Eating straw bed and bran

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samuelhorse

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Think Im going to have to change back from shavings to straw. Shavings costing an extra £60 a month on top of livery bill that includes ad lib straw.

Only problem is my boy eats it.
Someone suggested adding bran, to keep his gut moving.

Any suggestions, will he be ok eating his bed (used to be on straw without problem) tried previously spraing it with jeyes - thought i was going to kill him as he ate it!

Will the bran prevent an impaction??
 
I wouldn't worry about him straw and wouldn't recommend sprinkling it with bran. We used to feed the ponies on oat straw when we were younger and never had a problem with an impaction.
 
When I first got my horse, I put him on a bed of straw.......only to find that he loved it so much there was only a wet patch left. It turned out he loved it because it was good quality oat straw.
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I did put him on shavings for a while, but as he's a messy horse, it cost me too much, so I made a point of making sure i got wheat straw, which he didnt eat.

From my experience it actually didnt do him any harm at all, I just found it annoying to find him in an empty stable everyday, but that could just be that my horse has a gut of steel
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If you mix in the old (not the wet, just the leftover after mucking out) with the new he should eat it less and it's still nice and fluffy. Have tried this with a few and it puts them off a bit although they still might pick out the odd few bits. But it's a big improvement on just putting clean on top.
 
I have fed straw for many years to control weight in fatties - never had a problem, but then I feed sloppy feeds like speedibeet alongside, straw can cause impaction colic - but as long as the horse gets plenty of water in it's diet and it's teeth are in good order there should be no problems at all - I think lots of people panic about the eating of straw - personally, having such good doers means I cannot add-lib hay due to them putting on far too much weight so I like to know they can pick through the straw for the nice bits once their hay has finished - rather than them stand hungry on a shavings bed - much more likely to lead to a colic or ulcers IMHO.
What also makes me laugh is the amount of people who bang on about how dangerous straw is, tend to be the ones feeding lots of chaff - which, is of course, straw!!!!!!!
 
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