English
Scott Cieslar founded Mad Barn 20 years ago on a mission to develop the best nutrition solutions for his horses. Unable to find a well-formulated supplement using high-quality ingredients at a fair price, he designed his own balanced mineral & vitamin premix.
From there, a business was born as more and more passionate horse owners came to Scott for help with their own horses’ nutrition.
Scott Cieslar has 20+ years of experience as a professional nutritionist, receiving an MSc in physiology and nutrition from the University of Guelph. He started working on a PhD, but put his degree on hold to run Mad Barn.
Scott has nutrition down to a science, but he’s not just book smart; he’s got horse sense too. Scott grew up surrounded by horses at the “B” tracks of Ontario. He has dedicated his life to better understanding the nutritional requirements of horses and helping horse owners put the latest research into practice.
Learn more about why Mad Barn exists at https://madbarn.com/our-story/
Transcript:
[0:00]
My name is Scott Cieslar. I'm the founder of Mad Barn, and I am the lead nutritionist as well, overseeing the nutrition team and dealing directly with customers and nutrition issues.
[0:10]
Caring for animals has always been a part of my life. Growing up on a farm from a very young age, I had to look after another living being and be responsible for it. I can remember being as young as three years old, out feeding the sheep, and driving a tractor by age five. I was about ten years old when we got our first horse.
[0:27]
The greatest part of having a mare first was caring for young foals and going through the whole process of looking after a foal from birth all the way through training — getting used to being halter broke to being ready to go into the harness. The timing and care it takes to do it properly are significant.
[0:48]
I went to university to study animal science. The real turning point in my education was working with Dr. John Kent as a summer student in his lab. Being able to do the research to answer your own question — one that nobody else has the answer to — is fascinating and phenomenal.
[1:05]
Mad Barn got its start long before it was officially Mad Barn. The formulation came about as I worked on creating the optimal nutrition for my own horse at the time. I had zero intention of ever selling the product. Through word of mouth, we ended up selling some, and eventually it got big enough that I had to choose between doing this full time or stopping, because it was consuming too much time.
[1:29]
What really differentiates Mad Barn is the use of high-quality ingredients. Any product we produce must have all of its ingredients supported by a substantial body of positive research showing the ingredient will do what we intend it to do.
[1:43]
The loyal customer base we enjoy exists for multiple reasons. It's about caring for the long-term future of the horse, the primacy of what we're doing in terms of driving a research program behind it, and the offering we give to clients in terms of the personal touch. We don't expect our customers to be nutritionists, but it's great when they are inquisitive and want to learn more about nutrition — and we're here to help with that too.
[2:09]
This is a service we currently provide for free: we will formulate your diet for you. It's really about what's appropriate for the horse and what's best for the owner — making their horses healthier while reducing their costs.
[2:22]
The most rewarding part of working with Mad Barn, honestly, is dealing with the owners, seeing that we are helping people, and transforming horses’ health and well-being. That is by far the most rewarding thing.
