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Topic: Dynamite Products ??? (Read 4097 times)
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Kim Turner
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Posts: 39
The journey... That's the reward!
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Does anyone out there use the Dynamite Feed Products
for horses ? After reading everything I could in regards to
Equine nutrition, I find that I am as confused as ever.
A lot of what they say seems to make sense, but I am always
a bit leary of "pyramid-type" marketing. Any input anyone ?
Thanks !!
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Tannenwald Trakehner
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TANZBRISE by Windfall out of Tariana
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Oakstable (uses or used...) them.
I too dislike the MLM (technically not a pyramid, but similar) business model they use. It seems that most users become distributors in order to not pay gargantuan amounts of money for the feed, so this topic has the potential to become very commercial. Let's not get into too much "pitching" here please (as I momentarily put on my "Boss Mare" hat). Actually, if you guys want to talk about it by PT that is cool, or email privately.
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Tannenwald Trakehner
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TANZBRISE by Windfall out of Tariana
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OK, Sally, just to be clear in the interest of fairness, let's define pyramid, MLM, and network marketing.
Network marketing is any marketing program which relies on a "network" of distributors. MLM is network marketing, but not all network marketing is MLM.
Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is, as the Federal Trade Commission describes it, "...a way of selling goods or services through distributors. These plans typically promise that if you sign up as a distributor, you will receive commissions -- for both your sales of the plan's goods or services and those of other people you recruit to join the distributors. Multilevel marketing plans usually promise to pay commissions through two or more levels of recruits, known as the distributor's 'downline.'"
In FTC v Equinox http://www.amquix.info/pdfs/equinoxcmp.pdf, the FTC defined a pyramid scheme as:
"Pyramid scheme" means a sales scheme, Ponzi scheme, chain marketing scheme, or other marketing plan or program in which participants pay money or valuable consideration to the company in return for which they receive:
the right to sell a product or service; and
the right to receive in return for recruiting other participants into the program rewards which are unrelated to sale of products or services to ultimate users.
For the purposes of this definition, "sale of products or services to ultimate users" does not include sales to other participants or recruits in the multi-level marketing program or to participants' own accounts.
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In a speech by Debra Valentine, FTC general counsel (http://www.ftc.gov/speeches/other/dvimf16.htm), she distinguishes pyramid schemes from legitimate MLM: "MLM's have a real product to sell. More importantly, MLM's actually sell their product to members of the general public, without requiring these consumers to pay anything extra or to join the MLM system."
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Whatever Dynamite's model is, the people who have signed on as distributors are the ones who are in the best position to know. And perhaps my experience with this is too narrow, but my perception is based on the fact that I haven't talked to a person who used the product who was not a distributor. And when I looked into buying a bag of feed with which to transition a horse who was heading off to a Dynamite barn, the price for me as a non-distributor was in my perception, very expensive--something like $40+ for a bag.
It is what it is, I just don't want recruiting going on here. So let's put this one to rest, OK ladies?
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« Last Edit: February 25, 2005, 09:14:04 PM by Tannenwald Trakehner »
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Kim Turner
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The journey... That's the reward!
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Wow.... Sorry to get this all started.
I really just wanted to know if other horse owners had had
good luck in regards to their horses health and wellness when
using the Dynamite feeds.
I should not have been so cavalier with the "pyramid marketing" comment as I really don't know much about it other than what I have heard casually in the past.
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hhoetzel
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Hi Kim:
this is Holger. I have made some pretty bad experience with Dynamite products. And I am not talking about marketing. I am talking about the product itself.
E-mail me
Best regards- Holger
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hhoetzel
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Hi Sally:
Money back, that would be nice. That would be a lot of money too.
But let me start from the top. October last year I bought a beautiful four year old mare, which arrived in California in great shape. My trainer, groom and our horse “nutrionist guru voodoo chiropractic” are all Dynamite believers and against my better instincts I decided to go along with the program. My mare startetd collicking first time end of October and over the course of the next month three more times. These were colics we learned to deal with, vet came out, infusion, oil, the whole spiel. Pretty expensive already though. My Dynamite people prescribed Dynaspark and Probiotics and a lot of other expensive “holistic” product.
To make a long and ugly story short. My mare almost died on March 17th from a severe impaction colic. In hindsight the reasons are pretty obvious to me: free-feeding minerals didn’t give my horse enough sodium, didn’t make her drink enough. “Holistic” Molasses for Electrolytes (Dynaspark) gave her some nice ulcers instead of making her drink. The combination of hay and concentrated pellet food was so low in volume that she was always hungry and stressed about the food, which made her bolt her hay and didn’t help the ulcers either.
But you know I was lucky. 8000 $ later my mare had an amazing recovery from her surgery. And I am sure part of it had to do with the fact, that I finally put my foot down and stopped the Dynamite nonsense and went with a completely different and much more natural feeding program. Well my mare isn’t as railthin as she was when she was on Dynamite. But I don’t like my women anorexic anyway. So she’s happy and I am happy.
