"Feeding high energy feeds does NOT make a horse fizzy!" ...Discussion

M

MillionDollar

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 June 2006
Messages
7,938
Location
The Best Shire
Visit site
Last year in my 2nd year of my Equine and Business Management degree we had a module called Feeding and Training the Horse.
One lecture we were given these notes-

feed1.jpg

feed2.jpg

feed3.jpg

feed4.jpg


We all went "WHAT?!?!" and said we didn't believe this. Many said about feeding their horses oats would make them explode. We had a HUGE debate with the lecturer which is why they got a top expert in from Dodson and Horrell to explain to us.

A good example she gave us was-
If you ate 10 Mars Bars it does not mean that you can suddenly run 100 miles, if you keep eating the Mars Bars you'll just put weight on, NOT gain more energy!

So in other words you can feed what you like to a horse, it will not make it fizzy.

Now I'm still not 100% convinced either way. I can feed anything barley, oats, etc to my horses (believe me i have tried) and it doesn't make my horses fizzy, but I've known horses put on a lush spring grass and they go completely mad.

Both lectuerers and expert were adament that some feed companies had made this myth up of "fizziness" and it was caused by other reasons (weather, temperament, environment, etc). You only have to look at adverts and they talk about a feed not having barley in it so will stop fizziness.

There have been hundreds of studies which do not indicate feed as a source of fizziness.

So what are your views, opinions?? (please bare in mind these are NOT my statements!)
grin.gif
 
Bloomin madness if I fed oats to miss-nutty-mare she'd kill me, I have to mess around with feeds as calm and condition was sending her loopy too... maybe its not directly the food but the nutritional inbalances it causes. I've found lack of magnesium a problem, now I supplement it and she's so much calmer.
 
Im with them on this. I feed my looney oats and chaff and he's sane (ish) If I feed anything with barley in it he's dangerous. However, I but this down to more of an intolerance to barley than 'fizz'.
 
It doesn't matter what I feed Chex, he's always the same. I had thought that feeding a lot of high energy food might give the same reaction that eating tons of sweeties has, the sort of phase when you just want to run around and go crazy until the suger high wears off
crazy.gif
, so that could be fizziness. I've no idea really
confused.gif
 
Anyone who believes this is welcome to come and ride my boy after a good feed of conditioning cubes. Of course eating a mars bar doesn't mean you can run miles but surely everyone has been in the situation where they have too much energy which makes them restless, fidgity. Just think about children who have been eating too many sweets/E numbers.
 
Have tried many different feeds to increase 'fizziness' that is what we wanted but there wasn't much difference in anything, but what did make a difference was increasing her work load with her feed and really fittening her up. I think we have a misconception of how fit our horses really are!

I also believe you cannot chance a horse's nature, there are horses born to be fizzy others born to be sane, and while you can hone this qualities to suit your requirements you can't totally change them. That's my theory anyway.
 
Hmmm I can't feed my horse sugar beet as he becomes worse than 'fizzy' more like dangerous and he once escaped and gorged on oats - he was unstoppable for days! What is their explanation then as this post doesn't elaborate?
 
Well said, I too have given my NFs and WB and cob high energy feeds including barley and it has never made them fizzy- I also think it has a lot to do with the temperament (and prehaps rider too sometimes).
 
[ QUOTE ]
I have to mess around with feeds as calm and condition was sending her loopy too...

[/ QUOTE ] Although Calm & Condition claims to be oat and barley free, it still contains maize which is higher in starch than either of the other cereals! And it is supposed to be the starch in cereals which is the trigger for excitability.

I'm in two minds on the subject - I know that different foods can affect people differently - some meals can leave you feeling sluggish whilst a sugary drink can give you a temporary boost, so it could quite conceivably be possible for the same to happen to horses.

On the other hand, grains can be a useful food if used sensibly and I think some people are petrified to use them because they think their horse will explode, yet are happy to use a commercial food which they are unaware contains cereals!
 
I've tried everything going with my current mare, and nothing makes her fizzy or lively. She's now on safe and sound, and has exactly the same available energy as when she was on competition mix.

My old horse was intolerant to sugar - he had a high fibre, bland diet, and reacted very badly to anything molassed.
He was given the wrong breakfast by the YO once, which contained sugar beet, and by the time he came in from the field that evening he was soaked in sweat, had been through a fence at some point during the day, and was a nervous wreck when I got on him and then bolted in the school. I could only put this down to his diet and it was too extreme a reaction to just be fizziness!
 
Bruce gets two full scoops of oats a day and is fine - but he is in full hard work

If he was off I would have to rethink

but he looks very well on it!
 
An interesting post and one I don't have answers for.
But from a scientists point of view I can see the logic behind why certain different feeds shouldn't produce 'fizz'.
And yes, if you feed too much (ie. input too much energy) then this should be stored by the body as fat.
Obviously different feeds have a different composition of carbs/fat/fibre etc. which will in turn affect the rate at which the body converts to expendable energy and fat storage etc.

In my own experiences with horses it is more often than not their natural temprement or environmental conditions that affect their 'fizziness' however I must admit that my current horse is far better on a mainly fibre diet than he is on cereals (of any form) and is less spooky for it.

I believe there is a fair bit of research out there looking at behaviour in children relating to what they eat, some children get really hyper on sugary foods or additives etc ... it would be interesting to know the science behind that. I suspect that there is a complex biochemical reaction triggered that has an effect on the brain and release of neurotransmitters etc. I personally don't see why this couldn't affect horses too?
 
