Horse completely stuffing herself on straw bed....ideas anyone?

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royal

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So..horse has to wear grazing muzzle during the day as she ties up on grass, altho we are taking it off every other day now that the spring/summer flourish has calmed down a bit...she's stabled at night with exactly the right amount of hay (full livery - brill YO's calculate and weigh dry weight of hay properly) and she's also double netted..but she is stuffing herself on her straw bed...so much so that she is really bloated and farting and pooing for england.

Put her on shavings I hear you cry...unfortunately at this moment in time not an option for me as the livery on shavings is just too expensive for me with OH out of work again...can't have her out full time as yard doesn't offer that and I'd be too worried about her tying up again (she has only recently got over an attack and I've got to be mega careful)..

She's having chaff for brekkie and tea with her supps but no other hard feed..

Thought about spraying bed with weak dettol solution but worried she'll still eat it...:confused:

Am I fighting a lost cause here? or has anyone got any other suggestions?
 
How about trying wood pellets? Dont know how much they are in comparison to shavings . My Feed Merchants say price of shavings is going down so may be worth checking.
 
royal,

save on the dettol. Mild Green Fairy Liquid. Make up a solution, put into the bottle that it was supplied in, then squirt it all over the bed, and that will be the end of your problem.

Alec.
 
Izzwizz said:
How about trying wood pellets? Dont know how much they are in comparison to shavings . My Feed Merchants say price of shavings is going down so may be worth checking.
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Problem is the bedding is included in the livery and we have to have straw or shavings - shavings costing more...its a fair price and everything, I just can't go down that route until OH gets another job (been made redundant 3 times in 2 years and now has a boss that just isn't paying him at all!)...
 
a1b2c3 said:
royal,

save on the dettol. Mild Green Fairy Liquid. Make up a solution, put into the bottle that it was supplied in, then squirt it all over the bed, and that will be the end of your problem.

Alec.
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Alec, I know this sounds daft, but would it make her ill if she ate it?? she is such a gannet I wouldn't put it past her to try!
 
Why not try spraying the bed with an anti-cribbing solution? Should taste nasty enough to stop her! :D
 
Or you could try crib stop, get a couple of bottles and spray as much of the bed as poss, then just spray any new straw you put in, a bit pricey to start with but it works, plus water repellent so once it is done it is done, it tastes digusting BTW :)
 
emmyc said:
Or you could try crib stop, get a couple of bottles and spray as much of the bed as poss, then just spray any new straw you put in, a bit pricey to start with but it works, plus water repellent so once it is done it is done, it tastes digusting BTW :)
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emmy / nemo: great idea thanks! :D

Never thought of that one!
 
royal said:
So..horse has to wear grazing muzzle during the day as she ties up on grass, ?
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Your horse almost certainly has Equine Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy (EPSM) and insulin spikes that go with it. These cause RAVENOUS hunger and she cannot help herself from eating if anything is available. If you stop her eating straw, she will, by my experience, eat her stable and your saddle and anything else which is within her reach.

The answer is probably the EPSM high oil/high vitamin E diet and probably, but you won't want to hear this, a complete removal from grass. If she is like my EPSM horse, she needs a dry lot turnout with no grass at all. Then you need to soak her hay for at least 12 hours, and feed it to her in dribs and drabs, so that she does not get a change to produce a spike of insulin. And all her food should be molasses free. And if she is at all fat, you need to get her weight down so you can feel her ribs, if not see them.

After a couple of days of sugar-free drip feeding, she should stabilise and eat more reasonably so you can then feed her two or three times a day like normal. But if you do not remove her from grass completely, at least for the time being, you probably won't get it under control.

To be honest, I don't think this is really about your mare "stuffing herself" on straw. It's about why she is ravenously hungry when she does not "need" food, and ties up on grass, and that's a metabolic issue that for the sake of her future health needs to be got under control as soon as you can.
 
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cptrayes said:
Your horse almost certainly has Equine Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy (EPSM) and insulin spikes that go with it. These cause RAVENOUS hunger and she cannot help herself from eating if anything is available. If you stop her eating straw, she will, by my experience, eat her stable and your saddle and anything else which is within her reach.

The answer is probably the EPSM high oil/high vitamin E diet and probably, but you won't want to hear this, a complete removal from grass. If she is like my EPSM horse, she needs a dry lot turnout with no grass at all. Then you need to soak her hay for at least 12 hours, and feed it to her in dribs and drabs, so that she does not get a change to produce a spike of insulin. And all her food should be molasses free. And if she is at all fat, you need to get her weight down so you can feel her ribs, if not see them.

After a couple of days of sugar-free drip feeding, she should stabilise and eat more reasonably so you can then feed her two or three times a day like normal. But if you do not remove her from grass completely, at least for the time being, you probably won't get it under control.

