Anyone feed their horses straw?

[DD]

fat cob on a diet. anyone feed straw? oat or barley ? how much ?

 

[mcnaughty]

Google straw in connection with gastric ulcers in horses but I'll give you this one to start off with! https://www.bwequinevets.co.uk/187/equine-gastric-ulcers-explained-specialist/

 

[DD]

Google straw in connection with gastric ulcers in horses but I'll give you this one to start off with! https://www.bwequinevets.co.uk/187/equine-gastric-ulcers-explained-specialist/

thank you !

 

[Abby-Lou]

I started feeding oat straw over night from last harvest. Generally one flap a night with one flap of soaked hay works well for me and has helped keep her weight down as she is a dyson on four legs !

 

[HorseyTee]

My guys get oat straw in the winter. Way too fat to have ad lib hay, so get ad lib oat and then hay twice a day. They live out 24/7.

 

[JFTDWS]

Mine prefer wheat straw and have always had it as part of their diet. It definitely helps with calorie intake, without starving them!

 

[MotherOfChickens]

from my understanding ulcers and straw- its mostly through feeding barley straw (higher in lignin) or when its the sole forage source. I feed oat straw although they get some oat grass and timothy hay chop-and grass of course. I feed it through necessity really (ie their waistlines) and given they are both moor bred and cope with moor forage year round I expect they will do alright on it. They mostly live out.

 

[Brownmare]

The little fat Welshie I used to have got a net full of wheat straw to pick at ad lib plus 1kg 24 hour soaked hay daily and feeds of hay cobs and oat straw chaff to carry supplements. He did very well on it and managed a healthy weight loss

 

[Polos Mum]

I put it at the bottom of my massive home made hay bars, it's picked at by some and ignored by others. It makes me feel comfortable that everything has something to pick at all the time - even if many decide it's not worth the effort of eating.
I can only get wheat straw, most oat straw is ploughed back in to the field because if breaks down so easily - which is why it's hard to get hold of.

 

[Berpisc]

Over the years have fed wheat and barley straw as part of a balanced diet, odd times when we had a disastrous hay year, also to lower calories for fatties and occasionally because the horse chose to scoff their bed. All to native type horses in various levels of work.
Haven't seen oat straw for years, no one round us grows oats.

 

[chocolategirl]

thank you !

After reading this article, I’ve got to ask, is there ANY way of keeping a horse slim without avoiding ulcers?!😳🙈 it seems like there is no way of avoiding them? I’m paranoid about ulcers, but all mine are good doers in moderate work so I find it really hard to keep their weight down as I won’t let them go more than 4 hours with nothing going through their gut 😏

 

[Megan V1]

Mine eat the wheat straw that they are bedded on but very little of it and I prefer that they have access to something at all times. They only nibble bits of it and have done for the thirty odd years I have had horses, no ulcers as yet between the 9 horses owned.

 

[oldie48]

What a useful article! Thanks for sharing. I notice they suggest ad lib forage between 07.00am and midnight, which is what I try to achieve although fatty has to work hard to get it. I can't find any oat straw locally as I wanted to add this to the hay so I have ordered a bag of Topspec chaff zero, which I'll get on Friday so I can leave a trug of it in Fatty's stable when I put the last soaked hay in before I go to bed. I've been thinking about this business of trying to get weight off Fatties quite a lot over the last few days and realised the other thing that I do with all my horses is count droppings, look at size of droppings and consistency. yes I am literally very anal! Even on his rather strict regime, Fatty has a decent number of properly formed dropping, when in over night not disimilar to Rose who has ad lib haylage at all times.

 

[laura_nash]

I have been feeding barley straw for years with no problems, for horses that are usually out at grass at night and yarded during the day, or are out on a starvation paddock and getting forage in the field, and always in combination with hay. When I first started feeding it my vet told me to keep it <50% of the forage and its fine.

 

[Sleipnir]

The horses on the yard I keep my big guy on were fed a balanced (1:1:1) mix of oat straw, hay and haylage over this last winter. All of them went into spring in good shape, healthy, sound and ready for the grass season. Normally, they would have been fed just high quality hay, but this was a hard year so our YO had to get creative.

 

[honetpot]

Yes, barley straw. The fatties get 50/50 in winter. The hungrey one get a round hay and a round straw. They often prefer the straw. If there is no grass they get a round bale straw, it stops them eating the grass to its roots.

 

[riversideeu]

Yes barley straw for my cob to pick at after she has finished her hay ration. 3 years ago when she was diagnosed with ems and laminitis she lived on straw and antilam for 3 months until back to correct weight and rid of the ems. The vet was very pleased with her recovery.

 

[TotalMadgeness]

Mine get a medium sized dampened net of oat straw (one thick slice off a small bale) along with a small amount of timothy mix haylage (the type suitable for laminitics with a low sugar content!). They are kept in during the day and this keeps them going during the day and keeps them slim. I also give them a net of oat straw in the winter overnight because they simply can't have unlimited haylage. Luckily there is a local farmer who owns a big livery yard and makes loads of oat straw! Prior to finding him however I used EasyPack compressed oat straw. I also used plain chopped oat straw as chaff in their feeds (big bales from e-feeds). You can also give them a large trug of the chopped straw if you can't get hold of baled stuff.

 

[HLOEquestrian]

Following with interest - I'm moving my retired event pony to a different yard in 2 weeks time as current arrangement isn't suiting her. She lives on fresh air and needs a more restricted diet, sounds like straw would be a good option for reducing her calorie intake as she can't be exercised.

 

[rabatsa]

Mine have access to ad lib barley straw, a big bale netted in a ring feeder. They also have 24 hour access to a well grazed track round the field and two get a slice of hay once a day, the others nothing else.