Hay or oat straw

splash30

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If you had a good doer and you wanted to reduce their haylage (provided on livery) ration, would you mix with hay or oat straw?
Need to have food available as gets very stressed if hungry so looking for a bulk with lower calories.
 

windand rain

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Oat straw but not necessarily in with the haylage, it is sometimes easier if stabled to leave a well secured trug full as chaff as it should be there if they're hungry but not too palatable that they just scoff the lot on one go. Long straw may get picked out of a net it depends how good an eater your horse is
 

be positive

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Probably straw in the form of chop in a trug, hay may have more feed value than haylage so unless you know it is reduced you may find they gain weight.
 

Pearlsasinger

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Plain oat straw chaff, as above in a trug. Horse may not like the idea but will pick through it if genuinely hungry/needing to eat.
If I were bringing a horse in off grass to try to avoid weight gain/laminitis, i would provide the chaff with only a small amount of hay/lage, in order to allow the horse to feel full and avoid gorging when the horse goes out.
I got a lot of weight off my Draft mare by feeding oat straw chaff overnight in winter, in addition to her hay ration. I had tried long straw but she colicked.
 

oldie48

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I am using oat straw chaff in a trug. Fatty is on grass but muzzled, when he comes in he has some in a trug but he doesn't eat it at first but will eat it later on when he's feeling really hungry. He also gets a trickle net of very well soaked haylage, ours is cut late and baled on the dry side so it's more like hay than haylage. He's not putting on weight but he's not losing it either as he can get through quite a lot of grass even when muzzled and it's still quite rich. I am aiming to get him losing weight over the Autumn nd Winter, fingers crossed!
 

Leo Walker

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I mix straw in with the hay. Very little gets eaten but it slows her down picking it out. I have tried and failed with oat straw chaff with the current pony and am trying again as it really does make a difference.
 

MotherOfChickens

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I wouldn't ever contemplate keeping mine on haylage but if I had to I would leave it outside the stable and I would put some straw chop in a trug and let them get on with it. They will not starve themselves but it can take a few days for them to cotton on. adding salt or some apples/carrots to it might help initially. I feed long oat straw and some straw chop.
 

PapaverFollis

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I use Top Chop Zero. It took about a year of being offered it and her kicking it about for me to actually get her hungry enough to start eating it. (I'm really not good at "being mean" with her rations but Im getting my head round it slowly). Now she's used to it though she'll eat a bucket of it while stood in a field... which is kind if not the point! Lol. I go with it though in the hope that the belly full of fibre will slow down the grass eating anyway.
 

MotherOfChickens

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I bought a bag of top chop zero recently to tide me over and its more or less powder? horrid stuff, the eFeeds stuff or Honeychop is longer and needs more chewing.

the eFeeds stuff is quite good value even with shipping £8 or so for 22kg bags.
 

abbijay

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I wouldn't ever contemplate keeping mine on haylage but if I had to I would leave it outside the stable and I would put some straw chop in a trug and let them get on with it. They will not starve themselves but it can take a few days for them to cotton on. adding salt or some apples/carrots to it might help initially. I feed long oat straw and some straw chop.
Genuinely interested in why you wouldn't feed haylage. It's all that's been available on the yards I've been on - granted mine isn't a good doer but others are and they manage it.
 

MotherOfChickens

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Genuinely interested in why you wouldn't feed haylage. It's all that's been available on the yards I've been on - granted mine isn't a good doer but others are and they manage it.

I have native ponies, they've no need for it and I'd be paying for stuff I'd not feed. Also, going back 10 or so years ime the livery yards around me then made haylage to try and cover the fact that they couldnt make nice hay. I have seen lovely haylage, dont get me wrong-but it was privately made stuff, not livery yard stuff which was highly variable. But hey, its once reason I keep mine as I do.
 

HLOEquestrian

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I have started feeding my retired cob x thoroughbred good doer HoneyChop oat straw chaff and have been so happy with the results, she has hay at intervals during the day and the chaff is available for her to pick at anytime if she is hungry, however I don't feed in a bucket as I believe she will scoff the lot if she was fed in this way - it's on the floor.

She's out at night and has definitely dropped weight.
 
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