We just slowly started working with her again. And my trainer finally accepted the fact that I love her work as a trainer but do not want to discuss Dynamite with her anymore.
All the best - Holger
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fuzzy
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I've never used Dynamite stuff, but curious how many other changes were made to the horse's lifestyle at the same time? If the horse had the species' of plants in her forage change suddenly, and if the move to CA involved a dramatic climate change, those could easily be factors in your horse's case. However, I certainly attest to different horses reacting differently to differnt feeds. Perhaps your horse had an allergy to something in that particular feed. I've got one who does great with alfalfa, and one who gets goofy as a bed-bug on it. I've also seen horses who will colic if they DON'T get thier daily alfalfa, and others with allergies to it - plus a few ponies who can't have it because it brings on laminitis episodes. Too bad this had to be such an expensive experiment, but at least you've found something that works for you. Good luck 
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Tannenwald Trakehner
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All of that makes sense, fuzzy. But the horse in question is one we sold, so I am very familiar with this particular situation. She had never, EVER, had any instances of impaction or any other colic in the first 4 1/2 years of life. She has been returned to essentially her pre-sale and pre-transport diet and is now in similar good health.
This is not meant to be an indictment of the products or their manufacturer. Some people must be happy or they would not be so passionate about the products. The post above was made by one extraordinarily unhappy product user.
I won't say that all Dynamite products are bad. I think in many cases there are worse feeds on the market. In my opinion, they are almost universally tremendously overpriced. At least one is, in my opinion (as a horse owner, a chemist, and someone who does some private nutritional consulting), essentially useless for the purpose that a horseowner would purchase it.
But in my opinion the greatest danger flows from the marketing model. Users become distributors and dole out feeding advice to encourage sales of various products in the line, regardless of whether they have training in equine nutrition or even a basic understanding of the subject. Unfortunately, in some cases they seem to have no such understanding. I would not accuse these people in general of doing anything purposely to endanger horses, or to be acting with other than good intentions.
But the simple fact is that distributing the products earns users reduced pricing for their own purchases, as well as income from sales they make and from their "downlines." There is a *significant* margin on the products in order to accomodate commissions at so many levels. The danger comes when economic appeal can convert the "satisfaction" of a happy customer to the passion of a zealot.
The distributors I have spoken with defend the high pricing by saying that you have to feed so little of the product. However, the pelleted feed, priced at about $40 for 50 lbs, is labeled to be fed at a rate of 4.5 to 12.5 pounds per day (depending on the class and use of horse), similar to most commercial feeds on the market. At that rate, the pelleted feed alone costs $3.60-$10.00 per day.
In theory, the feed is formulated to deliver a certain level of nutrients when fed at the recommended amount. Feeding a fraction of the recommended amount of ANY commercial feed that is formulated to provide a target level of nutrition is like taking only a fraction of your own one-a-day multi-vitamin--obviously that would not provide you with the intended level of nutrients.
This particular horse was placed on a feeding program designed by the distributor and the several Dynamite devotees responsible for her care. In this particular situation, the people involved were feeding the horse only 1 pound of this pelleted feed "because you need to feed so little." The horse was in full training. As a result, the horse was NOT getting even the level of nutrients intended by the manufacturer, and was NOT getting the level or quality of protein she required.
The Dynamite devotees did not increase the amount of food or nutrition she was receiving commensurate with her work, her declining body condition, or her recurring impaction colics. She was given one pound of the feed each day and free-choice Dynamite minerals (of which she would have to consume several ounces per day in order to satisfy a minimal intake of trace minerals, which she did not do as she did not enjoy eating it). They said "The Dynamite products should be enough." She lost a considerable amount of weight and her muscle shrank away. She acted starved all the time. She gobbled her hay and ate her bedding when the hay was gone.
After the first impaction episode, her owner suggested adding salt to her diet to combat dehydration and encourage her to drink. The Dynamite devotees said "Oh, no, salt is not good enough. She needs Dyna-Spark electrolytes." Which contain only 4.62% sodium, some trace minerals, and mostly molasses, administered per label instructions at 1 ounce per day (at a cost of about $.75 per day). Not surprisingly, the problems continued.
When the horse finally underwent surgery for a massive impaction, her owner, in consultation with the mare's vets, confronted the Dynamite crew at the barn about the need to change her diet to something more mainstream and complete. They protested vigorously. In fact, they said that she was recovering well only because the Dynamite products had kept her in such good health!
Finally, he won out and the horse was returned to something as close as the geography could provide to the diet on which she had thrived for the first 4 1/2 years of life. She has recovered, gained condition, and is ready to get back into training. Better yet for her, she no longer acts like she is starving.
Again, I am not saying that all of these products are inherently bad. Some of them could be integrated into a workable, though in my opinion unjustifiably expensive, feeding program when used intelligently and with an understanding of a horse's nutritional needs. But the combination of the products, the way they were directed to be used, and the advice that was provided with them was in this case just plain bad.