To be honest, I don't think this is really about your mare "stuffing herself" on straw. It's about why she is ravenously hungry when she does not "need" food, and ties up on grass, and that's a metabolic issue that for the sake of her future health needs to be got under control as soon as you can.
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Thanks for the reply...just for your info..wonder if this helps with anything you have said?
She is already fed on an 'EPSM' diet ie: high oil - we have had the tying up issue for a few years now, so she has no/very little starch and sugar and definitely no molasses in anything....

Her hay always has been soaked for 12 hours...she will eat her straw while she still has hay left (sorry should have mentioned that before) so don't think its an issue with extreme hunger...perhaps she is bored of getting very little grass and hay maybe - our straw is very good?! her weight is very good, not too fat or thin, BUT she is bloated from eating so much straw...a few of the other horses at our yard that also have to be muzzled for 1 reason or another, are eating alot of straw too as there isn't much grass out there at the mo, but I am extremely cautious about her having excess grass (I mean excess for her condition not for a 'normal' horse). I cannot remove her completely from grass as I am on a livery yard and altho we have a starvation paddock, all our paddocks are about the same in amounts of grass at the mo (ie: not alot but not bare!)...

Any thoughts?

ooh...also edit to add..this has only started in the last couple of weeks or so...when the grass started getting very low...prior to that, she didn't really touch her bed...
 
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Oooh, interesting!

I speak from experience as I recently took on a navicular horse for a barefoot rehab and his feet were soft enough to bend with my fingers. His history was that he had been on starvation paddocks - so little grass that the owner thought he was getting almost none. When he arrived he was "stuffing himself" with whatever he could get his teeth around. He hoovered up hay like there was no tomorrow and then began on whatever was left - one of my saddles, the rafters of his stable ......

It took a complete removal from grass to stop him eating like he was starving. Unfortunately the very short grass in a starvation paddock is full of sugar just because it is stressed and short. So they may not get much, but it's not much but of the very worst stuff. I gave him to some new owners once his navicular was cured and he got one meal of grass off the edge of an arena by going down on his knees under a fence. Lo and behold a day or two later he was eating for Britain again, so it was definitely grass that was his issue. The trouble with these EPSM/insulin resistant horses is that because they overproduce insulin, they are genuinely feeling as if they are starving even though they have plenty of food.

Your mare seems to have had a change of diet somehow in the last few weeks when the grass got very low. Is it possible that she is genuinely justifiably hungry? I can tell the difference with my EPSM horse because when he is hungry due to exercise he eats heartily. When he has an insulin spike he is swallowing one mouthful, chewing the next and picking up the third all at the same time, as if he is completely ravenous. Which is your mare doing? If she is getting no forage to speak of off the field during the day then it may be she is simply not getting enough bulk, and that is why she is eating her bed. On the other hand, if she is now unmuzzled one day in two that may simply be more grass than she can cope with. It's the way she eats (enthusiastic versus manic) that will tell you which.

It's extremely interesting that she will eat straw when she still has hay. That tells me that she is looking for fibre and in that case the last thing I would do is stop her from eating it. Has your hay supply changed recently? Could it have less fibre in it than it did previously? If not, I would still be suspicious of the grass sugars, and that she is trying hard to balance an excess (for her, not for a normal horse!) of sugar by upping her fibre intake and eating straw instead of hay. That's quite an unusual thing for a horse to do, and I'd assume that she knows what she's doing and look for a reason why.

I think the first thing to do, if you can't dry lot her, is to go back to a muzzle every day and see what that changes. If she goes back to eating her hay first, you'll know that you have the answer.

You don't mention vitamin E or selenium and her diet should include high vitamin E levels and good selenium levels. You can feed a vitamin E and selenium supplement (expensive) or you can feed her 50 grams a day Brewers Yeast (available on eBay and from Charnwood Milling in bulk 10p per day for the selenium and vitamin E from somewhere like simplysupplements.co.uk - 2,000iu a day) If you feed a general supplement already you can stop that if you feed Brewers yeast and probably save money overall.

Meanwhile, I'd give her a net of straw and net of hay, and I'd leave her deepish bedded on a bed I'd let get pretty dirty for a few days, to be honest, so that she doesn't get in the habit of eating the bed, but can eat straw if she feels that needs it. You can then monitor her true eating pattern for a few days and work out just what she thinks she needs, which may give you more clues how to manage her. The issue with the straw bloating might be that it's the "wrong" straw - oat straw bedding, pretty indigestible stuff - as opposed to feed straw - barley straw - which is softer and more digestible. If there was any chance of getting hold of some barley straw and giving her that in a net, I'd give that a go too.

I hope some of that ranting helps!
 
Oat straw is actualy the most edible and has a significant food value ,followed by spring barley straw,then winter barley straw and finaly wheat straw. Wheat straw is the best straw for bedding as it does not encourage them to eat it .
 
Hmmm..thanks for the replies...I'll ask YO what kind of straw it is as I haven't a clue!...

cp - she certainly isn't eating manically, she's eating totally normally in terms of speed and technique!! and tonight came in from the field with a lovely fresh haynet and just tucked straight into her straw instead :confused:

out of interest, are there any other symptoms with horses who over produce insulin???
 
