Feeding oats!

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Cneifiwr

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Being a farmer (that has always grown Barley, wheat, oats etc) I want to know if it's safe to feed my horse oats? My wife has always used barley but is unwilling to feed oats ! People tell her that it will warm inside them and possibly make tham silly!
I have always been told, when feeding farm livestock that oats was very healthy feed and barley isn't for breeding stock but for fattening/finishing animals!
How much oats should I give if any ! We always use sugar beer, barley and coarse mix but can I add oats?

Thanks
 
I have fed oats for years.

To horses in hard work, to fizzy arabs, to childrens ponies, old, young, sick horses etc to whatever needs feeding.

Oats are like anything, you have to juggle around with the amount given, and they may not suit some horses, but I have never found that feeding oats makes unfizzy horses fizzy, or fizzy horses even fizzier :)

I soak my oats and feed with sugar beet and flax. I also feed them whole corn cobs - they love those.

http://www.extension.org/pages/10246/grains-for-horses-and-their-characteristics#.UnXXfJFrZes
 
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I have a 22 year old Anglo Arabian, a 2 year old TB/Clydie cross, a 15 year old Arabian, and an 8 year old Anglo Arabian. They all get whole oats every day and have done for years. Amount varies on size, work and season but they all do very well and the two that are ridden are quite sane.
 
I was told some time ago that horses who get silly on oats are experiencing an allergic reaction to them - they do contain less starch than barley so not as fattening. They need rolling or soaking though otherwise they pass straight through
 
I've fed oats and it made no difference to temperament. It is horses for courses though... You can always stop feeding if you have an issue :)
 
Oats are actually much better than barley, more digestable and have a better nutritional profile, so if you're going to feed straight grains, oats are the best choice :)
 
Go look at the old books on working horses. The staple hard food was whole oats.

For example, Fream's "Elements of Agriculture", 13th edition (1948), the standard farming text book back then states....

"A suitable ration for a heavy farm horse doing medium work would be:

Oats..........12lb per day= 84lbs per week (i.e. two bushels a week)
Hay.......... 16lbs per day = 112lb per week.


"....Custom and experience indicate that oats form the most suitable concentrated food for horses. For horses doing fast work, such as hunters, oats are essential".

There's a lot more good sense in that chapter. But then they didn't have nutritionists and feed companies to put them right! If it didn't work, the horse died and the farmer starved.
 
Or the horse died and the farmer got another one...

That and I spect medium work was a slightly different standard to today's definition ;)
 
ester said:
Or the horse died and the farmer got another one...

That and I spect medium work was a slightly different standard to today's definition ;)
Click to expand...

Point taken!

I assume the ration stated was for a Shire horse in work and people on here have enough sense not to feed a mini Shetland 12lbs of oats a day....

But then perhaps I assume too much!:D
 
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