Bucket feed volume size

C

Cragrat

Well-Known Member
Joined
13 August 2013
Messages
1,743
Visit site
Not wanting to derail the thread about a horse flinging its feed around, but prompted by some responses on that thread.

What is a safe/ effective volume of soaked fibre bucket feed to give per feed?

Of our 3 TB's, 2 could not/ will not possibly eat anough grass and haylage in the winter to maintain their weight . I prefer to feed mostly fibre, and the older boy has dodgy teeth so can't have chaff , and the other is a poor drinker, so I feed soaked pellets - a mix of SB and alfalfa cubes, with linseed meal to add calories and a small amount of micronised mixed flakes to boost calories and add flavour. ( less than 10 % of the feed).

When dry, the volume per day is quite small - around 5 stubbs scoops per day, split into 4 feeds. However, when water is added, the volume is significantly larger. Much more than the size of their stomach. My horses have been on this feed for years, and seem ok, but I keep reading conflicting statements about what volume of fibre based feed is actually safe and effective.

I could get the same calories in to them by feeding a smaller amount of bagged molasses and grain based compound feeds, but I feel that fibre based is preferable, despite the volume . I hope I'm right!
 
Cragrat said:
Not wanting to derail the thread about a horse flinging its feed around, but prompted by some responses on that thread.

What is a safe/ effective volume of soaked fibre bucket feed to give per feed?

Of our 3 TB's, 2 could not/ will not possibly eat anough grass and haylage in the winter to maintain their weight . I prefer to feed mostly fibre, and the older boy has dodgy teeth so can't have chaff , and the other is a poor drinker, so I feed soaked pellets - a mix of SB and alfalfa cubes, with linseed meal to add calories and a small amount of micronised mixed flakes to boost calories and add flavour. ( less than 10 % of the feed).

When dry, the volume per day is quite small - around 5 stubbs scoops per day, split into 4 feeds. However, when water is added, the volume is significantly larger. Much more than the size of their stomach. My horses have been on this feed for years, and seem ok, but I keep reading conflicting statements about what volume of fibre based feed is actually safe and effective.

I could get the same calories in to them by feeding a smaller amount of bagged molasses and grain based compound feeds, but I feel that fibre based is preferable, despite the volume . I hope I'm right!
Click to expand...
Fibre-based feeds don't do the same kind of damage when they exit the stomach prematurely as starch-rich feeds do, but my feeling is that horses spend much less time chewing and eat much faster with any soaked processed (by which I mean chopped, compressed, pelleted) feeds, which also isn't ideal, and some won't sit in the stomach as long as it might had it been gathered and chewed in the 'normal' way. I'd personally want to replicate trickle feeding as much as I could by splitting up the feeds to the maximum degree I could manage. It's a compromise at that time of their lives. If they seem well with no gastric-related symptoms or signs of discomfort it's probably working.

I used to save our grass for the winter so my friend's oldie with bad teeth who could eat grass but struggled with hay had plenty of grass when he needed it most, as his owner couldn't get to see him more than once daily. Not ideal in some ways but it worked for him.
 
Yes, the chew time is something I have pondered. Do they get less saliva mixed in with their soaked feeds, than if I gave them dry feeds? Does this have a negative impact? What can I add to the soaked feed to increase chew time, without getting spikey fibre stuck in the old boys diastamas? Perhaps a few barley rings thrown in at serving time? Not enough to massively increase starch content, and remove the mixed flakes.

(But am I worrying unnecessarily, given that their digestive health seems ok?)
 
May not be what you want but have you considered grass nuts for winter? Makes a nice mash once soaked, Just a thought x
 
I mix dried grass chaff through the soaked feed, and the old boy copes as well as he does with chewed grass. He has learned to have a drink if he gets a bit stuck, and will stand chewing the water before returning to his trough. It doesn't seem logical to turn them out to grass, but then advise that chaff will build up. Surely soaked chaff is very similar to grass? In winter, Old Dobbin gets a half trug of soaked rations twice daily plus nets of soft meadow grass haylage. He is turned out for six hours daily in winter, and 24/7 in summer.
 
Cragrat said:
Yes, the chew time is something I have pondered. Do they get less saliva mixed in with their soaked feeds, than if I gave them dry feeds? Does this have a negative impact? What can I add to the soaked feed to increase chew time, without getting spikey fibre stuck in the old boys diastamas? Perhaps a few barley rings thrown in at serving time? Not enough to massively increase starch content, and remove the mixed flakes.

(But am I worrying unnecessarily, given that their digestive health seems ok?)
Click to expand...

Apparently feeding soaked feed over dry (specifically bucket feed not say hay for example) is recommended for gastric health. The reasons given are that the increased volume versus the same dry weight actually increases chew time and saliva production, and the additional water dilutes stomach acid production while also helping forage based feeds to transition through the gut better.

Something interesting I came across while looking into the water volume debate! I couldn’t find anything particularly conclusive on volume of soaked forage feeds sorry so no help there!
 
My understanding is the horses stomach volume is the size of a rugby ball and it doesn't vary much by horse size (my vet told me this). If you feed more than that volume in a single feed, it will pass through the gut too fast to get the full benefit. If you really feed 'too much' it could cause other problems of course. My vet advised soaked grass nuts and oil to add weight for my dentally challenged horse split into as many feeds as I could manage (6 if pos). The main thing is nothing they can bolt and will then swell in their stomach. And don't try to fatten them up on sugary foods. Sounds like the OPs feed regime is fine
 
Traks said:
May not be what you want but have you considered grass nuts for winter? Makes a nice mash once soaked, Just a thought x
Click to expand...
Grass pellets still need soaing, and have a slightly lower energy content than the alfalfa. I also like the higher calcium content of the alfalfa.
 
