Most horse owners buy their feed from a local tack shop, a farmers co-op or a hardware store and it's usually a brand name like Purina or Nutrena. Here in Big South Fork Tennessee, we can go to a real feed mill with a real miller and see the feed made right before our eyes.
It's not easy to find TOP Milling in Oneida, even with a GPS (or especially with a GPS) but, once someone takes you there the first time and shows you the way, you won't want to go anywhere else.
The feed looks and smells so good that you could probably eat a bowl of it yourself, with a little skim milk.
Owner Bob Thompson, an Oneida native, has worked the land all his life, in one way or another. When the Stearns Coal and Lumber company in nearby Stearns, Kentucky was actively harvesting timber from "the Big Survey" or what is now Big South Fork National Park, Bob worked as a sawyer from the time he was 19 until he turned 30. He then worked as a farmer for the next 27 years.
He was approached, in the fall of 1984, to open a feed mill. He bought an old mill in western Kentucky and it took him all the next summer "to haul it over." He had a partner but, as so often happens, his partner lost interest after several years and, in the mid-1990's, Bob had to make a choice to work full time as the miller or close the doors.
Now there are almost no farmers left but business is thriving. His customers, he says, "are people like you, who love their animals." He sells feed for horses, cattle, pigs, goats, chickens, sheep, llamas and even a camel. He diversifies by providing one-stop shopping for other livestock essentials such as horseshoes, supplements, wormer and fencing materials.
He has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of nutrition and customizes the feed from batch to batch, adding higher fat content or more biotin as the animals' needs dictate, and he can make up special recipes for those with food allergies. The secret, he says, is that the feed has to be more pleasing to the humans than to the animals!
For information about Big South Fork real estate or horse properties in Jamestown, Tennessee, go to www.trailridersrealestate.com
There's also a lot of information about the are on Tennessee Recreational Properties' website.
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