Bran for the barefoot hoof

Roasted Chestnuts

Roasted Chestnuts

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Ok bear with me.

Fussy, cereal intolerant, barefoot horse. 25yrs old been barefoot for a while, grazed on high calcium content grazing (plenty of clover cannot change this) been trying to feed supps all summer, not interested, feet not bad but not as good as I would like.

I had a fussy eater thread which threw up something I was unaware of, the calcium blocking effects of bran, also the fact that it has about half the starch content of oats. I am interested in it for the calcium negating effects and also to tempt this fussy bummer of a veteran to eat his supps!!

So please happy to be informed of all pros and cons in order to make an informed decision :) starch content of feed has to stay below 10%.
 
I suspect you'll struggle to find bran with less than 10% starch. I've had a look at the Dairy One library (a collection of nutritional analyses from many, many samples) http://dairyone.com/analytical-serv...library/interactive-feed-composition-library/

Both rice and wheat bran show up with around 20% on average. Also, since bran is a by-product of cereals, not sure how it would sit with a cereal-intolerant horse? I guess you could try and feed it dilute somehow, to lower the starch % of the meal.
Do you have an analysis of your grazing? It might be interesting to see how much bran you'd have to feed to improve your Ca:P ratio.
 
We don't unfortunately have an analysis of our grazing just a soul analysis done due to a house being built I think. We do have a lot of clover and are in a generally high calcium area apparently.

It interested me as I used to feed it, not to him but to past horses. We feeds salts/mg so combat but adding more and more to the feed of a fussy horse isn't getting me anywhere. This might have tempted him ( he gets no cereal really) to eat as well as help the Ca issue.
 
I was actually just doing some reading on oats as I currently feed my barefoot horse alfalfa and rice bran (to balance amino acids, fat and the Ca:P ratio)... and whole oats are actually NOT a bad thing for barefoot and/or laminitic cases. The hull of the oats actually contain a lot of great amino acids and fats. https://www.thehorseshoof.com/oats1.html
 
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