KikiDee said:
Apparently feeding soaked feed over dry (specifically bucket feed not say hay for example) is recommended for gastric health. The reasons given are that the increased volume versus the same dry weight actually increases chew time and saliva production, and the additional water dilutes stomach acid production while also helping forage based feeds to transition through the gut better.

Something interesting I came across while looking into the water volume debate! I couldn’t find anything particularly conclusive on volume of soaked forage feeds sorry so no help there!
Click to expand...
That is interesting, and does make sense, thank you.
 
jhoward said:
Volume wise and I maybe wrong so worth a Google, but a horses stomach is fairly small, and it's around 2kg per feed as a max that used to be recommended this is why little and often used to be recommended and feeds like equi jewel etc can help.
Click to expand...
Equijewel is rice bran, and I do try to stick to UK grown feeds as far as possible. I do feed linseed, which is simiarly high in oil and has a better omega 3:6 ratio. EquiJewel also has marine calciium, which makes me even more reluctant to use it.
 
I have never fed more than a Stubbs scoop of concentrates in one feed but have always mixed with beet & chaff which are (or were when I was taught) classed as succulent and fibre so "didn't count". That said I've not had to worry about such things in recent years as I've had fairly good doers, most of whom have done fine on token feeds and good hay & grazing.

I think with the large soaked feeds of hay replacers, etc, the feeds need to be split and spread out and the horse needs to be given time to eat it and it could be said that the horse in the other thread spreading his food around and then spending time hoovering it up off the ground is actually a good thing because he's increasing his eating time.
 
It’s all about volume and stomach capacity and if feeding soaked anything it’s worth doing a test weigh on the pre soaked feed vs after soaking. So for instance I know my oldie needs higher calorie intake than the younger one so I know the two cups of soaked grass nuts/beet makes the maximum stomach capacity and so I add some balancer and oil (as well as her supplements) to increase calories without adding extra volume/bulk.
 
My oldie had a white corner manger full to the brim with Haycare and Speedibeet overnight. She did learn to graze, rather than bolt it all in one go. She also had a separate feed with her 'bucket feed' which was also slop, but was Spillers Daily Fibre. She always ate that like a proper feed.
 
Horses are trickle feeders, and left to their own grazing will continually nibble until they need to sleep or move. Their gut is more of a conveyer belt system, with food continually moving through the digestive stages, and we are advised not to allow more than four or five hours without food. Aiming to trickle feed is the goal, but difficult in practice. I try to stay with forage based foods that hopefully won't disrupt his insulin/sugar balance too much, but I appreciate it's hard to get everything 'just right,'.
 
Highmileagecob said:
Horses are trickle feeders, and left to their own grazing will continually nibble until they need to sleep or move. Their gut is more of a conveyer belt system, with food continually moving through the digestive stages, and we are advised not to allow more than four or five hours without food. Aiming to trickle feed is the goal, but difficult in practice. I try to stay with forage based foods that hopefully won't disrupt his insulin/sugar balance too much, but I appreciate it's hard to get everything 'just right,'.
Click to expand...
If your horse can't, for whatever reason, graze round the clock, you need to ensure that the horse has adequate time to 'graze' the forage replacement.
 
Highmileagecob said:
Horses are trickle feeders, and left to their own grazing will continually nibble until they need to sleep or move. Their gut is more of a conveyer belt system, with food continually moving through the digestive stages, and we are advised not to allow more than four or five hours without food. Aiming to trickle feed is the goal, but difficult in practice. I try to stay with forage based foods that hopefully won't disrupt his insulin/sugar balance too much, but I appreciate it's hard to get everything 'just right,'.
Click to expand...

Interestingly last year I was feeding more concentrated calorie sources aiming to get as many calories into a small feed as possible (horse was living in a herd at the time so I had less opportunity to let him spend half an hour plodding through a big bucket of forage based feed) and I really struggled to keep weight on him. This year I switched to forage based feeds with the highest calorie content I could find (Fibre Beet & Grass Nuts mixed with his Cushcare) while keeping sugars and starches low and he piled weight back on. He has always had access to good grazing 24/7 alongside ad-lib hay, teeth are good, I can only assume his gut was not able to metabolise the calories from higher starch feeds as well but I've found it quite interesting as he's probably ingesting less overall calories now but keeping condition much better.
 
I went to a Dengie talk a while back and the nutritionist said that, while stomachs are small and hard food will pass through without being digested if you give them too much, it's wasteful rather than harmful and, unlike protein and carbs, fibre can also be digested in the gut so it's not part of the hard feed limit. We had a horse on the yard at the time who could eat hay/haylage but was picky and wouldn't eat lots of it so would lose weight in winter. His owner started giving him a huge trug of Fast Fibre and grass chaff (she'd limited it before thinking it was too much for him) and it made a huge difference to him.
 
Lady Jane said:
My understanding is the horses stomach volume is the size of a rugby ball and it doesn't vary much by horse size (my vet told me this). If you feed more than that volume in a single feed, it will pass through the gut too fast to get the full benefit. If you really feed 'too much' it could cause other problems of course.
Click to expand...

This is correct. I've been there done that and made the mistake of feeding big feeds for weight gain. I fed grass nuts and micronised linseed for a while and prefer feeding the straights to the mixes and mashes etc as there's a lot of fillers and stuff that I don't like in them and that did work but having tried omega rice I now swear by it. You hardly need to feed any so it's good volume wise and cost wise as I'm now feeding less of anything else. It's the same price as a bag of micronised linseed and I found did a much better job.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top