This is such a lovely episode – you’re in for a treat! In this episode of the Small & Supercharged podcast, I chat to independent equine nutritionist Donna Case. Donna talks about her journey into nutrition, childhood dreams and so much more. Donna is now known as The Horse Feed Guru but she’s been on a huge journey to get to where she is now. From starting her obsession with nutrition at school (when she used her money to get a copy of Your Horse and a chocolate bar!), remembering a Spillers advert from school days, and even writing about horses at school whenever she could, to now working with horse owners all over the world to help them feed their horses better. What a journey it’s been!
Turning childhood passions into self employment with The Horse Feed Guru
In this episode I talk to Donna Case all about how her brand, The Horse Feed Guru came to exist, what a day looks like, how she does what she does, tips and advice for others, and so much more. In episode 27 of the Small & Supercharged podcast, all about how to turn your childhood passions into self employment…
- We talk about Donna’s journey to be an equine nutritionist, how she worked back through her GCSE options to pick the right subjects, went on to get a degree and then started to look for jobs.
- How the first job Donna saw at the end of university was to work for Spillers, a brand she’d always loved and admired since getting her horse care certificate through them.
- How Donna moved from feed line advisor up the ranks, to working with the British Team, and how this set her on her course for being an independent equine nutritionist because she needed to take into account all the other feeds that the horses were using on the team.
- When on maternity leave, Donna became more and more aware of the incorrect feed advice being given out by people who weren’t professionals, so she put a post on her social media asking if anyone needed help and was completely overwhelmed.
- How Donna is now doing her dream job, and how that allows her to fit her children around her work.
- We talk about how Donna’s days look and how she provides her equine nutritionist service though face to face and remote consultations.
- We talk about the challenges in Donna’s business and how as a small business she has to do a lot around her business, not just the actual work that she does. She also talks about how her business requires a big client list (due to the frequency of visits), but how more clients mean more work… but she still has to keep her marketing up.
- How Donna promotes herself for free using social media. She also writes for magazines, sharing her knowledge.
- What Donna really loves about her job, how it works, how she assesses horses and how she provides a lot more than just advice.
- How to get advice around horse feeding – and how getting advice from social media is not always the best idea. There are plenty of free care lines out there you can call if you have a specific preference of brand, or work with an independent nutritionist if you want an overview.
- What advice Donna would give for people looking to get involved in nutrition, how you really need to put the effort in, and how you need to think about what you can do to get the edge.
You can find Donna in the places below.
