can eating straw cause problems

ive got really good hay
i had to soak last years but dont this year!

its the grains still in the straw i was wondering about because she loves the taste and cant afford shavings
 
My FB used to be fed on wheat straw instead of hay. It is tougher and tends to be drier and more fibrous than hay. He had bad impaction colic a couple of times - both times due to pigging out on straw (broke into feed shed once and ate his whole bed on another occasion). Most of the time he was fine, but I never, ever fed it ad lib, his feed was doled out three to five times a day. I will never give him a straw bed again either.

He also had oat straw, with seed heads once I had him at home, which was better as it was baled greener and the water content was higher.
 
straw can, to my knowledge, lead to impaction colic as it is more dense and drier than hay. i know i cant bed on it as my boys would probably have a good go at eating the lot but i know plenty of people who bed on it, knowing full well their horses will eat it and have no problems.
 
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ive got really good hay
i had to soak last years but dont this year!

its the grains still in the straw i was wondering about because she loves the taste and cant afford shavings

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I wouldn't think grain scroffling will cause problems, a bit of straw is fine, lots of horse pick at their beds.
 
My vet told me last week that she's never known a horse get colic through eating straw and it wasn't a good idea to spray with diluted jeyes fluid just in case they still ate it and made themselves ill.
 
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My vet told me last week that she's never known a horse get colic through eating straw and it wasn't a good idea to spray with diluted jeyes fluid just in case they still ate it and made themselves ill.

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thankyou yove all put my mind at rest
 
Sorry I didn't mean hay, I meant straw, used it for years. Oat straw I liked as it gave them a really thick bed, but round here BEDS you can only get wheat which is dusty which is why they started coughing. the oat straw they didn't eat for some reason. so now on rubber matting and shavings
 
Sorry but my old mare got impaction colic from eating her straw bedding. she had mild colic a couple of times with me when she was on straw, moved onto shavings and she was fine. Pretty sure that straw was cause of the colic she didn't recover from after I sold her. Will regret it forever.
 
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