Feeding straw and glyphosate/lami risk

[Jambarissa]

I'm seeing an increase in 'winter is coming' threads and talks of replacing some hay with straw for fatties.

My littlest one didn't lose weight like she usually does last winter so I plan to actively manage weight loss this winter. I would very much like to replace some hay with straw but am worried about glyphosate and the potential connection with lami. My 2 suppliers spray their barley, the next nearest won't say.

Honeychop say they don't know if it's been used on their chopped oat straw, top spec did not reply.

So, is anyone following emerging findings in this? I'm assuming there's nothing concrete and googling gives a pretty even spread of scientific opinions on whether it could cause problems plus plenty of anecdotal accounts of lami when introducing straw.

Any knowledge out there?

 

[Jambarissa]

I also wonder whether it's sensible. It's not something nature intended horses to eat so possibly upsets the biome, and we know the fibre is pretty much indigestable so a colic risk too.

Having said that plenty of people feed it with no ill effect.

 

[pistolpete]

It’s the only thing that works for my highland.

 

[Lois Lame]

I've never thought about glyphosate having been used on grain crops such as wheat, oats and barley, and their resulting straw maybe having some residue inside? Or do you mean on the outside? Unfortunately, pesticides are used such a lot on the things we eat that there's no getting away from it I imagine.

Anyhow, horses certainly eat dry grass in nature. Sometimes that's all there is. And it's good feed, really, providing the very important bulk to the horses system.

 

[SEL]

My friend who uses straw checks if glyphosate has been used but says its impossible to get organic - something has usually been sprayed on it.

But I definitely wouldn't want to be feeding glyphosate.

 

[rabatsa]

My lot have been eating sprayed off barley straw for years. The only lami problem arrived with it and did not aquire it when here.

 

[maya2008]

Only thing that saved our laminitic shetland. She'd have been dead by now if we hadn't started to feed mostly straw.

 

[Kaylum]

Most of our at risk ones are on it and ofcourse the donkeys.

 

[I'm Dun]

It’s the only thing that works for my highland.

same for mine I had huge issues with. Limited soaked hay mixed with normal straw, an chopped straw alongside.

A friend has had staggering results with her big cob by changing to feeding straw.

 

[Goldenstar]

If you could get unsprayed straw it would of course be best but you can’t .
So the you balance the pros and cons .
For me the benefit of feeding straw outweighs the risks .

 

[pistolpete]

If you could get unsprayed straw it would of course be best but you can’t .
So the you balance the pros and cons .
For me the benefit of feeding straw outweighs the risks .

Exactly! They like it it’s cheap they lose weight and reduce risk of lami. If they are sensitive to the chemicals they are probably already suffering other gut issues. Horses can be very delicate.

 

[MuddyMonster]

If you could get unsprayed straw it would of course be best but you can’t .
So the you balance the pros and cons .
For me the benefit of feeding straw outweighs the risks .

This.

I feed straw as I'd struggle to feed enough hay to my EMS native to keep him at a healthy weight & happy, especially in the summer when out on a bare strip some of the time.

It's a small risk vs the likelihood of laminitis if I didn't feed it IMHO.

 

[poiuytrewq]

My friend who uses straw checks if glyphosate has been used but says its impossible to get organic - something has usually been sprayed on it.

But I definitely wouldn't want to be feeding glyphosate.

Yes, as far as i'm aware it has to be sprayed with something to kill it off or whatever. How that works in organic farming is a really interesting question and one I will ask Mr P and report back. He's not organic and i have too not worry about these things. My horses and myself have been exposed to huge amounts of spray so I choose not to think about it. I have no option!

 

[Orangehorse]

We don't use glyphosate to spray cereal crops, we wait until the sun ripens it. I know farmers who do, if they - but have a very large acreage and need to get going. We have used it in the past to spray off oilseed rape, but don't grow that anymore. Obviously the crops get sprayed with other things during the growing season like fungicide - but moulds are very dangerous to consume anyway.

Where is the research to say that it causes lami?