I am also not saying that all horses who are fed these products are by definition in poor condition, or that their owners are not doing what they believe to be the best for their horses. There are people using this program even who post on this board and are happy with their results.
But I have talked to several other people who have been unimpressed with the condition of horses on Dynamite feeding programs. One trainer who had worked with several (from more than one owner) advised me that she had never had one sent to her that did NOT arrive rail-thin and seeming to be terribly hungry. She told me in confidence that, as a matter of course, she would change their diets and feed them according to her own program, with enough volume that they were satisfied and enough nutrition that they increased body condition and were able to enter training without losing condition.
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« Last Edit: June 07, 2005, 07:24:56 AM by Boss Mare »
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Joy
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You're right, Ingrid, this is not the place to "try" anyone, including people involved in network marketing.
You assume that "economic appeal" makes people into zealots. I strongly object. The Dynamite distributors I know sell Dynamite because they love the products, not because they're trying to make lots of money (though some do make money). I've had my horses on Dynamite for the last 6 years, now have only two mares left. I've never had a problem maintaining their weight, whether in work or not. OTOH, my horses ALWAYS have free choice hay or pasture, and I have to question the wisdom of giving only so much of hay--4 flakes, 5 flakes, whatever--which is often the policy at certain barns. I had one mare several years ago that I had to move to another barn because they REFUSED to feed her more than 4 flakes a day, even though she was losing weight. This was a 16.1 hand Trakehner mare, and she needed more than that. I brought extra hay until I could move her. I don't think it's a good idea to substitution grain and molasses for hay, so I feed only a little grain, no sweet feed, unless they're in work.
The marketing model, IMO, is no worse or better than any other--except for the person to person contact. In the usual marketiing model, markups are generally 70-100% over wholesale. With a multi-level marketing model, instead of seeing it from one end of the pricing, you see it from the other. IOW, you see the retail price, decide to buy at wholesale, so you see a discount, rather than maintaining a storefront and marking everything up. Dynamite has excellent products, and as anyone knows who has tried to find organic and chemical free products, they are ALWAYS higher in price than other products. I can buy organic oats here in Maine for 2-3X as much as the usual price, depending on how far they're coming.
You get what you pay for in quality. The Dynamite people that you spoke of were NOT following the Dynamite program, and it doesn't sound like they were very knowledgeable about the products.
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Tannenwald Trakehner
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You assume that "economic appeal" makes people into zealots.
You're right, Joy. I am assuming that it is the economic appeal that is doing it.
I do not dispute your results with your horses and whatever combination of foods you are feeding, and do not claim that your horses are the only ones doing OK.
I also do not dispute what other people tell me about horses, on Dynamite programs and owned by Dynamite distributors, that they have seen and handled who have been underweight and hungry. Holger's horse is not an isolated incidence.
I hear as much about hungry horses on this program as I do healthy horses, and I am not digging for dirt. I really didn't care one way or the other about the products, I have no agenda, and I couldn't afford to feed a herd with that line even if I cared to. As I told Holger when he bought Diva and told me about his new trainer and crew's devotion to Dynamite, I was not a fan of the line but there are many roads to Rome. He and I would both be happier if the experience with his Dynamite distributor et al and our girl had gone differently. It would have been ducky if she had not had to take 3 months out of her training during her Futurity year. And I thank God that and lost money appear to be the extent of the permanent damage. Holger came very close to losing this mare who is very dear to him for personal reasons and truly a one-of-a-kind from our program. Talking with him during all of the colic episodes and then the surgery and hospitalization, and sharing his pain, absolutely broke my heart.
To be honest, I don't know how I got into this discussion. I tried to stop it at the beginning. I resisted saying anything even while Diva was suffering under the program that her barn's Dynamite distributor and entourage were using, even when Holger had to consider removing Diva from their care in order to coerce them to let her be changed to a diet approved by her surgeon. Now even Oakstable has apparently committed to pursuing the subject with Holger via email.
But as the discussion has dragged on, I couldn't help noticing that distributors all over the Internet are promoting a "basic Dynamite program" which is apparently not the same as the company's official basic program. If I can see that, as a disinterested person, surely the people behind the company can. I don't know how the people in charge could NOT know that so many distributors are incorrectly advising the use of their products on that very fundamental level.
Probably everyone reading is as sick of the subject as I am by now. You have your opinions and that is fine. If the products are great, and if you don't think they are overpriced, fine. We can certainly agree to disagree. I won't say another thing.
So please, speak your piece and then we'll be done, OK?
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« Last Edit: June 06, 2005, 11:04:32 PM by Tannenwald Trakehner »
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Joy
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I agree, Ingrid. It's time to end the topic. I can certainly understand why you would be upset. You bred a fantastic mare, and to see her taken out of action is awful. I've already said my piece, so yes, let's let it rest. Thanks for the opportunity to air both sides.
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