great grandma and it’s your job to take care of her.

What if all you handed her to eat day after day was a whole raw cabbage?

What if, when she struggled to bite into it and chew and swallow, you just shrugged your shoulders?

What if you did this for months and watched her get skinnier andd skinnier?

You’d be, at best, a big jerk.

It wouldn’t take a nutritionist to tell us that our human meemaw isn’t getting the food she needs to survive…so why is adjusting nutrition such a hard concept to grasp when it comes to our senior horses?

As our human relatives get older, we (hopefully) cater to their aging bodies, dental issues, and caloric needs.
We provide adequate and adjusted nutrition, understanding that this means access to good foods that our senior citizens can consume efficiently.

As our human grannies age, we don’t just throw tough food they can’t chew at them and then say “well she’s old, after all, that’s why she’s skinny”.

If you let your grandma starve in this way, it would be a crime.

Yet, “she’s just old” is an excuse we hear time and time again when standing in front of an emaciated old horse.

The reality? These old horses usually aren’t being given appropriate nutrition. It can be expensive to feed a senior horse, no doubt. This added cost also adds to the likelihood that a senior horse will not receive palatable food in many situations, unfortunately.

It does not, however, change the fact that what is required to survive is simply what is required.

Sure, incurable medical reasons could explain poor body condition. Heart failure, cancer, etc could absolutely cause a senior horse to be skinny. Of course we’ve seen those cases.

The thing is though, we’ve found that the majority of the people who tend to lean heavily on the “it’s an old horse that’s why it’s skinny” excuse are the same people who feed a slimy and blackened round bale to the grandma horse with no molars.

She’s not skinny because she’s old.

She’s skinny because she’s being starved.

Stop justifying her condition by blaming her age.

More often than not, we can rule out extreme medical conditions with a vet exam (and follow up diagnostics if needed) and find that the majority of old horses who come here are skinny simply because there was a lack of palatable, nutritious food in front of them before their arrival.

So please, let’s all agree to stop saying “they are skinny because they are old”.

It’s really as asinine as giving great grandma a raw cabbage and pretending like you’re not a neglectful caretaker when she loses weight.

Feed your senior horses like they are seniors.
Help them thrive in their last years.
Stop normalizing emaciated old horses.
Please.

If you have a senior horse you are proud of, please post a photo in the comments! The more we can show healthy seniors at a good weight, the more we can normalize THAT instead!
📸 ❤️ 🐴

(Pictured is Edna, a mare who came to Bella Run Equine a couple months ago, who the owner claimed was “skinny because she is old”. Now that she’s being fed appropriately, she is coming right along. You’ll see her glow-up soon.)