Eating Straw Bed

MrsElle

MrsElle

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Got Chad back last week and wondered why his bedding was going down quickly. I caught him tucking into it last night.

Another horse on the yard also does this and hasn't until moving here so presume they just like it?

Chad has a large haylage net with hay in which he always finishes overnight.

Will eating the straw harm him at all?
 
Dont want to frighten you but a horse on our yard died a year ago through colic due to eating her bed. Was in pain for 3 days before being PTS. I wouldnt risk it if I were you.
 
I know another don’t agree but we feed good quality straw and have done for years and years, since we were kids. Badger has two slices a night to bulk out his hay. We have never had any problems.
 
FB also regards a straw bed as a personal eating challenge and will finish his hay and then chomp on through the whole lot. Comes from being fed wheat straw when he was a RS horse in Andalucia.

He also got impaction colic from it a number of times -especially in the winter becase he was not drinking enough. I'm afraid alternative bedding maybe the only choice. Mine are on mats and shavings.
 
Not sure if it is barley or wheat Kate, will have to ask YO.

He has apparently always done it so doubt he will get colic after 8 years of munching on straw, but just wanted to check and see what other peoples opinions were.
 
Last tuesday my mare decided that her bed was much tastier than her haylage too. I left her just after 9am and she was fine, freshly bedded down, munching her haylage, the YO found her that afternoon, minus a good portion of bed in absolute agony. She had an impaction and had to be tubed, it was awful. She reacted to the finadyne and fitted, having to be sat on by the vet and my OH to be sedated, it was touch and go whether she could safely have the buscapan and my OH admitted to me after it really wasn't looking good.

Granted it seems it's possibly an underlying problem with her heart that caused the horiffic reaction, which will be looked into when she's 100% better, but I'd thought nothing at all of her having the odd munch on her bedding before, I think it was the amount that she consumed rather than the fact that it was straw.
 
I would add that all horses are different. All the other horses at the RS seemed fine eating their straw - whether their bed or feed. FB (forgive the graphic detail) produces very small poo-ettes, almost pony sized in comparison to other horses, which makes me think his digestive tract is not particularly wide in diameter and so aggravates the issue.

I also used to feed him oat straw in the south as hay is not readily available and we never had a problem with that.
 
Try mixing in the old bed with any new you put down. Not the wet/really dirty, but what you would normally leave as a base.

Worked on a lot of the horses when i worked at a riding school, a lot of them ate their beds and we did worry about colic. Also it saves money if they're not eating it!
 
My horse seems to prefer his straw to his hay at the moment!
mad.gif
I try to only give him 1-2 sections of new straw a day and really mix it in with his old bed, which I try to leave slightly dirty so he doesn't eat it. Hopefully this stops him eating too much and as yet he has had no problems. I always give him adlib hay, but this seems to make no difference! I know some people put Jeye's fluid on the straw to stop it being eaten, but I can't stand the smell of it so am reluctant to.
 
My mare will eat her bed once the hay has gone. She is a fatty but if i put her on shavings and she has nothing to chew she gets stressed and chews the stable.

My old mare who lived to be 44 would eat the best bits of clean straw before touching her hay and haylage.

Some can cope with it, others can't.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I know another don’t agree but we feed good quality straw and have done for years and years, since we were kids. Badger has two slices a night to bulk out his hay. We have never had any problems.

[/ QUOTE ]

I too have started to do this in desperation with my extremely 'good doer'. I prefer her not to have to stand in with nothing to eat but on ad-lib hay she would be the size of an elephant. So we supplement her hay with good clean oat straw. I have had a mare get impaction colic from eating a wheat straw bed because she didn't like the hay for some reason but she had been eating the straw all night.
I would not expect that nibbling a bit of bed would cause anyu problems. Incidentally bedding on barley straw is not a good idea, as the ears irritate.
 
Plenty of horses can eat straw till it come out their ears with no problems at all. Some can eat a bit and be fine (mine apparently - fine until he gorged on it and got inpaction colic) and some colic at the mere sight of it! I know plenty of horses fed on straw who are just fine.

You just can't tell. If he's just slowly working his way through it, not gorging himself, and is fine so far it's likely he will always be ok, as long as he drinks enough.

Unless your hayledge is rubbish he'll only be eating it because he's hungry or bored. Can he have more hayledge? Or put it into a smaller holed net to slow him down. OR actually mix some straw (up to 1/2) into his hayledge to pad it out. I've never heard of horses colicing from smaller amounts of straw well mixed with hayledge.
 
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