An experimental change/back to the olden days

[Miss L Toe]

They say that whole ( soaked) oats are the absolute best and most natural feed product there is for horses and that they are very digestible. Modren mixes and nuts contain just so many ingredients that are just not that digestible for horses not to mention a high amount of molasses added (all reasons why colic cases are so frequent these days?)
They are also very good for conditioning as theyre natually high in oils. I think that the fact that they are supposed to rev up highly strung horses is an old wives tale, not if they are soaked properly, also black oats would fall into this category as well.

What is spelt?

I think the jury is out on haylage? Every top nutritionist has their own opinion on this!

Spelt is an old fashioned wheat, you can buy spelt bread mix in Morrisons.
I am not clear as to the science of soaking oats, to my mind there is a danger of fermentation [beer-making].
I feed Mare and Youngstock [D&H] in my Fast Fibre, it is balanced for Calcium, and horse likes the variety, OK some molasses but very little.

 

[Miss L Toe]

I've always fed rolled or crushed oat over whole oats as the rolling/crushing makes them easier to digest as it is the hard husk that horses can't digest.

The high gluten wheat is a 'bred' trait and thought to be why so many people now have gluten intolerances as we are not used to high gluten wheat.

All of which is totally off topic and probably as boring as bat **** to anyone who isn't into Agriculture so, you will be relieved to hear Im shutting up!

Hi there, I was brought up in Scotland [ 1950-s to 70's] where black oats were grown by crofters [ie smallholders] as they are resistant to bad weather, which is endemic.
I would expect them to be as expensive as Australian Oats, which we used to feed to our racehorses, which we bruised, ie lightly rolled to open the husk without processing the grain.

 

[Lanky Loll]

To confuse things further we feed Canadian oats as they seem to be higher protein and better quality than the British ones whatever the reason is the horses that are in serious work appear to do better on them. We've also been known to feed Canadian hay in bad hay / haylage years.
LM we've been muttering about going back to the old ways too - always used to feed hand chopped chaff (done using a device that would make HSSE bods weep ), and are feeding more and more straights. We've found ours are loving having bran in their feed which we always fed years ago and then stopped doing for some reason, it really encourages them to eat up and is supposedly a good tummy settler for those that are ulcer prone so might be worth adding a bit in?

 

[TarrSteps]

My country thanks you, LL.

 

[Lanky Loll]

My country thanks you, LL.

Our thanks to your country TS - the energy levels are significantly higher on Canadian oats (My bank balance on the other hand... )

 

[kerilli]

i think you're only supposed to soak whole oats, to break them open so they're digestible... the difficult thing is to find whole oats. soak for 12 hours then drain in a hessian or similar sack. the good thing (allegedly) is that the goodness in them isn't released until you soak etc, whereas if they're rolled, split, bruised etc they then sit around in the bag for weeks/months etc...
"haylage" which was wrapped when the grass was almost dry is what my farmer used to call "dry-lage" (imaginative, huh?) and was fine, because it didn't ferment and go acidic. some haylage is really more like silage and therefore much better suited to cattle (4 stomachs, can cope with fermentation etc etc) imho...