Insulin resistant horses have soft feet and thin soles, so they normally have problems barefoot and often in shoes as well. Other things which vary from horse to horse include:

- itchiness or general skin "allergies" including sweet itch which disappear when you have the diet under control.
- Stressy behaviour - fretting about machinery noise, for example, which disappears when the diet is under control.
- The stress can cause ulcers, which can cause excessive fibre seeking (mmmmm....???), breathing in on girthing, odd behaviour tantrums.
- odd fat deposits, with dimpled fat (cellulite), on the crest and tail areas even if the horse is not fat overall.
- getting fat when fed only airballs and bubbles.
- laziness (often actually caused by feeling "hungover" due to poor liver function or by foot pain and not genuinely lazy at all)

The tests for insulin resistance are notorious for giving false negatives, in case you were thinking of having her tested.

I didn't know the food values Mike007, thanks for that.

If your mare is eating normally but choosing straw over hay, then she's doing it for a reason and until you can find out what it is I would be cautious about stopping her. I'd try to make her bed inedible, so she has a bed to lie on, but feed her straw as well as hay in nets, though possibly not the stuff that's making her bloat up with wind if you can avoid it.

What an interesting case you have!
 
If she needs fibre why not give her allen & page fast fibre I would rather my horse eat that than its bed.

My mini shetland has stopped eating her bed since she has been on fast fibre.
 
My mare tells me that straw is much nicer to eat than soaked hay....... probably tastes sweeter.

She is EPSM and can't have any grass. She is a light weight (think event build) 15.1 and on 1/2 litre of oil a day which is just enough. When her work load goes up I will probably have to feed her more.

Although she has gone past the 'I'll kill anyone who gets between me and my food' desperate stage of sugar driven hunger, if she gets any green stuff during our evening leg stretch she feels and looks quite poorly the next morning.

It is quite heart breaking - she really really wants to eat the green things, but if I give in at all she pays the price. And its not a price worth paying, she looks like she has a headache, she is grumpy, tired and her feet hurt.

Whereas when I keep her in (which I hate) and off the green stuff she is 'beaming', 'chatty', affectionate and full of get up and go. So for some horses sadly a mouthful of green is one mouthful too much.

Although Beth Valentine recommends 24/7 turnout and I have to say I agree with her on principle, until I can get a literally bare environment I can not do it for my horse.

Good luck with yours and I hope hubby gets a good job soon.
 
emmyc said:
Or you could try crib stop, get a couple of bottles and spray as much of the bed as poss, then just spray any new straw you put in, a bit pricey to start with but it works, plus water repellent so once it is done it is done, it tastes digusting BTW :)
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dont no if it would work my horse still chews the wood that is covered in that stuff
 
Hmmm..some more interesting replies..

cp - she has been tested for diabetes before which came back negative both times...out of your list, she only has the laziness...she has always been like that even as an unbroken 3 year old! Her feet are excellent and always have been...in fact my farrier says she has the best feet of any horse he's ever shod!

I believe she's having a fair amount of fibre - with the hay and straw and she also has fibre in the form of a oat straw/alpha mixed chaff for breakfast and tea....

She was fine prior the grass disappearing and rarely ate more than a mouthful of her bed so assessing all things together, it really seems to me that she is a bit more hungry now that the grass is shorter and she has a muzzle on and the fact that she's maybe bored of a tiny amount of grass and soaked hay?

Will continue with the on/off days with the muzzle, maybe add a bit of hard feed to her chaff and perhaps try spraying with cribox just for a trial period and see what happens.

Thanks everyone for your replies....I've certainly got some things to think about if the above doesn't work!
 
false negatives for insulin resistant horses are very common, but I agree with you, your mare just sounds hungry and knows that there are more calories in her unsoaked straw than in her soaked hay. It might be safer to up her oil than risk more carbs though, since she is a tying-upper. My rehab has 500 ml of oil a day too like Lucy's
 
We used to make up a Jeyes fluid diluted solution in a watering can and spray it all over the bed. Believe me - horse probably won't eat the straw after that...!!!

Very interesting reading the replies to this post. I had no idea about EPSM so thank you everyone.
 
Izzwizz said:
How about trying wood pellets? Dont know how much they are in comparison to shavings . My Feed Merchants say price of shavings is going down so may be worth checking.
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They are apparently really cheap compared to shavings, especially if you can buy in bulk. I might try Corelywood Bio or Liverpool pellets this summer.

If she has EPSM, then nothing will stop her munching! However, my lad has never been stabled so when I put him on straw, he obviously hadn't seen so much 'food' in his life and stuffed himself silly. He still did when I put new straw in and when I switched to shavings a while back, he started on them!

An easy way to deter her (if she can be deterred) is to put the wet on top of the dry.

I do know several people on a competition yard who have rubber mats and a mere line of shavings at the back to soak up the wet. I can't be that mean but it may help your girl.
 
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