My horse goes absolutely loopy on pasture mix, turns from a sensible (ish) easy to handle horse into a raving looney.
Yet i can feed her racehorse cubes and although they definately add sparkle she is still managable.
I have always put this down to sugar as pasture mix is really sticky to the touch.
 
Eating 10 chocolate bars may not make you have lasting energy, but will send children nuts

Its the sugar levels that makes them batty for short periods - most fizzy-ness is short lived.

That said, trying to find something to make mine more active as oats don't work....
 
Makes sense in some ways.

If I eat more calories than I burn off with exercise, my clothes stop fitting (i.e. I get fat!) But if you drink too much caffeine or coke you get quite hyper (Fizzy equivalent) and then sugar rush goes away and you are quite tired.

Imagine the effect of colourings on an ADHD kid!
 
[ QUOTE ]
So many people are so scared of using oats, barley, etc but actually they are great, and found in many feeds anyway.

[/ QUOTE ] I found it quite irritating when manufacturers advertise their feeds as "oat-free" when they contain barley, for example, or "barley-free", but contains oats or maize! I think they are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes, although the statements are factually correct! The motto is to read the ingredients carefully, particularly if you have a horse with a genuine reason to avoid cereals (ie laminitis, azoturia).
 
I think if we look at the horses natural diet, for instance wild horses, they eat grass, herbs, scrubs, trees, in other words simple vegetation no mention of cereals. We introduced cereals/concentrates into an animal that never ate them in the wild so you'd image there would be a percentage of these animals that would show an intolerance to them. I would imagine in some animals that would be fizziness..
 
You're quite right... Some manufacturers claim oat free, that satisfies people who dislike oats, while another feed will say barley free, that satisfies other consumers. At the end of the day the more consumers they keep happy the more feed they sell.
 
Mollasses definately affects my mare. I feed purely fibre to all my horse, hay, halege, alphapha and unmollassed sugar beet. If I had to change I would much prefer to use straights such as oats or barley than commercial mixes or cubes because of the other rubbish they put into it
 
I actually thought there was scientific knowledge to prove that oats had no heating value???

As for Barley, well all mine are fed Micronized Barley, one in particular has 2 scoops a day! and he is very laid back

Odie is on 2 full scoops of oats a day along with 2 scoops of competition mix and up until yesterday, he was stabled 24/7 (he now has 2 hours turnout max) and the oats or comp mix have made no difference......
 
[ QUOTE ]
Well said, I too have given my NFs and WB and cob high energy feeds including barley and it has never made them fizzy- I also think it has a lot to do with the temperament (and prehaps rider too sometimes).

[/ QUOTE ]

I do agree with what you've said Clare; it makes a lot of sense.

I also think it has been a lot of marketing hype from the companies knowing how gullible owners are! Let's face it, so many owners (not counting you knowledgable lot!) nowadays don't have a clue how to feed, they just bung it in and don't know why/how/whatever, then don't give the horses enough work to use the feed and then start complaining it was the feed that's made the horse go loopy, not the fact that they couldn't manage to look after a barn door in the first place! The companies are bound to want to cash in (as they are) you can't blame them, they'd be fools not to IMO; they're always on the lookout for the next money spinner,'doen't contain barley' is just the one of the moment! They are usually over generous with their guidance amounts too I feel, so the people that give 'a little bit extra' are compounding the problem too aren't they?!
frown.gif


In the old days, a good stud groom would know what he was feeding and the result he expected; he also wouldn't have access to any new fangled things like cubes, it would be straights all the way, oats, barley, linseed, bran, sugar beet, chaff, probably some salt, maybe an egg or even some Guinness if the horse needed a tonic, but that would be about the sum of his ingredients. I know many of them, including an old Major at a RS, that would just feed a scoop of oats alone in the morning, nothing with them, without any problems, the horses didn't go loopy or anything but they were expected to work long and hard.
A lot of the time, the horses now are not asked to work for the amount of food they are getting so it is bound to cause problems which people attribute to the feed when it's nothing of the sort, it is human error!
No doubt I'll get shot down in flames for that but I seriously believe a lot of the trouble comes down to people not knowing enough (and in many cases, not wanting to learn either).
 
Well said MFH_09!
Marketing hype is also to blame for the multitude of supplements now on the market as well, commanding hefty price tags, and promising to cure all evils... which are often brought about from the wrong diet, and not enough exercise.
But that's probably a whole other discussion.
 
I think it depends on the horse to be honest, Pride can eat ANY feed and it would not affect him however when he is over fit, regardless of feed he can be a handfull!

However I have known other horses who can sniff out an oat and buzz up immediately
grin.gif
 
I believe that these types of feed have to be converted into something. Now over here I feed oats, the energy is converted to heat - we live in a very cold climate....however if I was to feed it during the summer then I believe that if this energy was not being used up via exercise, then it would infact make the horses fizzy.
 
And that is the main point of the post.

Would excess chemical energy input (i.e. food) make a horse fizzy in itself? As I said earlier, I don't have the answer to that but any excess energy should in my mind be stored as fat rather than directly making a horse 'fizzy'.

Really interesting post and it would be good if a feed companies nutrionist was reading this and could give a good unbiased reply!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top