horse eating straw instead of hay???

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wench

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piggy tb was in overnight for first time this winter last night. He has a net of haylage and a net of ney. Guzzled the haylage, ignored the hay, and started guzzling his straw bed.

Put in some more haylage, went straight for it. I have read that eating straw can cause colic, so bit worred if he guzzles the lot of his bed.

Now problems that would solve the straw eating that I CANT do:
On full livery, so cant just give him two haylage nets, change bedding, or put something on bedding that will stop him eating it.

Any ideas about a bucket of something I can give? Or will he be ok eating straw? (ps dont know what sort of straw it is)
 
echo Moonwalker spray Jeyes over the bed it will discourage him from eating it other than that change to shavings or hemp etc....
 
A friend of mine put Jeyes fluid everywhere and the greedy old thing still ate the straw!
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I let my skinny horse eat her straw, she prefers it to hay generally and I'd rather she was eating something than nothing!!
 
I have just put fresh straw down in the shelters, every horse has left the hay and started chompng their way through the straw instead!

I have never bothered about my horses eating their beds, that's up to them. Never had a case of colic in 20 years that could be blamed on straw eating though.
 
The two Spanish ones we have at work regularly eat their straw, apparently (?) they feed straw to them in Spain? One in particular will leave her lovely haylage in favour of fresh straw! Neither of them have (as far as I know) had problems with it. I know my YO feeds her fatty on straw mixed with hay as well.
 
Most horses eat straw even if they are bedded on shavings or rubber! It is in most chop, nuts and mixes in one form or another, especialy products designed for horses prone to lami, light products and dieting feed.

Some horses find straw more tasty than hay.

In many countries straw is fed instead of hay. In the UK it was traditionaly fed to native good do-ers.

Straw provides fiber with very little of anything else, heating or fattening. it is a very low value feed. it fills a hungry tummy and keeps the horse warm.

Eating straw has been sighted as a cause of impaction colic in the past. The evidence for this is anacdotal. It seems it is more of 'equine myth'... if this argument was taken to its logical conclusion, no one would feed hard feed as it leads to far more cases of colic than straw munching.
 
Straw is regularly fed to highland ponies, but it is usually mixed with hay, mine all love it either oat or barley. I believe it can cause colic when fed alone, but mixed with hay is fine.
 
We always used to feed our ponies oat straw, less fattening than hay and often a lot cleaner. Good old fashioned chaff had plenty of straw in it too!
 
It is probably very frowned upon, but we sprinkled a tiny amount of Jeyes Fluid through a watering can once onto the straw - He hasnt touched it scince!
 
I wouldnt worry about it too much. Nothing deters most ponies from eating straw, and I've seen a few bigger horses have a sly munch too.

What i would worry about is the yard refusing to carry out 'requests'. What if he were allergic to straw?
 
I put a bale of straw in almost every day in my boy's stable, and it sure ain't replacing stuff that's being taken out in the barrow! OK, he's a NF pony, but we've never had any repercussions from him eating straw. (The other one had to be changed to shavings from straw because he got so grossly obese from eating the straw!) My straw is free, so I'm keen to use it rather than pay for shavings lol.
 
As others said, i wouldnt worry too much.

When i first moved mine to Denmark he went from a shavings bed to straw and thought all his birthdays had come at once. I was also worried about colic but the people on the yard told me to let him get on with it and that he'd probably get bored anyway.

He now still nibbles on his bed during the day; as do all the horses on the yard just about. However he doesnt actively eat that much and the novelty seems to have worn off.

On another note, i have seen colic induced from a horse that ate a lot of straw after it had been sprayed with disinfectant by the owner to STOP it eating the bed.

Id give him a few days and see if he loses interest first.
 
If he's eating straw in preference to hay I would be seriously worried about the hay quality. A lot of hay is meant to be dodgy this year due to harvesting conditions. He may not want to eat it if it is mouldy. In my experience if they are offered both hay and straw the hay goes first very quickly, followed by the straw overnight.

It's almost certainly wheat straw bedding. Oat and barley are the two more generally used for feeding. I don't think you can get oat straw south of the border very easily though.

Try improving the hay quality if you can/feed more horsage/some hifi or something. As a TB he probably needs more calories than the straw will provide. If he's pigging a lot of it make sure that you feed a vitamin supplement as well.

Probably won't kill him though.
 
Our cob used to eat his straw bed after he had finished his hay net. Never had any probs with him. Used to have tosoak the hay as he had copd but altho he ate the straw it never gave him a cough.
 
If it is oat straw then I really wouldn't worry about it. Oat straw is commonly fed and indeed is often found in bagged chaff.

It's funny; I have a couple of foals who are penned in a shelter at the moment. I feed them beautiful green alfalfa/timothy/kentucky blue grass hay - this is the top of our line of hay which we produce and very expensive to our customers. When I topped up their bedding the other day with some lovely oat straw, the foals stopped eating their superior hay and went over to munch at the oat straw
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. Quirky little blighters.

Obviously you don't want the horse gorging on anything, however a little bit of straw doesn't normally do any damage.
 
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