Carrot overload

[PurplePickle]

I know carrots are supposedly akin to feeding Mars bars, I have a lamintic and a Warmblood, I limit carrots for my lammi mare and my gelding has a max of a handful a day in his feed.

However over the last week or so hes gone a bit funny, I was starting to think it was the feed speedibeet, chaff and fibre pellets but then went into the feild and found lots of bits of carrots over the fence, looks like the farm next door has been supplementing them! with an awful lot of carrots.

Could excess carrots cause a surge in nuttyness to the extent where he litterally was very out of character bucking, galloping and trying to nudge me into the hedge bottom getting very bolshy and not caring where his legs went. For 17.2 thats quite scarey

I went around to the farm today but no one was about.

 

[EQUISCENE]

Carrots have a high sugar/water content, can't remember the exact figures but if fed in enough quantity would probably cause the exictable behaviour.

 

[niagaraduval]

Is there as limit of how many carrots a horse can have? I red somewhere that horses should have no more than two green apples a day as can cause gas colic, although I often fear of feeding too many carrots for this same reason. Niagara gets about 2 juicy ones every day 1 in morning feed with 1 apple and then the same at night. Carrots have a lot of nutrition in them though so wouldn't mind feeding him more if poss. I have noticed he has a lot glossier coat than he used to.. carrots maybe?

 

[Janette]

Our yard owner (a farmer, who breeds and shows Shires VERY sucessfully) believes in the healing power of carrots...... He reckons that all horses need is hay, water and carrots. He feeds them by the bucketful.
He orders a tonne of carrots to be delivered to the farmyard, and we then scoop up a bucketful for 50p. A bucketful lasts me aprox 5 days. To him, it's one feed. His horses look magnificent, and are impeccably behaved - just as well considering the size of them.

I'm sure that he'd have me dripping carrot juice into Star's eye......

 

[Jeff3]

Carrots don't really have that much sugar! Plus the digestive system actually burns off more calories digesting them than the carrots produce.

I eat loads of carrot sticks everyday but they do not send me hyper!

 

[MrsMozart]

Our pone had laminitis and the only possible cause at the time was carrots

Vet said no more, ever (and no Polos etc).

 

[hellybelly6]

I am also concerned about how many carrots are too many for a horse. My horse is obsessed by them and I worry that the vitamin A they contain could damage his liver.

Am I being paranoid?

 

[JS65]

My TB can't have any carrots at all, they send him bonkers!
When i was on a livery yard i had to put a sign up saying not to give him any, even as a titbit!
They make him quite agressive

 

[Haniki]

My horse doesn't like polo's so has always had carrots as a treat. She also has a 1kg or so of carrots for supper (whilst I skip out). She is a 26 year old TB. I have heard that heavy horse keepers used to feed carrots by the sack load. We used to get stock feed carrots for our dairy cows many years ago.

 

[TrueColours]

We are very close to a huge carrot growing area, so I buy about 300-350 lbs a week for my 8 horses and they get 5-10 lbs a day, and have been doing so for years. Like literally 7-10 years for a lot of them, with no ill effects, no change in hyperactivity, no illness associated with it - nothing

The only thing I am aware of is that a horse can only digest 5 lbs at a time in their stomach, and some of my harder keepers and/or broodmares are on 4-5 lbs of feed per meal time, so I then have to stagger the carrot load for them into night feeds or throughout the day instead

 

[Bug]

This may be my answer to my now physco!
Normally he gets 1 apple a day as a treat but i had a load of carrots so have been giving him some = mad horse.

i realise there may be other reasons but a good one to think about

 

[H's mum]

My mare cannot have carrots - she goes seriously off her head on them and she also colics

They are very high in sugar - one of the highest vegs in terms of sugar content

Not good for horses that have digestive issues or laminitis.
Kate x

 

[Donkeymad]

carrots are over 80% water. They may well have more sugar than most other veg, but it is still a very very low amount.

 

[PurplePickle]

THanks all, this is the thing, i spoke to the lady that used to know him ,she said yes too many carrots send him bonkers, his behaviour was so out of character. Interesting to hear that some cannot feed carrots at all

 

[H's mum]

They may be 80% water but they are also 6% sugar - if someone is feeding a 25kg sack of carrots every week that's the equivalent of 1.5kg of sugar!!!
Kate x

 

[SNORKEY]

My vet told me last year to only give carrots and apples little and often, He did'nt really say why!
But ours have either an apple or a carrot nearly every day and their both looking good!

 

[MrsMozart]

It's the overload issue per horse - ours were getting, when we added it up, ten carrots a day

 

[maddielove]

When I went to try my mare she still had a foal at foot - just as we were leaving we saw her getting one of her daily feeds - the BIGGEST mountain of carrots you have ever seen! She has quite a few digestive issues now (cannot have haylage unless v.dry)
She now gets 2 in each feed.

 

[Birker2020]

According to speedibeet whose sugar beet is approved by the laminic society for feeding to laminitics there is more sugar in a medium sized carrot that in a whole scoop of speedi beet. Does that help?

 

[Magz]

Hey all!
Carrots do contain nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) which are basically broken down in the Small intestine, so therefor are used as a quick release energy source just like starch al be it the energy values are not the same, but they are broken down in the same place.
Some horses are more susceptable then others as some horses can eat carrots allday long with no effect... some horses however are very susceptable.. i would not recommend feeding alot of carrots to a laminitic at all... hope that makes sense