 

[poiuytrewq]

We don't use glyphosate to spray cereal crops, we wait until the sun ripens it. I know farmers who do, if they - but have a very large acreage and need to get going. We have used it in the past to spray off oilseed rape, but don't grow that anymore. Obviously the crops get sprayed with other things during the growing season like fungicide - but moulds are very dangerous to consume anyway.

Where is the research to say that it causes lami?

That's really interesting. What acerage do you farm? What happens if the weather isn't on your side?

 

[SEL]

We don't use glyphosate to spray cereal crops, we wait until the sun ripens it. I know farmers who do, if they - but have a very large acreage and need to get going. We have used it in the past to spray off oilseed rape, but don't grow that anymore. Obviously the crops get sprayed with other things during the growing season like fungicide - but moulds are very dangerous to consume anyway.

Where is the research to say that it causes lami?

I don't think there is robust research - but concerns over high straw diets where it has been treated with glyphosate and so the horse would be ingesting a significant amount.

There was something a while back about gut bacteria changes but I'm not sure if that was a sciency article or guesswork.

 

[Burnttoast]

It's not just glyphosate (at least one study suggests its ingestion selects for pathogenic bacteria in the mammalian gut) but selective herbicides, fungicides and insecticides as well, some of which are known endocrine disruptors and which are never studied in combination so there's no way of knowing what/how bad the effects might be. Given how intractable metabolic/endocrine issues are becoming in the general horse (and human) population, I prefer to avoid the risk, particularly if feeding stuff with trace amounts of these chemicals is actually playing a part in bringing on these conditions. There are enough environmental pollutants it's impossible to avoid so why add ones you can.

 

[maya2008]

We don't use glyphosate to spray cereal crops, we wait until the sun ripens it. I know farmers who do, if they - but have a very large acreage and need to get going. We have used it in the past to spray off oilseed rape, but don't grow that anymore. Obviously the crops get sprayed with other things during the growing season like fungicide - but moulds are very dangerous to consume anyway.

Where is the research to say that it causes lami?

No one round here does either - they wait. It ripens in bits. When the whole field is ripe, they harvest.

 

[Jambarissa]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

Obviously it'd be much easier if there was robust info on the connection with lami but it seems to be either theory on the way it may act within a horse or correlations which could easily have other conditions confounding the issue.

I do agree with Sel in that I'd rather not add a potentially harmful ingredient into the mix of not necessary.

I am not yet sure whether it is necessary, I don't usually soak hay for this one so I might try that until Christmas and if I'm making no progress then straw is the only other option.

 

[poiuytrewq]

I have questioned Mr P over lunch!

As Orangehorse says its perfectly possible to not spray, just harvest when its naturally ready. They spray mostly here as it would never be all in if they didn't hurry it along, they also like to spray the grass and weeds out before combining
He did point out though, which may be useful if anyone by you grows it that malting barley grown for beer production isn't sprayed. So perhaps if you can find a local farm that grows for beer you may be in luck.

 

[rabatsa]

We don't use glyphosate to spray cereal crops, we wait until the sun ripens it. I know farmers who do, if they - but have a very large acreage and need to get going. We have used it in the past to spray off oilseed rape, but don't grow that anymore. Obviously the crops get sprayed with other things during the growing season like fungicide - but moulds are very dangerous to consume anyway.

Where is the research to say that it causes lami?

The spraying here is not to ripen/kill the grain but to kill the blackgrass which would jam up the combines otherwise.

 

[Burnttoast]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

Obviously it'd be much easier if there was robust info on the connection with lami but it seems to be either theory on the way it may act within a horse or correlations which could easily have other conditions confounding the issue.

I do agree with Sel in that I'd rather not add a potentially harmful ingredient into the mix of not necessary.

I am not yet sure whether it is necessary, I don't usually soak hay for this one so I might try that until Christmas and if I'm making no progress then straw is the only other option.

I find weight comes off the fastest around Feb-March so you may not see a lot of difference either way by Christmas. Obviously no rug, etc.