GET FREE EDUCATIONAL ACCESS TO FEEDXL
DO YOU STUDY OR TEACH EQUINE NUTRITION?
Here at FeedXL, we are proud to be sponsoring registered academic institutions, including Universities, Equine Colleges and Technical Schools around the world, through free use of FeedXL for their students.
Educators can contact us directly by completing the form below. Students please direct your teacher to this page and have them complete the form below to request FeedXL access for your course.
A POWERFUL HORSE NUTRITION TOOL AT YOUR (STUDENTS’) FINGERTIPS
HOW TO USE FEEDXL FOR TEACHING
FeedXL can be used in so many ways for teaching. It is great for teaching problem solving, to help your students learn to look at symptoms, take information from ‘owners’ and combine this with what they see on a diet analysis to diagnose nutrition-related problems.
Some examples of how you can use FeedXL for teaching:
- FeedXL can be used to have students formulate suitable rations for various types of horses, using both commercially prepared feeds or a mix of their own raw materials.
- It can be incorporated into forage analysis exercises where FeedXL is used to assess what a forage does and does not contribute to a diet and to explore the many ways feeds and supplements can be used to add the nutrients needed to ‘balance’ what the forages can’t provide.
- You may like to analyse commercially available feeds or raw materials and then use these analyses as part of a ration formulation exercise.
- Or it can simply be used to show students the tools that are available to make their life as equine veterinarians or nutritionists easier once they graduate and have real-life nutrition situations to handle.
So many students get overwhelmed by all the math in equine nutrition that they put it in the ‘too hard basket’ for the rest of their careers.
Our hope is that with FeedXL, your students will be less confused and more focused on learning the valuable nutrition concepts you will teach. Set your students up for a life of enjoying learning and practising nutrition in a way that is simple and yet modern and scientific.
GET THE MOST OUT OF FEEDXL FOR TEACHING
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
By using FeedXL for educational purposes under a free access license, you agree to the following terms.
If you have any questions feel free to contact us at support@feedxl.com.
1. GETTING SET UP
To activate free educational access, we’ll need:
- Your course start and end dates
- The number of students needing access
- Location of your staff and students (especially if the course is online or spread across multiple countries)
- A list of student email addresses (if possible) — this helps us track coupon usage. If that’s not feasible, please ask students to use their institutional email addresses when signing up.
2. STUDENT SUPPORT
We ask that you nominate someone from your team to act as your FeedXL support person.
- This person will provide first-line support for students using FeedXL.
- Our team is here to help with unusual issues, but we ask that students first contact your designated support person.
- We’re happy to give early access to this person before the course begins so they can get familiar with how FeedXL works and what students will be doing.
3. Using FEEDXL in your course
Eligibility
Free access is available to students and staff from registered educational institutions (e.g., universities, equine colleges, or technical schools).
Accounts
- Each student will have their own FeedXL account.
- FeedXL is cloud-based — no software to install. Students can log in from any internet-connected computer.
- Each student can add up to 5 horses, create 10 diets per horse, and access FeedXL for as long as required for their studies.
Custom Forage Uploads
- You or your students can upload custom forage analyses using the “Add my own forage” button on the Feeds page.
- If the entire class is using the same forage (e.g. in a lab or classroom setting), we recommend the instructor upload a template forage that students can copy and modify.
- If each student is working with their own forage sample, they’ll need to upload and manage it individually. We expect students to edit their own forages to update the values (always use the “as fed” values, not dry matter values). Pastures require our support team to update their nutrient values.
Managing Large Student Numbers
- If you are running a lab or tutorial where students will be using FeedXL in a similar time block, if at all possible reduce the number of students logging in and running diet analyses at the same time to no more than 100. This will ensure server stability and a better experience for everyone.
- Please provide us with dates and times when you will have large numbers of students using FeedXL at the same time. This will help us ensure you receive uninterrupted service and allow us to monitor the system in real time.
- Please ensure you provide a designated support person to your students to minimise demands made on our support team.
COMPLETE THE FORM BELOW TO REQUEST FREE EDUCATIONAL ACCESS
USE FEEDXL IN YOUR EQUINE NUTRITION COURSE
We have been using FeedXL for teaching applied equine nutrition to students in the veterinary science and animal science programmes at Murdoch University since 2008. Ration formulation workshops using FeedXL provide a terrific bridge between theory and practice, helping students consolidate their understanding.
Our students come from a wide range of backgrounds, ranging from extensive to limited equine experience, and activities based on FeedXL challenge the experienced students without overwhelming those still developing their understanding of the principles of feeding horses. The ration formulation activities consistently receive positive feedback from students in teaching and unit surveys. The software is intuitive to use, and we have received great technical support from the FeedXL team.
DR CAROLINE JACOBSON, BSc BVMS (HonI) PhD
