Feeding straw?

Btomkins

Btomkins

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Who here feeds straw instead of/as well as hay to their horse and what do you consider the advantages/disadvantages to be??

I have a 1 1/2 yr old appy x cob that I keep on DIY at a local yard and they throw the price of straw for bedding in with the livery - having never fed straw I am curious as to whether the horses like it/is it suitable as a bulk feed/does it contain the correct nutrients? Keen to know as this could save me a few pennies here and there which is always useful!

Ps. he is also on a small scoop of chaff, balancer and a small scoop of sugar beet twice a day. He lives out in the day with plenty of grass still in the field and in at night with a medium sized haynet with small holes.
 
Mine eats her straw bed anyway. I rarely "force" it into her :D

It's a good source of low calorie fibre. Anyway, most chaff IS straw! :)
 
S gets a haynet half and half if in overnight in summer. I mix it together then double net it and I normally have a small amount left in the am :)

I did have a TB that colic'd on straw :( Had to go to weipers centre as she was put on a straw bed and she ate it and was very poorly for a while :(

everything else I have had has been fine as I prefer straw as a cheap disposable bedding as most of the farmers round here will lift it for their fields :)
 
Btomkins said:
Who here feeds straw instead of/as well as hay to their horse and what do you consider the advantages/disadvantages to be??
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I started feeding straw this autumn to two of my horses - both extremely good doer pony-type geldings, both of them needed to lose a bit of weight over winter and I thought this would be a good way of achieving it. They have been on restricted grazing all year, and when the grass stopped growing I started giving them two slices of straw morning and evening between them. I introduced it gradually, mixed with last year's hay, but I was feeding in the field and they were hungry so they were wolfing it down. They both appeared to be drinking normally and have access to a salt lick.

Two weeks into this regime one of them came down with impaction colic and had to have 3 litres of water containing epsom salts dumped into his stomach via gastric tube. He is 10 years old, in good health and has never had colic before. The other horse didn't show any signs of colic. I immediately stopped feeding straw, and have now resigned myself to feeding hay in very small holed haynets. For two weeks after the colic I was damping all the hay too to make sure that he was getting plenty of water. (Unfortunately, it's not practical for me to soak hay all winter.)

I don't know why one colic'd and the other didn't, it may be bad luck and unconnected with the straw but I am now too scared to feed it. I have fed it successfully in the past though, I guess like with everything there are few cast iron rules and what works for one horse may not necessarily work for another.
 
Mine are fed on straw as forage. Any straw we can get. We have no grass and hay is not available and the other options are alfalfa (no way, too high protein for my mob) and avenate, which is baled green oats, which they have a daily ration of.

My personal opinion is that a horses digestion is designed to eat tough, mediocre forage whilst walking many kilometers a day to find it. Not stand knee deep in a never ending all you can eat buffet. Mine get straw/forage three times a day and a bucket feed of sugar beet and oats twice a day. They can go more than six hours with no food once their straw is eaten.

I agree with the water issue...one of mine has had impaction colic a couple of times - usually when we move into winter so when he is drinking less than in the hot summers over here. We got round this by making his bucket feed like soup for a while.
 
All really useful Information guys, thanks! He is already bedded on a nice big comfy bed of straw and will nibble at at if his haynet runs out, so hopefully his stomach is used to it. I think I may follow some peoples advise of mixing it 50/50 with hay as even if he doesn't much like it, it will slow him down eating the hay. He was a little skinny when I got him but perfect weight now and dont really want it to fluctuate now I seem to have got the right balance.
 
Hi
I feed Barley straw during the winter. I have 4 very good doers who usually need to drop weight drastically through winter. A vet recommended feeding barley straw to a friend when her Highland was grossly overwieght and suffering from intermittant lameness. It has very little nutritional value so would be no good for keeping weight on, but its great as I leavea bale in a ring feeder on my hardstanding so they can have this ad lib when they come onto it on a night and one small haynet each.

I believe oat straw is even better as its softer but I can not find oat straw in east yorks as they all grow barley.

Wheat straw is not advisable to feed as its very corse and not as palatable.

Not had any colic problems and I have been feeding this way for 2 years now.
 
Chico Mio said:
I agree with the water issue...one of mine has had impaction colic a couple of times - usually when we move into winter so when he is drinking less than in the hot summers over here. We got round this by making his bucket feed like soup for a while.
Click to expand...

I do this already - am paranoid about not drinking due to the cold weather coming in, his feed is more like half a bucket of sugar beet water than actual feed!
 
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