Here at Hubbard Feeds, Inc., we’ve been in the animal nutrition business for over 100 years. Our staff includes some of the nation’s top nutritionists and technicians.

With all this expertise, it would make sense for Hubbard to develop a nutritionally superior and perfectly balanced food for dogs, cats, equine and poultry. At least that’s what one of our staff members – who owns dogs, cats, horses and chickens – suggested several years back.

Those were the beginnings of Hubbard Life, our line of premium feed for the “other” animals in your life – dogs, cats, horses and poultry now, and later on, cattle, swine, sheep, goats and specialty animals.

During the product development process, we discovered that animal owners had many questions and concerns about health and nutrition. In response, we decided to create a forum – the HubbardLife.com Blog – where our experts can interact with you to provide information and advice.

We encourage you to follow this blog, and to comment on posts with your own ideas and experiences. Of course, we also encourage you to try Hubbard Life feeds for the animals you care about today.

A fresh flock of chicks require special care during the first 12 weeks of life and knowing a few quick tips will help you get them off to a great start.

Tender loving care is easy to provide the lemony-colored and impossibly soft arrivals but aside from your natural instinct, chicks have three basic needs that should be available to them at all times:

• Water
• Feed
• Shelter

Water is the most important nutrient. Poultry should have free access to clean, fresh water at all times. When starting day-old birds or after moving or transporting birds, give access to water before placing feed in the feeders. Water consumption will be 3 times as high when temperatures reach 100° F as compared to 50° F weather.

To make room for everyone, provide the following drinking space:

• First 4 days (per two brooders): 8 one-gallon founts, plus 1 automatic waterer.
• Five days through 12 weeks: 36 linear inches of water trough space for each 100 birds.

Water and feed are like a chicken and an egg: you can’t have one without the other.

Proper feeding encourages water intake, and access to clean, fresh water leads to feed digestibility. Hubbard Life offers feeds with natural grains and proteins balanced with vitamins and minerals to encourage optimum growth and performance. Formulated without any antibiotics, animal proteins and fats, these feeds are the wholesome way to provide excellent nutrition to your flock.

Feeding Tips:

• Allow 180 linear inches of hopper feeder space per 100 chicks, one day old through the 12th week (15 large hanging feeders or 20 small hanging feeders per thousand chicks).
• Do not allow feeders to run empty or stale feed to accumulate.
• Never feed any feedstuffs that are moldy, musty or suspect in any way.

Providing a warm environment to grow during the first 12 weeks of a chick’s life will enhance the experience and development of your feathered friend.

As a general rule, provide 1 square foot of floor space per chick, one day old through the 12th week.

Lights and Lamps:

All-night lights, equivalent to 15 watts per 200 square feet of floor space, will help prevent piling. Use dim lights for one to three weeks only.

Minimum room temperature should be 65 degrees F for the first two weeks. However, supplemental heat should be provided when chicks arrive. Temperature under the hover should be 90 degrees F. Decrease heat as chicks get older.

The saying, “put an old horse out to pasture” may imply that when a horse ages, little attention to nutrition is needed. But for those of us with senior equine friends, we want to provide our herd elders with the special care their age and condition requires.

Senior horses are a lot like their human counterparts. Older horses, much like older humans, have different energy requirements than their younger counterparts, primarily due to less physical activity. Digestibility can also be affected by age.

The most common concern with older horses is the animal’s ability to maintain body condition. This loss of condition is partly due to the older horse’s declining ability to digest fiber, protein and absorb phosphorus.

When feeding an older horse, extra protein (above 12%) and phosphorus (a minimum of .35%) will ensure the horse is consuming enough nutrition. And when it comes to pastures, good quality young green forage would be more readily digestible than forage that is extremely mature when it is harvested and yeast cultures are added.

When shopping for a senior horse feed, look for the following:

• Highly digestible fiber sources such as beet pulp and soyhulls
• Yeast culture for increased digestibility of the total ration, optimal fiber utilization and absorption of minerals.
• High levels of vitamin E, necessary to maintain a healthy immune system

One of the most important considerations with an older horse is general health. It is easy to assume that an older horse losing weight just needs more feed but since they are more likely to have liver and kidney disease it is important to have a veterinarian rule out any serious illness.

The vet should also do a routine check of your horse’s teeth. Horses do lose their teeth as they age and it is important to take care of the ones they have left. A horse that has lost a number of teeth will drop partly chewed wads of hay out of his mouth. This is called quidding and can be prevented by feeding hay cubes or pellets. If your horse has trouble chewing the cubes you can soak them in water, an especially nice treat in the winter if you use warm water.

Hubbard Life has developed a feeding program for each stage of your horse’s life. Hubbard Life Senior is formulated to meet the needs of your senior horse. The pellets have 13% protein and contain beet pulp as a source of fiber, so when fed at recommended levels no hay is needed. The pellets also contain yeast culture to increase overall digestibility, absorption and utilization of minerals and fiber.