Can you feed a horse eggs? Is there any benefit?

paddi22

paddi22

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We have a flock of chickens who produce way more eggs than we need. I thought I remembered a post on here about feeding an egg to horses in feed. Anyone know is this do-able and is there any benefit?
 
paddi22 said:
We have a flock of chickens who produce way more eggs than we need. I thought I remembered a post on here about feeding an egg to horses in feed. Anyone know is this do-able and is there any benefit?
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We had a livery fed with egg shells for her breathing as she was broken winded and it did help but not the eggs themselves
 
HGA-12 said:
We had a livery fed with egg shells for her breathing as she was broken winded and it did help but not the eggs themselves
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Thats funny, was chatting to an old horseman guy and he said the same thing about eggshells for sind issues - wonder how it works?
 
ihatework said:
I'd suggest selling the eggs and using the money to buy more appropriate horse feed!
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how much for that eggs ??
 
I've heard of racehorses and hunters getting eggs in their feed. I *think* it was for shiny coats and general wellbeing ...but not totally sure! I presume it was all the omega fats in the eggs that made them so soft and shiny!

Arkle used to get half a dozen eggs and some guinness everyday! Seemed to work for him :)

Funnily enough I was considering feeding them too...just never got around to it.

Never heard about wind issues and egg shells....so no help there!
 
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It's a traditional thing ,eggs and Guinness where fed quite a lot when I was young however we have much much better options to feed horses now a days .
We also fed dried milk to horses in work.
 
It was one of the things that older horse people used to swear by when I was a kid, Guinness too and a show producer who used goats milk. We had a lot of chickens on the yard and sometimes the hens would lay an egg in your stable on top of the banks. Inevitably it rolled down and if it was cracked we would add it to the feed.

Not something I'd feed today.
 
When I was younger on a livery yard everyone went through a stage of feeding raw eggs for protein. I did it because everyone else did and I didn't know any better!
Certainly didn't notice any difference either good or bad.
The egg shell and wind thing is really interesting, I'd love to hear more if anyone finds any info on this.
 
Provided your horse is being fed correctly with good quality food with a hight percentage of forage, and is being regularly turned out they will be getting everything they need and there should be no need to feed eggs. Horses are essentially vegan and their digestive system is not designed to process animal protein. There is some evidence to suggest that feeding eggs will interfere with the normal production of vitamins.
 
I only have 3 chooks but I sell a dozen eggs to a couple of colleagues at work, a friend at orchestra has a half dozen every fortnight or so and I pop a half dozen to alternate neighbours when I have them - gives me a good excuse to have a goss and check that my immediate neighbour who is 85 is ok and not in need of any little jobs doing. And my chooks get extra yummy mealworms out of the deal. OP, don't forget that you can crack eggs and freeze them in Tupperware boxes for the months they aren't laying (mine show no sign of stopping for the winter yet!)
 
Lanky Loll said:
Plenty of people still doing that if they check the main ingredient in their supplements ;)
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yes, still doesn't make it right :)

I have lots of eggs, I wouldn't feed them to my horses. The cats and dog get the odd one. Apart from that, lots of baking and selling/giving to friends. Although if I have duck eggs, I much prefer them. I have frozen them but they looked kind of funky afterwards and it put me off.

Apart from some pullets coming into lay, all my purebreds have packed up for the winter.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
yes, still doesn't make it right :)

I have lots of eggs, I wouldn't feed them to my horses. The cats and dog get the odd one. Apart from that, lots of baking and selling/giving to friends. Although if I have duck eggs, I much prefer them. I have frozen them but they looked kind of funky afterwards and it put me off.

Apart from some pullets coming into lay, all my purebreds have packed up for the winter.
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Didn't say it was right - more an observation of how people are easily misled "my horse has put on condition since being fed xx" - yep because you've been feeding milk powder with a few benign extra's added to it.
 
The albumen in the egg white interferes with the absorption of some vitamins/minerals. Not good for horses if fed in any quantity; stick to non-animal proteins (this goes for grazing animal feed producers too).
 
Shame you aren't nearer to me as I can hardly persuade anyone to have my duck eggs and my Indian Runners seem to lay every single day and don't break for moulting etc. The fox took most of useful layers that kept going all winter and I have mostly been left with pekins that are adorable but not overly committed to the idea of producing eggs unless they think they will be allowed to hatch them. Not sure any of my horses would eat eggs as they carefully eat around any that are laid in their hay bars, but ferrets, yard cats and pigs are useful for disposing of any eggs of an uncertain age!
 
One day I spotted the ducks at the farm where I kept my horse, carefully sifting through a pile of horse poo with their bills and reducing it to a very large pile of crumbs - put me off duck eggs for good!

My hybrid chooks are still putting out an egg each ever day, much to my amazement - I would have though they would have stopped by now. They were POL in May, so does anyone know when they might shut up shop?
 
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